British Virgin Islands

I was feeling particularly lazy this morning, not to add, blessed as Bazza had a town day planned and I was able to stay at Salt Island. I meandered, I thought about going back to to sleep, I brought my book out...but I kept on hearing water running. I looked a couple times, but did not see anything, and finally decided to look into the laundry bin!
This is not a good sight to see inside your boat!

This was shortly after Bazza went to town, so I phoned him in a panic (I use to have pathetic maintenance skills, since I have had Bazza in my life they are just non existent) He calmly asked me if it was salt or fresh and told me to turn off the water pump. DDDUUHHH. Then he told me the front bilge pump would pump it out, but the fuse went on that, and my non existent skills could not even tell you what a boat fuse looks like, never mind where it was, so it was back to the old "pump and dump" method!
This took several hours by the time I did this, cleaned up and sorted out all the soaking wet sheets and stuff in the bin.
So much for laziness! So, I went for a snorkel and a SCUBA dive instead! That took a couple hours, but no pictures yet, as they are still on the camera. When I got back and looked at the news I watched the economy going even more into meltdown and decided that it was time for an early night (after providing running commentary to my husband while they were dissecting the financial crisis on the evening news!)
This is our sunset tonight at Salt Island!

And for those who have been waiting for news on the latest court hearing on Beef Island that the VIEC brought a suit against the developers and government on, here is a bit from someone who was in the court room. I don't understand it all, but I assume some of you might!
The court reserved judgment which means it will be a few weeks or months before we get the ruling.
The defendants (AG and Developer) asserted that our case is statute barred because the Public Authorities Protection Act says 2.(a) the action, prosecution or proceeding shall not lie or be instituted unless it commenced within six months next after the act ... complained of.
In their view the word "action" should be interpreted to mean only when the action encompasses the two parties and that the plaintiff (our) approach to the courts to get permission to bring a claim for judicial review did not fall in the definition of action because although it involved a judicial decision and engaged the judicial system, the defendant had no notice of its commencement. The consequence being that our application did not stop the clock and our claim form filed a month later was irretrievably out of time.
The defendants went around in this circle a few times but that's the gist of it.
When Farara (for the Developer) started his presentation, the President interrupted and said that they had had time to read ALL the skeleton arguments and materials and they did not need an extended presentation, only highlight those points he wanted to make sure their attention was drawn to. The Judges then circulated an excerpt from the interpretation section of the Supreme Court Act which defined the words being challenged and asked some him pointed questions. Farara conceeded that the application for permission fell within the meaning of the word "proceeding" but refused to accept that "proceeding" could be subsumed in the meaning of action within s.2(a) of the Public Authorities Act.
The judges noted with some humour that Farara's assertion that applications for judicial review should be given a new file number from the Registry when they were approved to go forward was not the practice in any Caribbean jurisdiction in which they served.
The AG's office sent a new senior crown counsel. It was her first time before the court of appeal.
Our legal teams remains optimistic that the ruling will be in our favour. Mr. Hockman in his presentation agreed that our case would fall within the definitions circulated by the bench.

So, I really cannot put that in plain words, except maybe to say that no decision yet, and there is still many miles and trials to go!

Al Gore has invented the first outboard to run on ice water!
Another silly picture that my husband found somewhere...Do they people actually boat?? Who would think an ice chest was a fuel tank?
We have had a wishy washy day, made our way back to Roadtown to look at a vehicle this morning, not quite what we want... If anyone on island is selling one, we are looking for a 4 door, 4 wheel drive, good air conditioning, something like a hard top jeep or suzuki vitara, that the seats will fold down to put things in. We are not looking for brand new, but definitely do not want an "island car" either! If you know of one, let us know.
We came into Road Harbor today and you could see clear to the bottom. It is a beautiful day, and the decks are actually hot to walk on! Since we went onto our mooring for the first time, I spied something a bit different at Baughers Bay.


Now I certainly hope that they are widening the sea wall and NOT recreating more land! That little beach is about the only one in Roadtown. A lot of people still go there to bathe, and a lot of baptisms are done there as well.


Our little dinghy, sad looking as it is, has become a bird magnet, with them all lined up on it.

Bazza was into Golden Hind and says the prices have really shot up now that there is no Island Marine on island. He saw the golf cart batteries we buy at Sams Club for $79.00 or so, that we just bought in St Maarten for about $125.00 were $300.00 in the chandlery here. He was looking for some shrink wrap and 4 tiny little pieces was $25.00 and he put it back down again!
We have a friend visiting on St John, plus we have parcels to pick up , Home Depot to hit, and all that, so we may head down that way this afternoon. See how far we get! You may not hear from me for a couple days! Tomorrow is my birthday so I may get all wild and crazy.

I received this email from Dear Miss Mermaid about my rant last night on my blog... (by the way I read your blog as well!)

"I read your blog about being stuck on hold for two hours at BVI rates. Well, you NEED to know about Skype.com nearly everyone in the BVI is using Skype.com to make phone calls all over the world. Even using skype to call a BVI number is far cheaper than using your cell phone.
Also, you can get interest access for around 49-69 a month unlimited with CCT, it just plugs into your laptop and off you go on the internet!"

Aaahhh, but we do have CCT "high speed" internet thingamadoodah, on the boat. Have for many years. Even though they advertise it as high speed, it is not fast enough to run SKYPE on very well. We have to take the darn laptop to town to a wireless and sit some where in the sun somewhere to use it. Some days that just gets old! Especially now when it is so hot and humid.
Time to leave Inner Harbor as all our intakes have gotten so much crap in them it keeps on tripping the air conditioning, and it is way too warm!
My husband had just came back from Boatphone this morning, as I had read everywhere about this NEW HIGH SPEED card, and that is exactly what it is..A new high speed card that will not give us any faster speed as their equipment cannot handle it. Apparently we are only getting about 10% of the capability of the card we have now. We mentioned to them that we thought they were lying in the advertising then, and they said "well not really, as we say a new high speed CARD (and they are selling you a card that has the CAPABILITY to go much faster, if the equipment only supported it).

We then went on too our second complaint that we were being charged $99.00 a month when new people are getting it for $49 to 69.99.... Well, we can get that too if we sign a new contract! What a great way to treat your loyal customers. I "guesstimate" that over the last 12 years we have given around a hundred thousand dollars to Boatphone, and we have paid for internet from the very first time they had a card. I don't have any problems with less money for contracts, I just laugh when the long term loyal customers have to hunt them down instead of them telling us about a new contract. It is not the 18 months contract thing, since we have been here this long, 18 months is neither here nor there. It is the attitude.

So you probably think that we signed right up for the lower contract price do you???? Ha! Even though the phone and internet card is IN MY PERSONAL AND BUSINESS NAME. I have to make an "appointment" cuz we are on a boat with "corporate" office to go in and sign the papers!! No lower rate until then!

I pay $99.00 a month for very slow data service here. How slow, well, at the APPLE store I can download an hour episode on Itunes in about 10 minutes. In my mothers driveway wirelessly hooked up with the house, it might take me an hour on a bad day for that same episode. Here in the BVI it can range anywhere from 17 hours to 37 hours for that one hour episode. Do we really consider this "high speed?" AND in that 37 hours it will drop the connection 23 times. This is in low season. Don't get me started on high season.

Does anyone know if there are better options for the boat in the BVI with the new cel phone companies??? (why do I doubt it....)

My problem this weekend was that on my ATT system, (which international plan on the data card, apparently gives you a whopping 100 MB a month, and my "overage" for three weeks in Canada was $9500.00!!) We have not been able to make them understand yet that noone in their right mind would pay that if they understand what they were getting, they would just pay a 5 year program data card in Canada for the few weeks and then throw it out! Cel phones are so good at twisting and turning things around so I never know what I have or do not have on my plans, then when you ask they start listing them all off, all the different plans and all the "depends on what plan you have"
I don't want depends, I want "look up my account and tell me what i am paying" Seems simple... And just before I step off my soapbox here, let me say that the person from ATT who was going to call my husband back in two mintues 16 hours ago has not called yet....
That is it, I am done, you can probably see the steam coming out of my ears..and this was just one of the many stops in Roadtown today. Going for a dive, going for a dive, Calm, Calm...UMMMM...UMMMM...meditate, breath deep, let it roll of shoulders and NO it is NOT funny!

On another note today I hear the commercial divers from Aquaventure here are about single handedly keeping the electricity working on island today as the intake pipes that have been failing for a long long time have failed and they are clearing to keep water going in. Forget about whether it is your day or not for electricity, just be thankful you have ANY (But don't forget to get that written permission to put in a generator)


And yes, my friend Rick, at the end of the day "the pleasure is worth the pain here"...just not today!

Yep, just to cap off our fishing stories this week, we did catch a Reef Shark. Surprised the boys managed to keep him on as he went under the boat, around the anchor and they also have the mooring poles out to keep the line away from the underside of the boat so he could not cut it! At one time we even heard the anchor coming up so they could untangle. This was Richard and Bazza, the guests all decided to watch from a safe distance!
The boys tried vailantly to take the hook out of his mouth before returning him to the water but he basically refused to open his mouth!

After awhile we just used gigantic bolt cutters to cut it very close and let him go. We don't use stainless hooks so they rust out in a few days. So, apparently fishing IS quite good in September! This was the last fish we dared catch tonight as the guests would have wanted something larger and we were not sure we wanted to see it! I think everyone was glad to hit the A/C in the cabins tonight!

For my mom, here is Baz in his shirt you bought him. Looks good!

We went from a ton of wind and rain to no wind at all today. Some weird swell, and the sailing was pathetic, but we had blue skies anyways!

After an epic shopping expedition at Sopers Hole we made our way over to the Bight, and they went to Willy T's for a brief while, and then it was over to Spyglass where everyone was ecstastic to jump in the water just to cool off! no wind equates to very warm! Bazza and I took the opportunity to jump in the water. This is always a pretty dive and snorkel quite shallow, the drop off bottom is quite unremarkable. We know, we have tried it many times! We did manage to find this nice little BurrFish who thought he was camouflaged so he just sat there and let me take pictures of him!

Here is a close up of his eye.

And a nice little filefish...we also saw a baby turtle, a lobster schools of blue tang and a nice large permit.

When we came up Richy had some victims, er guests, ready to go on the Banana Boat. We just went banana boating right in the channel and there was hardly a ripple. One of the men said it was not a good idea to do that with shorts that had no lining in them. I say no more!

We all pretended we were 18 tonight for a brief hour and played a cocktail game...

Dan and I won the grand prizes tonight! Barb won the game over all and a total of $24.00 to boot!

I was lucky and managed to get away with a banana shot and a baileys...good thing, my alcohol consumption is about nada for the summer.

The sky tonight in Benures Bay is really spectacular and an unusual color as well! The generator came on this evening thank gosh, so the inside of the yachts is starting to cool down! I wonder what fishing luck we will have tonight?

We feel like the "last charter boat standing" out here. Not too much activity around and it is sure nice in the anchorage as well!