April 1 2014 is a day my family will always remember because
it was the date of our closing and completed purchase of our property. Yes that’s
right we became owners of a piece of island paradise on April fool’s day. I
left my last blog on St. Patrick’s Day, a day of luck and good fortune ,on a
good note. As the story continues you will understand why at times I felt maybe
this whole project was a big April fool’s joke.
We left the idea with hopes of building soon and returning
at Christmas. We soon discovered the true meaning of ,an island favorite word,
manana. Officially manana means in the morning or tomorrow. We discovered that on
the island manana means maybe tomorrow ,maybe the next day, maybe never. We have never built a house from scratch in
the states let alone on an island in another country. Emails and phone calls
went back and forth between the island, our architect and the Adirondacks. Time
passed and we just couldn’t seem to satisfy what the builder wanted to get
started. Christmas came and went.
We did manage to hire someone to fix our drainage problems, create
a drivable road and parking lot. This
occurred sometime in the summer when we had hoped to have our initial build
done. So another potential visit to the island came and went. This work cost much more than we had
originally hoped making our finances more restricted. Now the property was prepared for trucks and
future guests.
The next big glitch came when we needed to secure power.
When we purchased the property we thought we had access to power from a
transformer nearby. Due to unforeseen
circumstances we were unable to confirm that before our purchase was
complete. We began a long process of sorry
that option won’t work , that option is way to expensive, oh that option won’t
work either. The price creeped higher and higher for different quotes, many mananas passed and we still had no real good answer to our
power situation. This became one of
those , what kind of fool would buy property on an island kind of situations
where manana looked not only far in the future but unattainable.
Somewhere along the way we decided to take a new
approach. We want to have an eco-lodge
and therefore want to be as sustainable as possible. Spending a large portion
of our budget to tap into the island power which is overpriced and often
unreliable seemed like a lose lose situation. We decided to get some quotes for
solar and alternative power. We are still in the process of solidifying our
permanent power set up. I will post a
blog soon on all of our sustainable plans.
Once we arrived on this discussion we only needed to secure
temporary power for the building process. This is where our property management
people came through for us. They secured power for us from a neighbor who does
not use their home very often. We were able to tap into their power and agreed
to pay them for the service while we need it. I am looking forward to meeting
them on the island one day and thanking them properly with lots of rum and a
good meal.
Now we were ready, power secured and driveway prepared. Ready to go right. Not so fast. We still could
not seem to get everything to the builder that he felt he needed so we finally
decided to hire an architect in Honduras to review plans and set them up in a
way the municipality would not question.
More money well spent, so now we are ready right?
Well we thought so but not so fast ,manana remember. The day came where we finally
got a quote from our builder for the initial build. This is when our dreams came crashing down.
Manana turned in to never. The quote was more then %30 higher than we had
anticipated. If we paid that price we would never be able to finish the project.
Now what? Again was this just a big April fools joke , what do we do now? We tried to discuss our concerns with the
builder but could not seem to figure out how to lower the price. After discussing the project at length with
my amazing brother in law, who is a contractor, we concluded that we needed to
get a second quote.
I contacted the contractor who completed our road and
driveway work and asked if he was willing to work with us. He came back with a
much more attainable price point; maybe we were not being fooled after all.
After negotiations back and forth and a few architectural changes we arrived
upon a plan we could afford and easily build upon. Maybe manana would come .
On March 11th 2016 , exactly 9 years after we
departed on our first cruise that led us to the island, we broke ground.
Finally manana was here. Work is
continuing and I am sure we will have many more manana and April fools moments
but as for today we are starting to see our island dream become a reality.
Manana is April Fools day. Tomorrow we celebrate the second
birthday of the Runaway Pineapple and we hope you all will celebrate with us.
Sit back , relax , have a pineapple drink enhanced with rum and remember that
no matter how difficult it may seem, no matter how many times you feel the fool
, if you keep walking toward your dream eventually Manana will come and you
will find yourself there.
