Back in my days as a small holder farmer when my children were small I lived on an island in the Hauraki Gulf here in New Zealand. Waiheke is around 20 miles long from end to end and in so many way the whole pace of life was just so much different to living on the mainland. I still miss it, but everything changed when the ferry service upgraded their elderly vessels to ultra modern catamarans. With the old vessels you had to be a truly intrepid soul to travel to the island, but once the new vessels entered service it became an absolute milk run even in the worst weather. The island started to turn into a playground for wealthy folk then and earthmother smallholder folk like me became a threatened species. I can still remember property speculators waving fat cheque books under the noses of some of my friends when the new ferry service was announced. (big sigh)