Transportation

To start our project, having transportation that enabled us to haul building supplies was a must. We had purchased a used Ford Ranger with a funky cap from NJ and had it shipped down to St. Thomas. The process of actually picking up the truck was, in itself, to say the least, a red-tape experience. We hired a local guy named Arliss to help us through the process. He was very helpful. In fact, if it wasn't for him, I'm sure the process would have been much longer and more painful. The first step was to go to Crowley to pick up the paperwork and pay shipping fees. From there we had to go over and pay customs fees on the other side of town. Before we could move the vehicle over to get tags and plates, we had to purchase insurance at yet a different place. Next we had to go to the title and registration office, which is not part of DMV, in order to get temporary plates to move the vehicle to the actual DMV. Finally, we moved the vehicle to the DMV and got squared away. After being finally finished, in what Arliss told me was mock speed for this process, I arrived at the car ferry dock in Red Hook to a sea of waiting vehicles. It appeared that the Coast Guard had shut down two of the three car ferries traveling to St. John. I sat waiting with many frustrated drivers for about three hours. Phew! The local paper photographer actually asked me if they could stand on top of my "funky" cap to get a picture for the paper of all the vehicles waiting for transportation across the pond. Of course, I obliged. It's not the truck that's bad, it's the cap!! What a day! However....now we had OUR OWN vehicle on the rock. After going through all this trouble, I think I'll keep this vehicle on St. John FOREVER. p.s. - I'm sure I missed a few other pieces of red tape we had to cut. It's all over now....or......is it?

Excavation

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We went to St. John for spring break and made plans for groundbreaking on our property. We needed a large track hoe for this part of the excavation. After some research of the available equipment on the island and prices (All of which were EXPENSIVE), we went with Majestic.

There is a building going up below us and the site manager, named Mustache Mike, hooked us up with some contacts and before we knew how it happened, we had a large hoe cutting into our hillside for the driveway. At this point all we we're hoping for was not to hit blue bitch. If you run into that, your expenses just went up. The track hoe needs to be changed to a jack hammer fitting to break through. When this tool is put on the machine, all the excavators on the island charge an exta $100 an hour. Luckily, we didn't run into much of that.

Our biggest dilemma was what to do with the excess material that we were removing from the hill. The island had a soil dump site on the Coral Bay side at one point, but people were using it to dump all kinds of unnatural debris. Needless to say, the authorities shut it down. Now the only place to go was hauling it to the other side of St. John. Each trip took almost an hour round trip. There was also only one dump truck available at the time and it wasn't keeping up.

We started searching for solutions to the problem. Several people mentioned a local business man that had land for storage and a small dump truck for rent. The good news was that it was quicker. The bad news was that he charged us $75 a load to dump the dirt and the same amount again per load to haul it.

In the beginning...

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Two elementary school teachers from Alaska found themselves on the pristine island of St. John circa mid 1990s. Escaping the frigid winter, warm weather beckoned. It was love at first sight. Once you experience this awe, there's going back...again and again...both for you, and for us.

You wouldn't believe it, but St. John and Alaska have a lot in common. They both have incredible natural beauty. The amazing blues you see in the St. John ocean can be seen in the glaciers and rivers of Alaska. The verdant, lush greens can be seen on the cascading hillsides in both locations. The harrowing driving conditions is another commonality. While St. John has steep cliffs, goats, donkeys, cattle, and tourists driving on the wrong side of the road, Alaska has snowy conditions, immense winter darkness and lots of HUGE moose playing hopscotch in the middle of the road! Which place do we like better? It's impossible to decide. So....it'll be both. We will spend our winters in a warm paradise and our summers in the land of the midnight sun.

We've kept up with the other popular building blogs and decided that we should make our own. The big difference is...we are actually building this cottage ourselves....meaning, we are doing almost all of the labor ourselves. Yes, we get a little help now and then, but the vast majority of this cottage is pure sweat equity construction... and we LOVE IT!! It's not the first house we've ever built, and we're hoping it won't be the last.

So...we hope you enjoy our blog of the trials and tribulations of the construction of Anchorage Aweigh Cottage. Thank you for taking the time to check it out.

It all began by buying a sweet piece of property on Sea grape Hill from our realtor and friend, Karye Carney of Islandia Real Estate in March of 2003. It was a new subdivision. We looked at many lots, but we kept coming back to the one we originally looked at. It has incredible views of Coral Bay harbor and the Moravian church.