Paradise Rock at Half Moon Bay - July 2015

We originally purchased a retreat home here on the Sunshine Coast (British Columbia) in 2004, a block from where we are now. Although that house was beautiful and very solid (hand built by a Finnish carpenter) with a beautiful view, it wasn't exactly what we were looking for in a cabin retreat. So in early in 2006 we were very fortunate that our realtor personally knew the artist owner of our now waterfront retreat. You see we had been working with this realtor for some time to find us the perfect place, in fact we did find a beautiful home on the water, not 100% what we were looking for but given the market at the time we liked it enough where we were at the final stages of making our decision when we got a call while we were on the ferry. Jan told me it was our realtor and that she wanted to show us one more house, my knee jerk reaction was no, we had seen a lot and were about to make a final decision. Jan told this to the realtor who was insistent and finally said that she just wanted us to have a look to give her our opinion on the house, we agreed and she told us that to meet at our house. Well this where the story gets a bit crazy. We get into her car and she tells us to close our eyes, I'm thinking yeah right I don't think so and she gets insistent (btw, we love our realtor, she is a wonderful person), so we say okay, okay eyes are closed. She backs out of our driveway and starts to head down the hill and makes a turn all the while saying, lower bank, lower bank. She pulls into the driveway of this house and says, okay open your eyes. I look at the house before me and say, I know this house, this is a beautiful house, really this house. She says do you want to have a look, we respond with well yes. Now because this house is in our original neighbourhood we happen to know the owners, from dog walking etc., and they are there, so we have like a visit and go through the house. Everything we wanted and more, location, check, type of home, check, hot tub on the deck with water view, check, mooring buoy out front, check, check, check, check. Here's the rub, this house is actually not on the market, you see the owner called her friend the realtor (our realtor) and asked to meet for coffee that morning. They knew each other because as mentioned the owner is an artist and our realtor at some point purchased a piece from her and they became friends. Well at the meeting they discussed that they finally decided that they were going to sell and move back east, so they thought of their friend the realtor who after that coffee called us (back to while we were on the ferry). The owner wanted the realtor to come over and give them some ideas as to how to better present their home in preparation for sale. The realtor looked through the house and said don't change a thing I think I have the perfect couple and told the owner who, they were delighted to have us take "a look" and give us the chance to make a premarket offer. Well as they say, the rest is history... Long story short that was nine years ago, we have tweaked a few changes to date but in the most part the house is pretty much the same as when we moved in. We always wanted to name our little retreat but never could come up with the right name so we just called it the house on the Coast. We felt it was time to make it official and after some idea bouncing here we have it, Paradise Rock. Funny, the day we named it our internet installer came to the house ( yes, we are now connected), got out of his van and said to me as he walked up, this is paradise here and I said, yes it is, it definitely is Paradise. So with my new iPad and with a great optic fibre internet connection I thought I would highlight our place here in our travel blog as when we are in Vancouver and not travelling this is where we try to spend much of our time. So with these pictures, welcome to Paradise Rock, hope you enjoy! This is also an iPad test for uploading to our blog, so I am hoping for success here because I am hoping to lighten my load a bit and travel with just the iPad. Fingers crossed in this success...