bvi captains log blog

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!

Lets start this off by saying that I am now in San Francisco after another day of hell traveling on AA. Those who follow my blogs will remember that I vowed after our last horrible flight that I was going to use all my points and try to avoid in future. I don't know which airline I expect to fly on to Tortola, but that is beside the point!
Our return flights to San Francisco had cost us 120,000 points each I believe to go mostly first class. Yep, really sucked down the FF points.
Our routing was EIS to SJU to MIA to SFO. We arrived for our civilized 130 flight out of Beef way earlier then we needed. I thought it was kind of weird checking in as she asked me several time if we were on the 130 flight. I eventually made a comment to her to the effect that she was scaring me by keep on asking me that and what was I missing? She assured me nothing. We paid our departure taxes, had lunch at the little restaurant there that had some great (but spicy!) chicken, and watched the AA flight to SJU before ours depart. About this time they start informing us that our flight to SJU was delayed. I know, you are surprised! We realized that the girl MUST have known that our flight was delayed when checking in!
They told us we would miss our San Juan to Miami connection so they took away our boarding passes for the rest of our flights, and said we really had no options for first class to check when we got to San Juan. Got to San Juan it was pouring rain, and i mean pouring! Totally soaked. Had to do the Immigration and Customs thing and then go to a service center. It turns out the flight to Miami was delayed, so we could have made it with minutes to spare, as when we were going through security they kept on bumping up the Miami people to the front to get them on the plane. Everything was full as it was Memorial weekend. She had us rush to get our bags back on a different flight, made a flight to Dallas with two minutes before they closed the gate. Of course it was in economy. I never had time to go to the bathroom in between never mind get a bottle of water for the long hike.
We were told in Dallas they would put us up overnight and we had boarding passes for the first flight to San Francisco in the AM, but only one in first class, Bazza (of course) in economy.
Got to Dallas, went to the service desk out of the air plane and they said, the last flight to San Francisco has not left yet, but it is leaving from a different terminal and you have to go NOW. He just took our boarding passes this time and made us run telling us he would put through a request to the gate while we were on our way. Ran through another airport without any food or water, got to the plane and we were in the last two seats on the plane. You got it, not together and in economy! No food served on this flight. I just zoned out I was so disgusted.
The biggest surprise of all was our bags were in San Francisco. Now, how they could move faster then we could run I don't know. BUT they had gotten totally soaked in San Juan and the cartons of cigarettes I bought my mother had dissolved all over the suitcase!
Woo Hoo.
Got to the San Francisco airport and my sisters place is an hour away from there, and we had not made hotel arrangements yet as of course, we did not know where we were going to be. Got up to the subway system to take the BART out to where she lives and the last one had just quit running. Paid $150.00 for a cab fare out to a hotel near her house, as I decided I would rather do that then find one by the airport, hump all our stuff over and then hump back to the airport in the AM to get the transportation.
So the moral of the story is, even when you use up all your points to get the high end (??) first class service, it was horrible.
A few other comments worth mentioning. With fuel prices they are really skimping on using fuel for A/C and that. We boiled on the ground in every airport we were in and it was not much better in the sky either. On the large runways we noticed they are not using the reverse thrust when you land, which saves fuel, but Bazza says it will use the brakes much faster. From talking to the agents, if you miss a connection at the beginning of your flight, with less flights and then running full, it will really make it harder to find other seats.
I don't know the answer, but you have my thoughts on flying once again.
There was an interesting comment on TTOL from the owner of South Sound Villa on Virgin Gorda, South Sound Villa who was looking into booking flights down here in October. The link is above and what he said was this:
Just checked the cost of flying from JFK to STT vs EIS
Oct 7 and return Oct 29
JFK to STT r/t $363 + $60 for baggage both ways based on 2 bags going down and 1 bag coming back (Combined bags on return)
STT to Ferry Terminal Taxi About $24 r/t
Roadtown Fast ferry to Roadtown $50 r/t
Total of $497 total to get to Roadtown

Compared to $645 JFK to SJU to EIS on AA
No baggage fees for this trip.
So the difference is about $150 extra to use EIS instead of STT and the ferry to Roadtown.
Bear in mind that you can no longer book a fare to SJU and then a continuing flight to EIS since you will have an enourous bill for baggage. I used to do that, since the separate flight costs was almost always way cheaper
Just checked JFK to SJU came out to $281 + $60 for baggage and SJU to EIS $363 + $60 baggage fee.
Note:
It costs much more to fly from SJU to EIS (About 100 miles) than JFK to SJU (About 1500 miles)
So it cost hundreds of dollars to fly SJU to EIS instead of SJU to STT. The distance in miles is about 15 miles difference between the two airports.
Seems like EIS airport is at a ridicuous disadvantage compared to STT. Not sure why.
By the way it costs $250 r/t to fly SJU to Virgin Gorda

I wish there was an easy way to figure out the air and what is best to do when coming down here, I can only say that every time is different on what is best. There are still some good options, but if and when you are coming on Promenade, tell me your flight thoughts so I can tell you what to watch for in potential pitfalls etc. I still am pushing the idea more of arriving on the yacht late afternoon and departing first thing in the morning to make it an easier travel schedule for guests. Now that they are charging for the first bag, and I am sure, to go along with that, going to start REALLY watching the carry on bags, It makes no sense to bring your own SCUBA gear on board, except if you have a favorite mask (forget the snorkel, we have good ones) and a computer if you are diving. I would also think to leave all the toiletries behind and make up etc etc. More benefits of going out on a casual yacht!

I have more to comment on, but I have exactly 57 emails in my inbox that have to have something done with. So, later. I have been mulling over addressing an issue that I have had crop up several times with me writing the blog. That issue is when I say anything the least bit critical or "insider" like on this industry I am in, I get blasted from people in the industry who think I am the wicked witch of the west. My standard reply has always been, I am not the tourist board, if we are only here to tell untruths to "hide" anything negative then it is dishonest.
I am going to stop right there and continue later.

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!

I think there is strong magnets that pull this boat into the mangroves as soon as it has a day off charter! Then we get the sweet sound of grinders and the crew running around looking for old coffee cans to put paint in! The cocktail table upstairs immediately makes its way to the saloon for the computer table and quite frankly, there is stuff everywhere!
I have a lot of pictures and scanning to do from the last few days boat show, so that is on my agenda for the day (or should I say week!) a lot of website updates!
We went out for dinner with ALL the family last night!
Richard and Lisa started by saying they were going out with friends, B was supposed to be going out with friends, but apparently they got drunk and passed out so he decided to go along with them as a third wheel, and then I thought "Peg Legs" Sunday Night. Roast Beef. Yummy. and the other 4 of us horn in as well. We all piled into the dinghy and we were there about 830, only to be told that kitchen was already closed and they were trying to clean fryers! They nicely accomodated us though with a few items from the menu, Lasagnes, cottage pie, chicken and mushroom pie and roti's with salad! It was all quite good. Just at the end, the power went off, and then we were told we would have to leave as they were not staying around there in the dark with money in case they were robbed. Makes sense, I thought they were stolen from once not that long ago!
Here is my oldest son Chad and his girlfriend Christina. Still good looking kids! Somebody said that Chad had the exact same family features as we, poor Chad! Looks like a menopausal, middle age fat white lady!


I put up some comments and pictures of the boat show over on our charter boat blog that I won't repeat here, but for those who are interested, the link is

More from me later! Happy Monday...