That being said, my first relocation suggestion is to try to rent a beach vacation home during the low season (also called “off season”) for a few months first, even if your long-term goal is to purchase a home. Around here, the islands all have high and low tourist seasons, with summer typically being the high season. Now, given the real estate boost of late, you may not want to wait long before you buy. And clearly, this will not be the best advice for everyone, as each situation is unique, but there are two advantages to doing it this way.

The first advantage of renting a vacation place during the low season is price. You’ll get the biggest bang for your housing buck if you rent, in the low season, a property that’s rented out on a weekly basis during high season. Here’s why. Properties rented out weekly during high season typically make quite a bit more money on their weekly, high-season rental rates than long-term rental properties make on long-term rates, so they can often afford to offer greatly reduced monthly rates in the low season. The house we rented on Island #2, for instance, rented out at high-season weekly rates over the summer, but charged a monthly rate (in our case lasting from October through April) that was about half of what they charged for one week in the high season. They had already made the bulk of their money off their high-season renters, so they could afford to offer a low, off-season rate provided we could vacate the property by summertime. Properties that rented only to long-term renters simply could not compete with that rate. Note: These vacation homes almost always rent furnished, so you will need to consider that in your planning.

Second, after experience with four islands, I can attest to the fact that each island here is quite different, despite some surface similarities. After visiting Island #1 multiple times, we moved thinking we had already found the ideal island for us. Only because of our rental fiasco did we begin to consider surrounding islands as possibilities. After a few months on Island #2 and numerous day trips all up and down the Carolina coast, we found, in Island #3, an island far better fitted for our family for many reasons. For example, Island #1 proved to be a little more populous than what we decided we wanted, and Island #2 proved to be a little too small to offer certain conveniences we decided we didn’t want to live without. (I guess we were kind of like Goldilocks and the ThreeIslands, now that I think about it.) We were coming from the third largest city in the United States, so at the time, the practical differences between several islands that all appeared sparsely populated by our standards were fairly nebulous to us.  Live-and-on-location research changed that.

Not everyone can manage this, but in our case, we were able to save money and find our own paradise by doing it this way.

So forgive me, but since I’m in Q&A mode, having written more essay, short answer, and journal questions than any one woman should have to write in a lifetime, this post will be a series of haphazardly placed Q&As. Why break precedent, right?

Q: What do you do when you are a second grader and find a crab trying to hide in the sand at the water’s edge?

A: You repeatedly drop shells in front of it, just to make it pop out of the sand, claws extended.

You do not tire of this, even when the response becomes predicable.

Q: What would make a teacher fall and scrape up her knee during passing period while attempting to walk on a flat, dry, unobstructed surface, at an ordinary speed, to her next class?

A: If the teacher is a certain Island Mom, absolutely nothing.

One student later described Thursday’s incident as looking like I suddenly decided to sit down a minute (you know, on the floor in the middle of passing period with the teenage masses swarming around me). Yeah, that’s kind of like it felt too, except for the deciding to part. Of course, my lack of schoolmarm shoes that day probably didn’t help.

Q: What happens when a kindergartener gives an impromptu puppet show with her princess dolls?

A: You don’t actually see the puppets most of time.

But you do hear the riveting, high-pitched dialogue for the duration.  

“Do you want to dance and sing?”

“Oh, yes, please! But first, let me change my dress!”

“I think you should wear the blue one with the sparkles.”

“Oh, good idea, but I did wear that yesterday, so maybe I should try the yellow one!”

“Wait, wait, wait! I just thought of something. Maybe we should have tea first.”

“Oh, good idea!”

Q: What happens when you let your second grader take a video on the beach?

A: He follows everyone everywhere.

Also, you gain new insights into his mind, something commonly referred to as “The Enigma.”

Q: What happens when you live by a super-sized sandbox?

A: What happens is any number of variations of the above.

Q: What’s next up on An Island Mom?

A: Finally, as promised, I’m finishing up an installment on the series The Other Side of Crazy: Relocating to an Island. I’m slow, but I get there eventually.

Alas, I do not.

Imagine my excitement, then, when it dawned on me that I actually do have a DIY project to share with you after all. This is assuming, of course, that the broadest of all DIY definitions is acceptable.

Think broad here. Think very broad.

And actually, it’s not my project. It’s my sons’ project.

The boys have decided to start building their own beach chairs, thus eliminating the need to remember and drag chairs to the beach.

On the day they conceptualized this, my younger son decided to build what would become his prototype by digging two holes in the sand right next to each other. One hole was a foot or so deeper than the second hole. He put his feet in the deeper hole and smoothed out the other one so that he could sit on it. He added a small boogie board to give the chair a solid back, and presto, he’d created a surprisingly comfortable beach chair.

Naturally, he insisted I try it out for myself. This trial was not pictorially documented, I’m happy to report, as the chairs were originally designed for someone approximately half my size.

I have to say, however, that while both their chairs offer advantages, my older son’s creation is a little more my style.

He built his chair right by the water’s edge, just before the tide began coming in. His chair was much like my younger son’s, except more shallow. Then, he used the sand from the holes to build a wall in front of the seat to delay the inevitable rush of the sea.

Eventually, as expected, the ocean’s ascent began to claim his chair.

Often, when he’s built sandcastles near the water’s edge during low tide, the Atlantic’s approach has brought with it a bit of disappointment.

This time, however, it was the best part.

Okay, those might not have been his exact words, him not being Chief Joseph and all, but he was disgruntled the day we arrived and felt the colder-than-normal water temperatures. Disappointed, he declared it too cold to enjoy and offered up his boycott of disapproval to the Atlantic.

Knowing his life is a living demonstration of the word “tactile,” I laughed to myself while nodding and donning my “I understand” face. That boy, I knew, would be in that ocean before I’d finished the cup of coffee I was drinking.

And so he was, unable to resist the Atlantic’s allure.

He, of course, maintains that he didn’t really go in the ocean that day because he remained in his regular clothes the whole time.

The things we tell ourselves, all to save face when strong spirits prove weak against the tactile pleasures of the sea.

When I say that all students have their attributes, it is not lip service. Most of the girls I teach this year, for instance, are equal parts sweet and strong, their world ripe with all that is to come. And sometimes, in the middle of a lesson or a casual exchange, I can look at one of these girls and, with arresting clarity, see what she will one day become.

It is, I’ve come to believe, one of the delights of teaching, of seeing in the girl what she has yet to see in herself; that is, what is to come when acne and braces and backpacks disappear. Looking at the girl, I can see the woman who is to be.

A while back, however, something interesting happened. One evening, just before I left for a beach walk, I went on Facebook and scrolled through posts until a picture of a group of women caught my attention. One of the women in the group, someone about my age who’d recently become my Facebook friend, was having a reunion of sorts with friends that appeared to be former high school or college friends.

I looked at the woman’s picture again, standing laughing with her friends all laughing around her, and I just saw it. Amid all the years of wear and tear, of jobs and children and the weight of living, I saw the girl, the girl she was before all of that.

She was still there.

Afterward, as I walked, I couldn’t get that picture out of my head, the image of woman as girl. When I saw her in person a few days later, despite the fact that I’d only ever known her as an adult with all the trappings of adulthood upon her, I couldn’t stop seeing the girl. I wanted to laugh, so strong was the image.

After that week, something else began to change. I stood before lifted veil and began to see the girl in so many of my friends I’ve only ever known in adulthood, women who now can’t remember the last time they’ve been carded, who can’t recall their lives before mortgages and dependents and careers.

As a teenager, I first encountered the classic optical illusion drawing that looks like both a young lady and an old woman. I saw the young lady first, but once I knew there was an old lady to look for as well, I also found her. They’re funny things, those optical illusions: once you know what’s there, you usually can’t unsee it.

So it is with this as well. I cannot measure for you the joy this has brought me, this still seeing what time attempts to shroud. And what a gift it is,

to be able to look at the woman,

and see the girl.

At the time, I remember being in awe of their lack of inhibitions, how unmoved they seemed by the thought of all the people sitting in their homes or on their decks drinking coffee and watching “the tourists who’d clearly gone plumb fool crazy.” This may have also been colored by my complete inability to even say the words “downward facing dog” or “cow face pose,” for instance, without breaking into hysterics. I can only imagine that if I ever attempted yoga on the beach, unless it was with a large group perhaps, I’d be so convulsed with laughter I’d look much more like a heart attack victim than a yogi, a yogist, or a yogini.

See, just writing those names had me laughing for five minutes just now. As I’ve mentioned, I’m just not that mature.

I do get a special kind of thrill when I see children, particularly my own, out on the beach, acting without inhibitions. On an especially good day, I might have a camera in hand to document their exploits. The other day was especially good, so I thought you might get a kick out of Baby-girl’s latest dance moves.

What’s she’s lacking in inhibitions she makes up for in moves.

to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.

Kate Chopin, The Awakening

If you like sea quotations, you may want to check out Thoughts on the Sea #1 and Thoughts on the Sea #2.

World leaders, feel free to contact me for more foolproof ideas.

At any rate, now it’s time to announce the lucky winner of the beach hut canvas.

Dramatic pause, please. Picture expectant looks on faces the world over here, because I am.

And the winner of the Jann Tayloe beach hut canvas is…Tina Fields! Congratulations Tina!

And thank you to everyone who entered! I loved hearing from all of you!

Thus, there weren’t many actual birds on our bird-watching tour. I was heartbroken about this in an entirely nonexistent sort of way; long ago, I wrote about my experience-based fear of the aviary species and about the time I was stalked by a pelican. I was there to spend time with the small people and because I love the natural world of our island, excepting, of course, the birds when they’re overhead. There were, however, two points where we did see feathered creatures.

The first point was when we stood on shore looking out on a small island in the sound, where the birds were geographically protected from our cacophonous mayhem.

I’m not sure what disturbed their rest, but one moment they were all sitting nearly still, and the next moment there was a flurry of activity as they all became airborne. It was beautiful to watch, all the more so because my little nemeses were not, happily, overhead at the time.

Baby-girl was so inspired that she stopped to watch and eat her trail mix. Actually, she paused mainly for her trail mix; it included M&Ms, unlike any trail mix I ever consumed in childhood.

The second point where birds actually made an appearance, albeit also from afar, was when we were standing out on a pavilion overlooking the salt marsh. The guides passed out several pairs of binoculars to the children and pointed out species as one or more flew across the marsh. Baby-girl and a friend, well-schooled in the buddy system from years of, well, preschool, instantly partnered up and shared a pair of binoculars for the duration. My son had a pair of the coveted binoculars all to himself, so I walked over to him at one point and asked if I could use them. He obliged, and so I looked through the binoculars, starting at one side of the marsh and moving slowly toward the other side.

And then, something caught my eye. I’m sorry to report that it was not a bird. It was a house. And this house had friends, nice-looking ones, too. The thought occurred to me that if I stood there with the binoculars fixed on the salt marsh, no one would be the wiser if I, instead of watching birds, looked at houses.

So I did.

I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say I had my own internal version of HGTV’s House Hunters on that marsh, complete with interior monologue where I compared the architectural details of each house and deliberated over the possible existence of pools behind the spartina grass at the marsh’s edge.

I suppose that I may have looked, to any eyes save my own, like a hard-core birder, a card-carrying ABA member even, so intent was I on my house hunting. Had Baby-girl slipped between the rails and landed in the pluff mud below us, it’s entirely possible that I wouldn’t have noticed.

What can I say? They were really nice houses, y’all.

***

Don’t forget to like An Island Mom on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, or comment on this post for a chance to win this 4” x 5” beach hut canvas by Jann Tayloe.

Been there, done that, my friends.

And it’s a crazy, sometimes lonely place to be, there’s no doubt. But I can tell you this: that time you spend in that crazy, lonely place, wondering if you’ve been struck mad, that time makes this place all the sweeter, all the more precious, once you land on the island that does in fact exist on the other side of crazy.

In fact, I have a confession to make. Some of you have read my Island Prequel series and probably are wondering why in the world I haven’t, after eleven posts, just gone ahead and written the ending. LCB has even started calling me out on it, and he’s right. But the truth is, I’ve drafted the ending both in my head and on paper several times. Yet there’s this small part of me that doesn’t want to finalize my draft and post it, because then it will be the end of that sweet, sweet time when that girl who grew up in a small raised ranch on the outskirts of a corn field, that girl who dreamed of an island life never thinking she’d actually get it, actually, in the end, got it. Once I post the end, the tale will have been told, and I’ll be shutting the book on the telling of it.

I just don’t really want to stop living in the land where the tale is still being told, I guess.

What is the point of my confession? The point is that’s how precious that time is to me, those years spent both moving and sometimes standing still, but headed toward the dream nonetheless.

So where am I headed now with this post? It’s simple, really. Since I began An Island Mom two years ago, many people have inquired about how to go about moving to an island. Turns out, there’s a whole slew of you out there who’ve spread the map out on the kitchen table like we did those many years ago, but you are stuck on the first paragraph of chapter two of your book, the chapter I’ll hereby title, “Getting Up from the Table and Doing Something.” We sat at the table for years, deep in the quagmire of chapter two’s first paragraph, so I know the place well, well enough to know it’s a quagmire, not a vortex. That means it’s possible that some of you who hope to will someday reach the island’s shore.

I would be remiss not to tell you, however, that we have been extremely blessed, and that for us, several details fell into place that allowed us to do what we otherwise may not have been able to do. Chief among these was the fact that LCB was, at a crucial time for us, able to begin working for himself, thus allowing us a great deal of flexibility in where we lived. And, while I wish I could offer you a three-step or five-step or eighty-step program guaranteed to give you the same results, I can’t.

What I can share with you, however, are some of the things we learned along the way that made the move a little easier and some of the things that helped us find the right island for us. So, over the next few weeks, months, or years, depending on how the spirit moves, I’ll be posting largely practical tips on things to consider when contemplating an island move, things that might, for some, make the dream seem just a wee bit less unobtainable.

***

Also, don’t forget to like An Island Mom on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, or comment on this post for a chance to win this 4” x 5” beach hut canvas by Jann Tayloe.