family

The yacht filled up with diesel yesterday. The crew thought it was newsworthy enough to phone at 730 in the AM and tell us it was $5.70 a gallon at CSY Dock. Oh my Gosh! $2000.00 for something that potentially lasts 2 -3 weeks! I think a lot of boats in the BVI will be discovering the long lost art of sailing! It is just about $7.00 a gallon at Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor I understand. How quickly and how far can this all go up?
There has been a lot of queries on the new addendums to the Marine Ports Authority act. Basically what they are saying is that there has been a mechanism to collect harbor fees (whether you are in a harbor, marina, or indeed just checked into the territory) for many years, but it was never collected. They have now decided that they MUST collect it. Good plan! Although, the wording seems a bit ambiguous, and it definitely says that BVI registered boats are exempt, but not sure how and where it will be collected. As a BVI based, registered and licensed commercial vessel, we firmly support anything that could give us an edge over "foreign yachts" as we are beginning to feel like we are licensed and taxed up the ying yang. These fees they are implicating are fairly hefty, ie $1.00 per foot for the first day, $.075 per foot for the second day, but it would not take long before it would just be cheaper to pay the $200.00 fee for temporary importation into the country, for a foreign yacht, but perhaps this is on top of that!
Here is the PDF, if you can figure it out...
I guess while we are putting up paper, here is the link to the changes in the SCV Code (Small Commercial Vessels in the Caribbean)

My parents have had a cute little bird house with babies on their balcony that looked like they were about to fly away soon, so I thought I better get out my camera and take a picture! I am not sure that he was too impressed with me sticking my lens in his house!

It has been very cold here on the Island. Believe me, no air conditioning is needed at all! They, as well as every other place it appears, is putting in a mega yacht marina in the Inner Harbor. It is all on "First Nation Land" Here we are standing about where they are going to be putting it in yesterday morning!

We have been very busy and it is amazing how the time is going although I am not sure that i am accomplishing much...Bazza apparently was quite happy to be at my parents for the summer, as he has taken over the downstairs patio as well for his ROV project. It has gotten too large for the RV now!

We have had honeymooners on the boat a couple times, and we just found out why they were not back this year! Congrats Kim and Brendan! We will have future sailors!!

And one of our friends, Janice, who has been on the boat several times (as well as being a keen scrabble player on line with Lisa and I) just went diving in Key Largo, so I am taking the liberty to share a couple pictures of her trip there.
They saw a dolphin...

And I love this bird sitting on the balcony!

And I guess they have some pretty sunsets in Key Largo as well! Not as good as Lisa's from last night though!


We tried to take some family pictures of the 4 of this with the timer on my camera. This is what we looked like for a half an hour and never did get the time figured out! Have to go back and read the manual.

So we did get one with my dad, all three bellies sticking out anyways! This was on our way to the afternoon at the legion. Yes, we really do know how to live!