I live on an island off the coast of America - ask me anything

[catofdoom]

As requested @IdaBWells

There was a thread before but I can't find it. When Mumsnet has its brain fart a few months ago I could never get back in to my old account.

I live on a little island off the coast of Maine. I moved here after living in London for 15 years.

@SperanzaWilde I knew a little about boats as my family have a canal boat company in the UK.

But nothing that was really useful it turns out! Especially sail boats, it's a whole other world. I'm getting pretty good with them, I want to get to the point where I can take a boat to the mainland myself and feel comfortable with where all the ledges are and docking etc.

I've learned to bake bread, can vegetables and fruit and cook pretty much everything from scratch. We don't eat any processed foods, I'm aware that food standards here for general food can be much lower. GMOs and chemicals you find in food here scare me. Part of that was having ds though too. It's been a steep learning curve, I was strictly a 'buy a M&S ready meal on the way home' kind of girl.

I've learned to grow vegetables too. That's essential here if you don't want to spend a fortune on organic produce. We're hoping to build a greenhouse that's heated this autumn so we can have year rounds fresh stuff!

I've also learned to sew.

Christ, I sound like I live in little house on the prairie.

@TheVanguardSix we do sail. DH just bought back his old sail boat and he's thrilled. It's pretty big and I can't do so much on it as I don't have the strength. I'm quite good at sitting at the wheel with a glass of wine though.

We have a recreational lobster licence so we're allowed 5 traps. But this year bait prices are super high as it's scarce so we've not had many. And the lobsters are only really coming in any numbers in the last week as the water is still so cold this year.

I hate clams so I don't dig. DH is too lazy.

We island hop a lot, we have friends on other islands so they come here for events or we'll go there and we also just go out and explore. It's lovely to go to a tiny island where you can let the dog run loose and have it all to yourself.

It does feel set back in time here.

Lots of the shops still have the old signs from the 30's/40's/50's. Chip and pin has not long been around. DH still moans about how 'new fangled' it is.

Vinalhaven?

If not (and I think it may be bigger), where is your closest town? Are you close to Portland?

Love what you are saying about festivals - the Yarmouth Clam Festival is my happy place!

@IvanaPee the summer people all get it sent too. I want to take it online, that'll really pep it up a bit and increase readability I think!

It's pretty much all manual labour. Cleaning, gardening, cooking, boat driving, shovelling in the winter.

Some of the houses are incredible. And I have to say a bit revolting in cases. Many of them will have the air conditioning running full blast and light a log fire when they get cold.

DH's work has its own servants wing with 10 bedrooms and kitchen/living room etc. His boss had what was at the time, the biggest yacht in the world, built. He sold it to a certain UK football club owner when a bigger one was built. It had a helicopter on board and one of the toys was a 70 foot sailboat. It also had a full dry cleaning service on board. And a full time crew of 65. The money here is ridiculous.

Oh my god!

Is your dh the caretaker or something?

I’m seriously fascinated!

Taking the paper online is a great idea - you might get a festival out of it!!😉

@Atalune in the summer pretty self sufficient. Winter not so much!

Most famous person is probably John Travolta. We have his old cooker in our house. And Kirstie Ally's three piece suite. Most year rounders have bizarre and eclectic furniture handed down from rich people in their houses!

Last year I had the Prince of Belgium and Justin Trudeau's niece come to my house because DH was working for them and got on so well they wanted to see our house. Im ashamed to say I went full Hyacinth Bucket for a while.

@TawnyPippit right next to it!

Our closest town of any value is Camden.

@IvanaPee he's the caretaker, boat captain, gardener and more recently the nanny to one of their kids.

And he organises their parties, and everything they need when they're here so he's basically a PA too.

He's even cooked for them when their chef isn't around.

When they're here he's doing 100+ hour weeks. It's insane.

He also has to liaise with her PA, his PA and the overall boss guy pa who oversees all the other pa's.

Stuff like getting meat or wine shipped in on time can be a huge job that sends everyone in to a spin.

Wow!

Your life sounds like a Movies24 film!

It's crazy and a social whirlwind for 3 months and dull as hell for the rest of the year! But I'm learning to love and look forward to the dull.

Gosh this thread has been an absolute tonic for the soul, OP.
I love how you and your DH are so invested in this together. It is SUCH a joint dream come true for you both. I can really feel that! I actually have misty tears rising as I read your words. It all sounds so wonderful!
New fangled 'chip and pin'.
And now you make me want to get a greenhouse!

My mom and her sisters emigrated from Ireland to the States in the early 60s. And it was one of my aunt's who married a man from Maine, my beloved uncle whom I've known for nearly 45 years now. But he was related to whale hunters (not proud), so the 'camp' as they call the house on Chebeague, has all of this old whaling paraphernalia from the 1800s, which is so, so cool. I just love the place. But you can bet my aunt would prefer Kirstie Alley's 3-piece suite!

I love this thread. Do you have cb radios just in case? Does your DS watch TV and ask why you don't live in a city or just completely accept his environment as normal?

Do you have a generator at your house?

Can I please come and live with you?

@TheVanguardSix I think dh's dream was to live in Britain haha!!

@TipseyTorvey no we don't. Should do though!!

DS doesn't seem to have any concept of how lucky he is. Or how weird it is. He loves London though. When we stay there he does get a bit overwhelmed. As do I in Waitrose in the sausage or crisp section.

@Dontmakemepullover we do! But I can't start it! It's really complicated and physically hard to do.

@user1486131602 you wouldn't say that when there's 5 months of sub zero temperatures and you can't go outside without your snot freezing.

Talking of festivals, we had a seafood festival last week with lawnmower races. The local policeman sat at the end of the track in his police car using the radar to see how fast they were going. 😂

Some of the modified ones got up to 40mph! It's taken very seriously.

And they have a water melon eating competition. It's like an 80's film here I swear.

I notice you said you have a dog. Is there a vet on the island?
I know you can't get your groceries delivered but what other stuff like clothes or Amazon?
You'll have to come on the Royal Style & Gossip thread on the S&B board to tell us all about the Belgian prince.
Do you pick up TV channels from Canada or just US ones? Or do you watch TV via internet?
Thanks again.

What veg do you grow in your garden? And what do you can? Such an evocative American term -canning fruit and veg.

There's no vet. It's a worry that something will happen and it takes a while to get to a vet. I

I hate it but we get pretty much everything from amazon. And most of our groceries too! We get all our canned and dry goods (pasta, rice etc) and cleaning stuff, kitchen roll etc from Amazon. They bought Whole Foods so now the Whole Foods branded stuff is on there too.

We don't tv. It's SO expensive. The crappest package is about $70 a month!

We just built our own broadband network though so we have incredible internet. We've gone from having worse than dial up speeds to some of the fastest internet in the country. We watch stuff on Netflix, Hulu, amazon etc. I can't actually watch live tv here, the adverts drive me crazy. And the news is too depressing!

I would actually love the remoteness of it all, frozen snot included!!
So that’s a no?!😂

Is there a cinema? Did it take much persuading for you to move out there or were you keen from the outset?