Just a little bit about Bonnie and David, the owners of Tradewinds and Breezy.

Bonnie, 49, was a self-employed court reporter for 16 years before closing up her business and taking an early retirement.  David, 52, is an attorney who has scaled down his practice to pursue our goal of full-time cruising aboard our sailing catamaran, The Brac Cat.  We live in Durham, Pennsylvania, on a lovely piece of property in the woods of Bucks County. We have no children but have a love of animals, especially cats.  Presently we travel with two cats, Sparky and Jezebel.  Sparky is below and Jezebel is on the right.  Both enjoy our boating lifestyle !!

We first visited Brac in 1994 and stayed in a little cottage owned by Dervyn and Hio Scott of Tranquil Realty. We were attracted to the island for its natural beauty, the water and the diving.  Dervyn and Hio were the most hospitable hosts and we instantly fell in love with the island.  We admired "our" little piece of paradise from afar but learned it was under contract.  The owner was a woman who had lived on the island for many years and worked as a nurse in the hospital.  When she returned to the US she rented the house full time to various people.  We returned to Pennsylvania but Brac never left our minds. The following year we came back to Dervyn and Hio's cottage and continued our search, albeit much more vigorously this time, for a piece of paradise.  We visited Liitle Cayman but felt at home on Brac and were not interested in any property we saw on Little Cayman.  Turns out that the property had been under agreement during the previous year but the would-be buyers could not get financing and the deal fell through!  Wow, what a coincidence. Guess who were the lucky ones to finally purchase the home we had looked at and thought about for two years !!

Both Tradewinds and Breezy needed MUCH improvement and repair but we saw the potential.  We could not be stopped in our visions for the final product when we settled on Tradewinds and Breezy in April of 1996. After lots of repairs and many coats of paint the exterior went from red to white.  Eventually we transformed the interior from the drab brown that it once was to its current colorful scheme.  Then the big project.  We had a 40' container trucked from Tampa to our home in eastern Pennsylvania.  When it got there we had four hours to fill it.  We used every inch, filling it with new furniture, building materials, doors,windows, bikes and even our little truck.  The container then left on its trip.  It was trucked back to Tampa, loaded on a container ship, shipped to Grand Cayman, off loaded on to the Bloody Bay barge, pushed to Cayman Brac then three months later we claimed our goods at the customs dock on the island, then drove the truck out of the container onto Caymanian soil !!! 

The entire project, since April of 1996 to present, has been a labor of love to bring this property around to its present state. We take a step back every so often when mother nature reminds us who is boss.  The last time was Hurricane IVAN which took out the entire stone retaining wall and other damage.  The property is an ongoing process and one from which we derive a great deal of satisfaction.

We spend between four and eight weeks a year on Brac but that may scale down somewhat now that we are cruising. We hope someday in the not-too-distant future we will be able to unite our sailboat, The Brac Cat, with its namesake, Cayman Brac !

Enjoy your stay on Cayman Brac !!!!!!!

Bonnie and David