bvi captains log blog

This morning we had a treat after breakfast, our certified divers got to do Grand Central, first time this season! Rich claims the entrance has shrunk, I suggested his belly had grown! The boys loved it! Here they are going in



Cloudy picture, but a cute one with them both smiling, I hope you are blowing your bubbles!



They saw a crab



They had a snack



My divers had a fabulous dive too, we saw lots of silversides, tarpon and a big old barracuda!

We were aiming for Norman Island for today, we set off and there wasn't a breathe of wind, so no sailing to be had! What to do...............



how about a game of jump off the boat at the front



Get caught at the back!



or hold on and have a ride! That passed an hour on happily!

Once at Norman it was more activity, some went for a dive



No sea horse this week, I did look, but we saw a lot of anenomies



A cute trunk fish



and something I haven't seen for a while, a little jaw fish



Some had a nap and the rest had a fabulous snorkel! After a kayak and cocktails, I hear a rumor that some are off for a night dive!

I understand that we are going to have another labor review board to revisit the labor act. Yes, this was just done a few years ago. Some of the ideas that are being bantered around are:
1) two week turnarounds for new permits!!!! 7 days for renewals and temporaries.
2) Long time work permit holders not being automatically renewed, instead the jobs being advertised for any qualified BVI Landers.
3) Doubling the staff and space at least in Labor and Immigration
4) Making new work permit holders attend a class so they know their rights and privileges in the country.
5) A revisitation of the lack of advance notice of new conditions that show up or disappear every year.
6) A look into the practice of many companies outsourcing their work permits as the Labor Board is hard to deal with.
7) Having help for the employer filling out the forms (although i have to admit that the two ladies who sit at the reception desk are usually quite helpful!)
Hiring a PR officer for Labor (yep, it could use that)

The most surprising thing I found out from this is how many work permit exemptions that have been given out! There has been a moratorium on them this year, but in several months prior, 700 were given!! Given out to people who have only been on work permit in the territory for a year or two. This is puzzling as many of us have been over a decade or two in the territory. Apparently they now have to be approved by cabinet instead of just the Labor Minister. I don't have enough information to say more that this now. We shall see what happens. We go through this every few years, and quite frankly, over the last decade, it may get easier for well connected, but we have found that it just gets harder and harder to jump through the hoops that we need to to hire people in the territory and it is downright discouraging at times.