Category: Reviews

Bay of Dreams – click any image for full size

Bay of Dreams is the Full region home of Valor Poses Mainstore and Photo Sim, operated by Keegan Kavenagh (AlexCassidy1), and designed on his behalf by inertia (Caridee Sparta) of Neverfar fame. This latter point alone should have anyone seasoned SL travellers adding Bay of Dreams to their list of places to visit, whether or not they are on the look-out for poses; as with Neverfar (about which you can read more here), the region is an eye-catching and involved design.

No landing point is set within the region, but a good place to start explorations is in the courtyard before the main store, tucked into the south-east corner. A large church style gate stands guard over the store area, separating it from the rest of the region, large gates ready to be opened or closed as required. A teleport board sits just beyond this, offering a choice of 10 destinations for those keen to start seeing the sights. These destinations include both the ground-level store and its skyborne Adult annex – a minor niggle here being there wasn’t (at the time of our visit at least) a TP point to easily get back to ground level from the latter. Also, as the board only delivers you to a location, we’d suggest it is actully better just to use shanks’ pony from the get-go, and explore on foot.

Bay of Dreams

Veer left from the teleport board, and the route takes you through the ruins of a stone-built structure shouldered on either side by blocks of unhewn rock. Two arches stand at the end of the ruins, one offering a path down to a beach watched over by great trees with trunks bent with age to where a board walk cross shallow water to a smaller island. The other arch offers a path to where two old houses stand  above the beach, each reached by its own steps cut into the living rock. Both appear abandoned, and a rough, grassy path arcs between them, passing round a little copse of trees standing between them.

The larger of these two houses sits with its back to a deep gorge cutting south-to-north through the land, a sandbar at its southern extreme preventing the sea from completely splitting the region. A wreck of an old plane lies on the sandbar, and a path from the smaller of the two abandoned houses offers a route over the rocks above the edge of the gorge to where a set of steps drop down to the beach and ‘plane wreck. Alternatively, a wooden bridge spans the gorge from behind the larger of the two houses, linking it with the broad, stepped plateau on the far side. Here, past the windmill and tree house, up the wooden steps and with a little scrambling over rocks, you might find yourself at the front door of the largest house on the island, looking imperiously down at the rest of the scene.

Bay of Dreams

A second bridge, wide and gated two-thirds of the way along its length, spans another watery charm splitting the land. It offers the way to a grassy shoulder of rock where visitors can either opt to go by way of log bridges down to a secluded beach and beach house, or use a switch back path cut into the rock to descend to where the wrecked aeroplane awaits.

The smaller island to the north-west and mentioned earlier, appears to have once been a centre of commerce. A lighthouse and a huge warehouse rise from the rocky base of the island, vying with one another to be the tallest. Old wharves extend out into the waters from their feet, and two old trawlers are moored in the shallows. But whatever went on here has long since ceased: the buildings are decaying slowly, the wharves falling apart, the waters beneath them fast becoming choked and overgrown with grass and weeds, while falling trunks of great fir trees now pin the old boats under their weight.

Bay of Dreams

Whether the trees fell due to age, or were cut down might be a matter for debate. However, there is plenty of evidence for them having been brought low by storm and wind to be found elsewhere, while the heavily bent trunks of other trees suggests this is a place subject to extremes in wind, further suggesting it is the elements which are responsible for the damage.

With its rugged outlook, scattering of houses, store and old fishing centre, Bay of Dreams is a visual treat. For those who would like to tarry a while, there are numerous places to sit – indoors and out – to be found, and for photographers, rezzing rights can be enjoyed on joining the local group, although you might want to twiddle with Windlights.  Our thanks to Shakespeare and Max for pointing it out to us!

SLurl Details

• Valor Poses Mainstore and Photo Sim (Bay of Dreams, rated: Adult)

Cuivieenen – click any image for full size

Cuivieenen is the name given to a fabulously rural Homestead region designed and presented to Second Life users by Personal Jesus (Alexynophus). We were pointed towards it by Shakespeare and Max (TY, again!), and recently spent a pleasant evening wandering along its roads and paths, discovering its little nooks and crannies and spending time sitting and enjoying the scenery.

The landing point sits just off the region’s centre, just outside an old stone chapel. Where you go from here is – at first glance – a matter of following the unsurfaced roads running through the region, north-to-south, and winding westwards. By just keeping to these roads offers visitors a lot to see: the chapel surrounded by a small farm: cattle, chickens and sheep roam immediately outside of its walls, the wrought iron fence that might once have set it apart from their wanderings having long since have fallen or been removed over the years. And old barn sits behind it, while the role of pastor appears to been given over to a scarecrow, watching over his flock.

Cuivieenen

Turf-roofed cottages sit facing the chapel on two sides from across the roads, dry-stone walls guard the roads, while to the west what might be an old quarry awaits discovery. With each of the cottages being furnished, the exceptional care taken with the landscaping elements, this alone means Cuivieenen offers a lot to see – but keeping to the roads and just hopping into the cottages will reveal everything. For example, walk eastwards past two of the cottages to where the land drops rocky shoulders to the waters below, and you’ll find a path descending to a wooden board walk, which in turn offers a way to a small island  topped by a folly with a special welcome waiting inside.

Make your way around the coastline, and you’ll find other places to explore – the cinder beach to the north, the shallow and deep inlets to the south-east and the south, each of which offers a further eclectic feel to the region, be it through the Norse long-boat, or the Gothic alcove and ancient standing stones (with their retinue of cormorants).

Cuivieenen

Between these, up among the rocks are little places for couples to enjoy: a blanket and pillows spread under a tree, and old cart also with blankets spread in its bed; the ruin of an old boat converted into a shaded rest point on a cinder beach, the canoe floating on the waters of the quarry, or the motorboat moored at the foot of a set of iron stairs descending the northern cliffs. More cosy spots for sitting / cuddling can be found inside the region’s old barn, the ruins of a lighthouse and in the cottages – all of which adds a certain intimacy to any shared visit.

A nice touch with Cuivieenen is the way in which it has been blended with part of a sim surround. This very much gives the impression the region is something like a headland, that beyond the mountain behind it lies more land awaiting discovery. When you bring all of this together – the use of the sim surround, the overall care shown in the region’s design and the attention to detail evident in everything, large and small – Cuivieenen emerges as a place with a huge amount of depth. Although – and I say this cheekily and not as a critique – I had to agree with Caitlyn when she noted the landscape naturally leant itself to a cave or two for explorers to find.

Cuivieenen

One of the things I do when visiting a region is try to imagine where in the physical world it might be. In the case of Cuivieenen, I could not help but be put in mind of Iceland: the rugged landscape, cinder / lava like soil, sparse tree coverage – even the turf-roofed cottages – all put me in mind of various parts of Iceland I’ve been fortunate enough to visit, most notably the Myvatn region.

But howsoever you regard Cuivieenen in relation to physical world locations, its own beauty and design mean it not a place to be missed when region hopping across Second Life.

Cuivieenen

SLurl Details

• Cuivieenen (Hermosa Beach, rated: Adult)

With the 2018 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games running from February 8th through until February 25th, 2018 at Pyeongchang County, South Korea, a tweet from fellow SL traveller and writer, Erik Mondrian reminded me that Second Life also has its own winter sports venue in the form of six regions centred on Chamonix City on the Full region of Cross Check. It’s a place I last visited back in 2014, so the current games  and Erik’s tweet put me in the mind to hop back and have another look, and see what may have changed.

Chamonix City  – a reference to the location of the first Winter Olympics Games, held in 1924 – encompasses two of the six regions of this winter sports venue – Cross Check and Neutral Zone. They are bracketed by Breakaway to the west and Off Sides to the east, with Empty Net and Blueliner to the north and south respectively. Within these regions, the facilities on offer are extensive, and can be found both on the ground and up in the air. The city itself is dominated by two huge ice hockey arenas – the Brooks Arena on Blueliner, and the impressive Cleary arena, which straddles the northern part of Cross Check and most of Empty Net. Home to the Chamonix Pandas, Cleary arena also offers 10-pin bowling on the lobby area and one of a number of teleport stations which can be used to hop around the facilities scattered across the six regions.  This includes a direct TP to Brooks Area – although the walk across town is pleasant enough, or there is a subway option, with stations just outside of both arenas.

Directly behind Brooks Arena is the main curling hall, with four ends available for players. To be honest, some instructions would not go amiss – for example: is actually possible to sweep, and if so, how? However, game play is pretty much as per the physical world game – trying to slide your team’s stones as close as possible to the centre of the house, whilst also seeking to block / eliminate your opposition’s stones. When playing, make sure you wear at least one of the coloured brooms from the free pack available at the top house of each end – order of play is based on who is wearing the broom matching the colour (red or yellow) of the first stone to appear before the hacks (chocks). Clicking on the hacks will position the player and place them in Mouselook, then it is a case of taking aim (use the crosshairs HUD if required), then press and hold the left mouse button to deliver the stone – the longer you hold the button, the more momentum is delivered to the stone, and players should be wary of delivering too much momentum and carrying their stones out-of-bounds.

A faster pace of event can be found in the sky over Breakaway, where the speed skating arena resides.   Slip into a suitably aerodynamic suit, don your skates and then click on one of the speed skating rezzers located around the rink to get started. For those who prefer, there’s an indoor speed skating rink right next door to the outdoor arena. This is smaller and tighter, and requires a certain amount of skill to get around.

Breakaway is also the home of the ski jump and alpine ski run for those who love sports skiing. Comprehensive instructions are given for the ski jump, and skis are available from the rezzer at the back of the jump’ s start. Sadly, the alpine ski rezzer appeared to be out of commission during our visit, so reacquainting myself with that run wasn’t possible.

Offsides, meanwhile, is the home of the snowboarding and bob-sleigh runs. However, at the time of our visit, while the rezzers (boots and board) worked OK for the former, the rezzer for the bob-sleigh also appeared to be out-of-action.

At the time of my 2014 visit, there was a practice area in the sky over Neutral Zone, which included a figure skating rink. Since then, things have changed and this sky area is now the home of a go karting track, speedway circle and a Warbugs flying area, offering a set of alternatives to the winter fun across the rest of the regions. I’m not sure if this means the practice area and figure skating rink have been relocated – but I did have (an admittedly fast) hop around and attempt to find them, with no joy – and none of the teleport boards I found and tired led me to them.

A collaborative build, led I believe, by Kacey Rossini, Chamonix City provides a venue rich in winter scenery containing a lot of sports activities which can be enjoyed as a pert of a shared visit, with options as well for exploring the little town centre, having fun flying Warbugs or simply riding the cable cars.

SLurl Details

• Chamonix City (Cross Check, rated: General, as are all six regions)