COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:For sale by owner: island

You want an island? I got one. Well, not me actually. Orange Coast College does. It seems the OCC Foundation owns an island, which is very cool, I think. It’s called Rabbit Island, and it’s 50 miles north of Vancouver, British Columbia, which is directly overhead and ever so slightly to the left. The island is at the top of something called the Strait of Georgia, which makes three Georgias by my count — the one in Eastern Europe, the one where they make the peaches, and now this one. That’s a lot of Georgias.

The island was donated to OCC by a generous Southern California yachtsman named Henry Wheeler, thus the name Wheeler Research Station, where OCC offers field study programs during the summer months, mostly in marine science under the wise and watchful eye of professor Dennis Kelly.

The station and the living quarters on the island are about as “green” as you can get (unless you’re a frog) with wind and solar power generators and a desalinization system for fresh water. Robinson Crusoe would be very impressed.

But there is a little itty bit of trouble in paradise. Rabbit Island costs about 75 grand a year to maintain, which ain’t soy beans.

The OCC Foundation is considering whether it might not be time to put their second home in the third Georgia on the market. OCC Foundation President Doug Bennett estimates that they could net about $1.75 million by selling the island, which would make any rabbit proud and could be used to benefit a number of programs at the school. The foundation decided to hold off on its decision about whether there is an island in their future for 60 days while they study the issue a bit more.

The price got me to thinking — $1.75 million won’t buy you much in Newport Beach, but is that a lot for an island, or a little?

Normally you have to be a country to own your own island, but not necessarily. Marlon Brando had one. So did Dr. No, but that doesn’t count since he didn’t exist.

I suppose it’s a common enough fantasy — own your very own island, in the middle of the ocean, nothing but blue skies, turquoise water and white clouds, sitting on the sand with a bottle of wine night after night, watching the sunset give way to the stars. I could do that. For about three days. Five maybe. No, three is about it. After that, I would go mad, loopy, bonkers, around the bend, over the edge.

Be that as it may, what does your basic island these days cost? Well believe it or not, you can go to www.privateislandsonline.com and find islands by the boatload.

In that $1.75- to $2-million price range, here’s what you can get. There’s Jed’s Island in Blue Hill Bay in Maine for $1.85 million. They don’t say who Jed is, but the island has 3,000 feet of ocean frontage, walking paths, gravel beaches and “lovely granite ledges.” I’m sure the ledges are lovely, but here’s a tip about gravel beaches: If you want to do the wine and sunset thing, beach chairs are a must.

Back in British Columbia, you can snag Echo Bay Island Resort for $1.5 million Canadian, which seems like a pretty good price, eh? In case you don’t know where that is, “Echo Bay Resort is at the marine crossroads of the major waterways of the Broughton Archipelago.” Oh, OK, got it. This is pretty cool though — if you buy the island you get a big bridge connected to it at no extra charge: “Attached to the island is a 117’ x 60’ concrete float which was once part of the Lake Washington Floating Bridge from Seattle, and weighs about 7 million pounds. It now acts as a break water and float for the grocery store.”

I’ve never bought an island, but that is a definite plus in my opinion. Seven million pounds seems like a lot of bang for the buck.

Back on the Right Coast, you can get Pretty Island in Florida for $1.2 million, which sounds like a steal. It’s a 76-acre island “a stone’s throw from Allen’s Park Boat Ramp in Levy County.”

Know how it got it’s name? I’ll tell you. A man named Cullie Hodges bought it in the early 1900s. Cullie’s wife, Mallie, got the nickname “Pretty” when she was a little girl, and it stuck. When Cullie bought the island, he named it for Mallie, i.e., “Pretty,” and that just leaves Marlon Brando.

Sorry. Sometimes I can think of a segue; sometimes I can’t.

As you probably know, Brando bought his French Polynesian island, called Tetiaroa, in 1965. He went crazy over the island, among other things, in 1962, while filming “Mutiny on the Bounty” and spent most of the rest of his life there. Since Brando’s passing in July 2004, Tetiaroa has had a population of one — his Polynesian-born son, Teihotus.

Know what’s going to become of the island now? You could have knocked me over with a seashell. It’ll become a luxury eco-resort, an oxymoron if I ever heard one, being built by Richard Bailey, who owns and operates a number of chee-chee resorts in and around Tahiti.

The resort, called the Brando, which makes sense, will open in 2008 and have 30 villas in natural settings around the island. Despite all the years Brando lived on the island, there was no power or running water, and the resort will function much the same as OCC’s Rabbit Island, with it’s own power generators and desalination plant.

So that’s it then. If you’re in the market for an island in the Strait of Georgia, call the OCC Foundation. If not, shop around, find something you like, and make sure you bring enough wine and beach chairs. Couldn’t be simpler.

I gotta go.