British Virgin Islands

There was some unfortunate news coming out of the Caribbean this past couple days. Basically, American Airlines is making some drastic changes to try and stay afloat in the new world economy with the current fuel prices. We knew that they were going to cut their flights to the Caribbean, we were just not sure how much and when. Remember I blogged a few months ago about Spirit Airlines come September going to a Saturday only flight down to St Thomas which i thought would make it more difficult for inexcpensive flights?

American Airlines/American Eagle, which we are tied pretty tightly to down here is cutting their flights to and from San Juan from about 38 a day at least to 18. This is not going to affect the flights from Miami, but apparently, it will affect mostly direct flights to SJU from gateways behind MIami. They will be laying off several hundred people in SJU. Additionally, they are cutting back the flights that go from San Juan to the islands in the caribbean from about 55 a day to 33.
This is going to make it much harder in many respects for guests:
1) cost
2) availability
3) Getting to the Caribbean without an overnight stop SOMEWHERE, maybe even our dreaded airport (gosh I hope they hurry up and finish it!) Miami will be nigh impossible.
4) Those who are used to using FF miles, they can forget it, remember me telling the story last week of using 120,000 "anytime" miles to come back and when our flights messed up right from Tortola, to go first class we would have had to wait days and go through Boston?
They will no longer offer non flight service to SJU from Fort Lauderdale, Newark, Orlando, Los Angeles and Washington Dulles. They will still offer non stop, but with a reduced schedule from (ie once a week on peek days instead of several times a week) from Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, New York, JFK, Philadelphia and Hartford.
They have also announced that they will ground their fleet of 34 seats Saab, and shift around some of their 72 seaters back to the states that we use in the caribbean.

We will just have to see what will shake out here. A few thoughts, yes, there are other airlines, we will see what their schedule does. This will make our ferries from St Thomas over to the BVI busier, and our airport less busy. The fare is already quite a bit higher to come into Beef Island then St Thomas. Perhaps someone will step up to fill this niche, although I don't believe it will be LIAT as they are cutting their schedule as well.

As I said in my last post, that makes it even more important to WORK with us on the logistics of getting back and forth to the islands. We are good at that! I also would suggest that if you have charters booked to the BVI, or indeed anywhere in the Caribbean this coming winter, that you "don't wait until fall when prices are supposed to fall" to buy your tickets. At least you will have a ticket, but be prepared that they are probably going to change your schedule a billion times on the plane before then. Expect costs to be higher down here then you saw before, our transportation costs of items are going up daily. When talking to boats at the last show, they all talked about sailing more and not running engines as much. It will be good for us. We have a few good things going for us. We work in the American dollar so you do not have to deal with exchange rates!

Enough of that gossip today, I will keep you on to date as things change and we have more information.

Our friends, Mark and Sally, off the catamaran Viking Dream took a couple great pictures of Promenade out sailing one day. Well, sailing would not be the word as it is as flat as glass! They thought it was an eerie effect, and they are great! I was being very creative and turned one of them into a painting!



The Canadians in the crowd will appreciate this, although I am waiting for them all to start booking charters left and right with there strong dollar right now! I always thought this was a $5.00 Canadian Bill, but apparently it is a COUPON GOOD for a litre of gas!

One other tidbit of advertising here, which you can file under the "is all advertising good advertising column?" Here are Swimvacation and Promenade under a header that says Got Shark? Reminiscent of the "Got Milk?" campaign maybe?? I am not sure!

And just for Lisa, as she could not believe that my son Chad, has been dressing up our guests in halloween costumes forever to go ashore, here is the proof. This was at least 5 years ago and the group still comes back every year, so there must be something to his method!


I had guests ask me yesterday if they should wait to book their flights from Chicago (6 of them) down here for Thanksgiving, as a lot of people say things drop in the summer. I think this summer will be an exception. There may be a few low fares around for next winter, only enough so they can advertise them, but I would not wait personally. With Spirit Airlines cutting back to one flight a week into St Thomas in the fall, and AA announcing today they were cutting the size of their hub in San Juan and only flying 33 flights a day instead of 55 to the islands, once you add on the costs of fuel into that mix, I don't think the fares will go cheaper.

I am going to have to talk to the charter flight companies locally and see if their charter rates have gone up at all lately.
I received an email from a charter company in Puerto Rico, Airline Support Services, with an email address of atc@prw.net and his name is Luis Salva that they are offering a King Air that seats 9 for $1850.00 one way to San Juan with VIP transfer service in San Juan and a 7 seater Navajo for $1450.00. Charter flights are going to becoming more viable, although they are going to have to put there prices up as well with fuel. Diesel is sitting around $4.80 a gallon or so in Roadtown at the Delta Dock. Up on Virgin Gorda, diesel was about 65 cents less at Leverick Bay Resort then it was at Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor, which I found strange.

I also pulled this off the news last week, it is written particularly about the USVI and Global Warming, but I think it pertains to us here in the BVI just as much. Virgin Islands and Global Warming

I also had a friend who attended Earthfest up in Boston this year and spied the VIEC's information for the court case against Beef Island there! Boston is a big market for the BVI, and it was interesting to see that they are watching us down here up there. Here are a few pictures I was sent, apparently there was about upwards of 50,000 people at this event.

Remember the charter boats have donated heavily to the VIEC and the court case, they were still giving donations at the recent boat show. You can read all about it at BVI Heritage Conservation Group





There is a lot of talk and controversy going around the island because the island is extending its cruise ship pier, and most are wondering WHY in the world we are doing that when we have such a hard time handling what we do have now. I am sure I do not know the reasons, the government says it is a necessity so we can keep what we DO have for cruise ship business, although most, I believe would be glad to see it go. One thing I thought of, and i have no idea on whether they are thinking this or not, is with the way fuel prices are going, and the shortage of flights there is going to be into the islands, perhaps they are far sighted enough to see that with economies of scale, the weak US dollar, that cruise ship passengers will get on a boat in Miami and be able to come down here without flying and connections. Could be some sense in that. And the cruise ships always put their base price very low. I even heard rumor around town that there had been some talk about switching to the english pound in government, but then someone pointed out that since most of our guests are americans, it really would not help us much.
If fuel continues to go the way it is, we will have to make some changes on the boat besides, putting on fuel surcharges.
We find more and more people want to be freezing on the boat at night, and wrapped up in blankets! One smart person told me that they just took the blankets out of the room. I have also heard many crews say that they will be doing smaller circles around the islands and sailing more. What can you do?

The New York Times Travel Edition Today
featured an article on the upcoming trend of Swimming Vacations, and of course, our very own Swim Vacation that was hosted on Promenade just this April.


Hopper is getting some pretty big media exposure for his inaugral trips down here. They loved swimming around the islands. Here they are all getting ready to jump in

You know whos job I wanted the most on this charter? The spotter in the kayak watching the birds!


So, Jump into our pool with SwimVacation instead of the Hotel Pool!


I am quoting a part of the article from the NY Times on line edition, but follow the link to read the entire article.
"In April, Swim Vacation, a small adventure travel company based in Bath, Me., ran its first weeklong swimming vacation in the British Virgin Islands from a chartered trimaran sailing yacht. Mike Sloan, a 55-year-old dentist from Lincolnville, Me., was on the inaugural trip.
Mr. Sloan, who swam competitively as a child growing up in Florida, began swimming again only three years ago. Before the trip, he hadn’t done any open-water swimming outside Maine.
“My expectation was that I would swim a lot, get some coaching and advice, and visit a beautiful place while it was still cold in Maine,” Mr. Sloan said. “The trip far exceeded my expectations. We saw sea turtles, tons of fish, rays, coral and shipwrecks. It was like snorkeling, but we were getting great workouts.”
Participants swam two to four miles a day. Mr. Sloan’s favorite swim was a 2.4-mile stretch from Cooper Island to Salt Island, where the drop-off between islands and the deep blues of the bay made him feel as though he were swimming in space.
Swim Vacation was started by George McDonough, 37, known as Hopper, who intends to fill a rapidly expanding niche. Triathlons and open-water swims are becoming more popular; this summer’s Olympics will host a 10-kilometer open-water race for the first time.
“I first swam in the Virgin Islands in 1998 while on an excursion from a dreadful cruise,” Mr. McDonough said, citing the inspiration for his inaugural expedition. He is planning to add a four-day Maine Lakes swimming tour to his trip program in the summer of 2009."
Swim Vacation's next trip is scheduled for Dec 7th through 13th, 2008, on Promenade, and you can sign up on SwimVacation!

PS: All these great pictures were taken by our very own captain Richard Rome! I love your fisheye lens of the sails and their logo Richie!

Received this today, and not only the charter boats know him, but also a lot of the bareboaters, who I am sure will also be interested in making sure we keep him healthy!

"Most of you know the sweet gentleman CONRAD at Great Harbour, Peter Island who delights in helping with our dingies and guests at his beach. The unofficial ticket to pass through Conrad's home has always been a cold beer and a few words. Unfortunately, he has not been so well of late and his Doctor has told him to give up drinking alcohol. He will be happy to receive a coke, soda, juice or even a dollar in his box in its place. I am sure we can all respect his wishes."

And a reminder that Henry on Salt Island is not supposed to drink alcohol either, so juice or such for him, and he always loves it when people drop him off good break and food nibbles!

And where have we been hiding with all our time off for the last couple days? Well, where we normally are off charter! In the mangroves!!
This time we were in the mangroves at Manuel Reef and there was a one foot tide! Which is pretty high for here. I have never seen so much of the hulls out of the water! They were completely out.




We had a couple spots to fix on the side where primer had bubbled in the heat and was taking off paint. So, with the hulls right out of the water we also managed to do the antifoul all around the first few inches, which was great, as the stuff we had put on in November, an Avalon, already had a ton of barnacles on our hull! We were not happy!
This picture is for troy from our last weeks charter. They requested Coors Light. We bought a couple cases, as generally we are stuck with the stuff forever! They drank it all in the first couple days and promised that they would finish off a ton of it, so we made arrangements to get a LOT more! Now, we have enough Coors Lite to last for about three years. And Bud lite. And Makers Mark! Anyone want a discount on a charter if you are just going to drink those three things?

And this is Richards face as he was fixing the lid off the warm drink locker as we probably broke it trying to cram all that Coors Lite into it!

We had the best luck ever in the mangroves and were out by last night! My son Chad and his girlfriend Christina, made there way around the island for a little tour and took a couple nice pictures...





And look at the cute lambs!

And it looks like we have a pin up picture of the day here, but it is really Christina pretending to drive the large yacht Classship at a cocktail hour they hosted at the boat show!

For those who know my son, Chad, who has worked on the boat many times, he REALLY loved Halloween and costumes and is a bit of a goof. Somehow it appeared that Chad and Brent shared some similarities, and here they are getting ready to go out to the Full Moon Party at Bombas. Kind of scary looking I would say. I don't think we heard the pitter patter of elephant feet until about 430 in the morning....

We had some great ribs, and watched all the tiny creatures come up to the back of the boat, and I managed to take a couple pictures.
Here is a needlenose fish...

and a baby crab...

I almost began to believe that Lisa was planning on going to Bombas with them! As she was looking quite perky in this wig...

But I guess it was not to be as this is what she looked like not that long afterwards, just wanting her bed!

We had slow moving crew today, Bazza and I went into town and I went straight up to the teller in two banks! It felt like Christmas!! He had to do Immigration stuff (yuck) and a few more little details before we get ready to leave the island for awhile on Thursday.
Now the boat has made its way over to Salt Island to its favorite place and it is going to be an early night!

Sounds like the men were quite energetic the last couple days! I wonder how energetic they were at 5 this morning when they were getting up for a 7 AM flight!
Bazza and I have been at the Spring Boat Show along with my son Chad, the last few days, so I will have interesting tidbits over the next few weeks about that. To sum it up there were 25 boats in the show, some were nice with great crew, some with very new crew who have no idea what they are doing, but very enthusiastic, some I did not think much of, and on from there. As usual, my blog caused a bit of controversy with a few who think that unless you spin everything positive and be a travel brochure, then they get very upset with you. More on all that later. I have to process it. It was interesting, and I have to develop a thicker skin if I am going to write things!
We saw all the yachts in the first two days, had various cocktail hours on different docks, and then made our way out Trellis Bay to have a great beef stroganoff the our guests for the last night.
I have managed to pick up an ear infection again, so it was off to the doctor this morning for prescriptions.

When we were out diving last weekend, we stopped by the vagabond Wreck that is on Fallen Jerusaleum. This is what it looks like from the aft sitting on the land.

There had been talk up until awhile ago that the insurance company was going to refloat and fix her, but that time is past. It really is not worth it now. This now is its final resting place view..

Come along for a tour with us, Bazza took the camera and went for a quick look around inside. Surprisingly, it has not been stripped as most wrecks get to be fairly quickly, the steering wheel is gone (Is that a nautical term?)
View of the bridge, down to the charts and everything still in there. I guess they did not have the appropriate charts out at the time!

This is looking into the depths of the boat, it is fully flooded

All the meds still around, really most everything is still on the yacht!

The heads even had the garbage cans next to them

Bazza seemed to spend quite a bit of time in the cabins, came back with these pictures



And a few pictures that he said he brought me back for a laugh but I had to downsize to even put it on here! Bazza!!!

One last picture of the wreck of the vagabond, with a warning sign. Apparently the boat had its fair share of cockroaches and rats enjoying the ambience!

Stopped by to take a picture of Perseverance which was settled up high still on Ginger Island, it has been there for a couple of years now at least. Pretty much stripped.

I agree with Lisa, it was wonderful to pick up the guests in Muskmelon Bay yesterday and have the power boat bring them over looking at the sunset! I wonder if we could sell that as a pick up point more often? this is always in our top 5 anchorages, and if we have a couple places where guests would love to stay several days, this is one of them!

Lisa was like a father waiting for a mother to give birth pacing back and forth! The guys did not arrive until late afternoon, so that means cocktail hour and dinner basically ran into each other, but she made sure that they had PLENTY of food! There was only 5 guys!!

How do you like the birds in the sky? There was as many as I ever see here! I know Lisa has told you all this, but sometimes we like to repeat ourselves! Sometimes we kill you with entries, some days you get none!

This is me feeding the birds that Brent was having a heart attack about his boat getting filthy just before the guests were arriving!

Our weary travelers had been traveling all day so cocktail hour was a welcome sight!

And who is this? Ah, I found a last picture from My Old Folks from St Marys!! This is the last cocktail hour and we all squeezed in together to share it!