About

I came to SL on a whim, and in my first week discovered that you could fly in SL (planes that is, not the superman kind of flying). I researched some aircraft, and found an auto-gyro (because I have a RL friend who has one). I needed a place to fly from, and ended up in Poppyport, an Art-Deco airport in Sansara, just north of the snowfields (sadly no longer there). I had fun there flying until I crashed a few times coming into land. It turned out that there were 5 or 6 planes and helis all in a pile at the end of the runway under the water. And the running scripts that you hit as you crossed the sim made for a rough landing. So I contacted the airport owner and asked that she clear up the pile of planes. She somehow couldn’t see them, so gave me land rights to do it myself. Sylvie, the owner let me keep the rights, and also let me help out with rentals and general maintenance. I thus became the airport manager at the tender age of 2 weeks.

Above: Poppyport with hangars below the runway

Cryptic joined me and we started our collaborative Cat & Cry venture. We had fun building basic things, scripting, flying running the airport and going to party at Smash Wrench that was 4 sims away on Whiskey sim. We also filled all the rentals and the airport had some life in it.

But alas, after some family drama at Poppyport, and the untimely deletion of every prim on the sim due to an unintentional group change by a non-thinking person with too many land privileges and not enough sense, we moved out of the area, and found ourselves in Eden. We spent some months trying to recreate what we had had in Poppyport. Ultimately, that never happened as you can’t transplant an Art-Deco, half sim long building into a tropical paradise. The Poppyport owner left, and Cryptic & I decided to stay in Eden and build our own place, that became Tortuga Bay Airport.

Above: Tortuga Bay airport

We had great fun at Tortuga Bay, and the airport is still there now (as I write in 2023). At one point a couple years ago, it was the second busiest airport in SL after Hollywood in Blake. It remains a wonderful place to fly and is one of the 6 airports and landing strips up in the Eden & Fruit Islands Estate.

Above: Tortuga Bay airport terminal

But things change and times moves on. Eden was taken over by new management, and the place changed somewhat. Traffic dropped quite a bit so in 2019 I decided to set up a shop and home down in Blake, so I moved to Newport Bay, and set up there. This is my current Pied-à–terre where I build together with Keavy, Jane and friends. Cryptic still lives and runs Tortuga, she manages the sailboat races in the Fruit and Eden estate.

Above: The first shop on Newport Bay in the NW of the sim.

So SL life goes on, and we constantly evolve and grow. I’m having fun building with a mission to build good mesh and to script it well and then to offer it to the community in a reasonable way. Peach joined us in Newport Bay for a time. Jane Shippe joined us in the sim too, setting up here Shippe & Saille boat shop in the SW of the sim.

In August 2021, we subsequently expanded and took over the entire sim of Newport Bay. Hunter Marine (Ultramesh™), Shippe & Saille, and Kroozer Bikes are all sold from this sim.

Above: is the Hunter Marine lineup at Newport Bay.

Above: is the full Newport Bay sim in September 2022, showing the aircraft hangar in the lower left, the short runway and docks. Hollywood Airport on Santa Catalina sim is on the top right of the photo in the distance.

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