Tourism is the main source of revenue for many. My wife and I watch a T-V show featuring folks moving from one home area to another, internationally. This evening, a young couple with two small daughters were moving from Minneapolis to the Island of Nevis, in the West Indies of the Caribbean. The man was moving there specifically to finish his medical education! Nevis covers only 36 sq. miles, about 9 X 4 miles, with a permanent population of 11,000, which means a population density of almost 350 people per sq. mile. It, along with neighboring St. Kitts, are one country of their own. Here is where it is situated: Nevis is the smaller of the two, if not legible. It is undeniably beautiful! Birthplace of Alexander Hamilton! Condos rent for $1000 to $2000, furnished. Climate is tropical. Never need heat in Winter! This all got me to thinking about the difficulties and imponderables (of course!) of small island living. Fresh water? Such small land area surrounded by seawater, are water wells saltwater? Electricity. A power plant to serve 11,000 PLUS a large contingency of tourists year-round. How would it be fueled? Solar? How much sunlight available. Here in the Desert it's 300+ days per year, but it MUST rain, a lot, on Nevis; that means clouds. Shipping in fuel to generate electricity? MIGHTY expensive. Plenty of cars there in view, how much does gasoline cost? All of it brought by tankers. Medical care? Insect populations? When we traveled to Hawaii, I found it delightfully beautiful and comfortable, February, 1985. But being used to being able to travel by car without quickly encountering an ocean blocking further progress, I found that fact disturbing. Would you live on a tiny island, if you could? Frank
No, I have no interest in living on a small Caribbean island. I have lived in hurricane country for most of my life and I appreciate having the ability to evacuate. Here's some info on the utilities on those islands... http://www.commonwealthgovernance.org/countries/americas/st_kitts_and_nevis/utilities/
yes I used to live here.... https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.7...157&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
I was watching that episode last night. The wife seemed to be more concerned about where the washer and dryer was located than little details like water, electricity and storms, wasn't she? I would love to live on an island.
Here's how it was explained to me by someone who grew up on a small island off the coast of Maine. Some islands have no fresh water, requiring people to catch and store rainwater. Other islands may have pockets beneath the surface that are filled with water that filters from the ocean, slowly through rocks and soil, and the salt is removed in the process, making fresh water wells possible. It filters slowly because the pockets of water are full, or nearly full. However, when the population on the island gets too high, or people use too much water, the freshwater pockets empty, which increases the force upon which water is drawn in from the ocean. Because the water is passing through more quickly, the salt is not removed and the wells become non-potable. I think the chances of fresh water increase where there are mountains, probably because more fresh rainwater is absorbed. I remember working on the St. Kitts & Nevis categories in Aviva a year or so ago.
Now that you've made me look, I found that I had neglected to create a category for Anguilla, a British dependency near St. Kitts & Nevis. So I took a break from the Programming category and did that, and am now working on subcategories and sites.