bvi captains log blog

Yes, all the projects are coming together with breakneck speed now that we just have a day or two left....
The table is resined and looking good...



Dad has painted all the gates and Bazza has put all the pickets back on...



The never ending ROV project is about completed....

All its parts are together...

We looked like chinese coolies carrying it out to the driveway. I think I was just posing for the picture and letting them do the work! In my normal best going out wear of pajamas...

Now, the fun and games comes where EVERYTHING has to fit in the shipping crate. It is like a jigsaw puzzle.

And this is my favorite view. The lid is on, it looks neat and tidy and the last screw is going in. It may show up in Tortola in a few months, we have to get it picked up and taken over to Vancouver by delivery truck. Then it goes on a train down to the east coast. Then it goes by boat down to Tropical in Miami, it is unloaded and repacked into a container for Tortola. So, a few months may be optimistic! Not like we can do much any ways until after the upcoming charter season. Still amazes me how we spend so much time doing "projects" I have not even finished everything I wanted to do this summer with web sites yet and next Sunday at this time we will be on charter again.

For some odd reason my parents decided that I should play the accordion last night. Now, I have not played the accordion for about 38 years or so...It just tells you how much my parents made me practice when I was a child that i could still read the music! Had to puzzle it out a bit. It was kind of fun, although I do not remember my breasts getting caught in the bellows the last time I played it as it did last night!

My great aunt and uncle came down from Gabriola Island to spend the night and dinner. My mother made a really great Prime Rib Dinner to celebrate our last week here and we even ate in the dining room (no, I did not get out of my pajamas! That would have been pushing it)


And just in the interesting tidbits section, Government Information Services put this out....
"A meeting to discuss a proposed Road Town development will be Sept. 11. Water’s Edge at Wickham’s Cay II would be built at the current location of the Tortola Yacht Services boat yard, according to Government Information Services. It would include commercial offices; retail, luxury and middle-income residential facilities; and hotel space, encompassing a total area of 289,000 square feet. A 135,000-square-foot parking garage large enough to accommodate 400 vehicles also is proposed. The development is designed to "provide a mixed-use commercial community," according to GIS"

I shall have to remember to head to that and check out what is going on. I think we need public transportation more then we need a 400 car parking garage and high towers that will cut off the view of the ocean more.

I only put up what we had open a couple days ago, but it is time to update it:
Jan 30th to Feb 6th (Friday to Friday)
Headboat (cabin only sailing) March 29th to April 4th 4 cabins open
April 4th to 11th (Saturday late afternoon through Saturday) Hold on Aug 19th
June 28th through July 5th

I cannot believe how clear the water is in the BVI! A lot of times in summer when the water gets warm, the visibility goes down...Looks like they fit a lot into their 24 hours!
I received an interesting email yesterday adding some information about the old ruins in Little Harbor on Peter Island. We always call them the old Chubb House. We have a photo gallery up here on it at Little Harbor pictures
"Brunai Bruce sounds alot like Brudenell-Bruce so I thought that was the mix up. My mother and her family built the house in the 40's and she has many wonderful photographs of them as children there in a little classroom etc...although her memories of the time are not so happy as it was isolated even with 3 brothers her own age and 2 younger sisters. My Grandfather wanted to escape the war in Europe and as he was not the oldest Brudenell-Bruce son he did not inherit Deene Park the family estate in England or the title so he came to Peter Island to make a fortune growing tobacco, although it didn't work out that way, he ended up moving to Tortola and become a politician, they made a stamp for him in the BVI recently."
I have a bit of editing to do on that page!
Also heard from someone today that there are now TWO docks at Money Bay at Norman Island. I am not sure whether I want to go see it, I might cry!! One of the crew off the yacht Stenella took these great pictures again, I understand in Little Harbor on Peter Island. They are great pictures! She is a good photographer!!





And one more picture, i don't know if I put this up a couple months ago or not, (my filing system on what i have put up on the blog is not always that organized believe me, so forgive me when I repeat myself! This is a picture that i took off Bert Kilbrides site about the time he passed on, and it kind of goes along with the pictures Lisa put up on the last blog entry about the wreck of the RMS Rhone, as this was taken back in the late 60's (before it was a National Park!) of Bert Kilbride and crew anchored on the wreck salvaging MANY MANY bottles! I am jealous!!

Putting those up made me feel better about getting the news about two docks now in Money Bay!!! I see that Tropical Storm Fay is pouring rain on some of our favorite guests from St Marys Georgia, right on the border! Hopefully the couple that will be on the boat next week will make it. They always worry about us down here in the summer and hurricanes, now we are watching their area instead.
Now on to the boring family stuff that most people will be bored with! It is raining on Vancouver Island. It has rained it seems for a few days. We are almost getting out the winter coats! The work projects still go on though! It is no different up here then it is when Bazza is on the boat. Always have fixing projects going on no matter what! We have now moved on to fixing steps and railings

First things looked like this around the house, as I think my parents felt guilty watching Bazza work so they figured they would sit and watch him and keep him company!

Well he soon fixed their little red wagon, and as he hates painting put them to work!

Now to say that my fathers tools (that my mother keeps on buying him for Xmas thinking he really likes, and he has about as much interest as me) are not that well used would be an understatement. We keep on teasing him as the sander here you still have to feed the paper in the ends! Even I know that sanders come with velcro on the pads in the last decade or two! He has picked up the paint brush though, and it is a man in action. Apparently he paints like me though and there is more paint on the parts there is not supposed to be on...

While all this excitement is going on, my mothers table project is coming along as well....



I think she has made up her mind for the billionth time where all these shells etc are going and the next step is to get the resin on. On his head if he messes it up! She spent hours hairspraying all those sand particles so they would stay down.

Another case here below of pictures I have maybe put on the blog, but they are in the "to do" folder, so.... up they go again! Both taken by our friend Janice on her trip to South Carolina. I think I will just use everyone else's pictures they do such a great job instead of mine!



I really have to stop using exclamation marks in my posts. I believe we have shipped just about another continent of "things" down to the boat for the new season, I am not sure how we can always be replacing so much.

I received this through one of our yacht associations today, and had heard about it last week as well. Apparently they will be clearing all liveaboards out of a few more popular anchorages.
"If you have not heard, (and it has not been publicized) the DPR is planning to remove all live aboards in Christmas Cove, secret Harbor and false Entrance starting October 1st.
They have stated that they will issue overnight charter moorings at Christmas Cove but so far do not have a plan layed out as yet.
If you have comments about how this will effect your business, I encourage you to contact Linda Lore at The Source as soon as possible as she is editing a story today about these issues.
Please e-mail her at source@viaccess.net"

It does not effect us, as we never work out of the USVI that much, but many of the USVI charter boats traditionally used Christmas Cove as a first nights stop in between Charlotte Amalie and coming up to the BVI, or vice versa.
There had been controversy about the Leylon Sneed potentially anchoring at Christmas Cove on James Island awhile ago and it potentially turning into a party spot, but I question why this is happening, as Christmas Cove (which just got to be called that in recent times because all the off charter boats and some cruisers would have potluck Christmas dinner there) has been an anchorage for centuries, not just decades.
Stopping anchoring there now would not seem to be a "preserving the reef type thing" after centuries of anchoring I would think...Other forces at work?