Lights Out!

I am beginning to find out a few things about what my family, friends, acquaintances and Facebook friend stalkers assume about life in "paradise". The biggest misconception there seems to be amongst the assumptions is that living in "paradise" automatically equates to a perfect life scenario. I heard someone say recently that this place is not paradise, it is a paradox, and I could not agree more. As time goes on, I hope to support this idea by writing about the good, the bad and the ugly pieces of life in "paradise".  Today's topic covers the simple island problem of power outages. Get ready, because it is lights out whether you like it or not!

The organization that controls the electricity (and in some places water) on the island is known as WAPA (Water and Power Authority), and it is quite possibly the most hated acronym of the USVI. The general consensus is that WAPA, for lack of a better word, sucks. But then again, how high can our expectations be for a system that uses diesel fuel to generate electricity for an entire island? Oh! And did I forget to mention that WAPA charges 38 cents a kilowatt hour and the power goes out a lot?

In the past few weeks we have had approximately six long power outages in addition to the many we had before. The longest of them was last Thursday and it lasted six hours. This was during normal business hours. You would be surprised how many businesses do not have a generator and how little work gets done! The island rumor mill has it that the outage was caused by an oil leak in one of the engines. Hurrah for inefficient and not so environmentally friendly energy systems! 

There really needs to be a push for solar energy here. However, thanks to the Hovensa oil refinery on St. Croix that lines the USVI's politicians pockets with greenbacks, solar energy has yet to make a mainstream debut on the island. Thus we are stuck with the less than impressive diesel energy system and the possibility of having an outage at any given second. But hey, that is the true cost of living in "paradise".

The truth of the matter is that power outages have become eerily normal for us. One evening in April we went out to a restaurant and the power went out for three hours. The restaurant simply brought out candles and camping lanterns to all the tables and continued cooking on their gas powered stove like nothing was wrong. It did not phase us all that much. Yep, that is normal. 

Last weekend, the power went out at night again, and I am so used to finding the flashlight that I found it in under a minute in pitch black darkness without bumping into any furniture along the way. I wonder if I can start to make this exercise a challenge in speed?

While power outages are an inconvenience, they have started to serve as a reminder of the simple fun you can have without it. Over time, we have figured out that our favorite thing to do in the event of an outage in the evening is to stargaze. We also spend a lot more time talking and enjoying the candlelight. Something all of us should do more of.

Lights out! - S