bvi captains log blog

This is not confirmed, but I got some information tonight that said this
"Just hear some good news today from a realiable source who was attending the court hearings in St. Kitts a few days ago. He said the judges ruled in VIEC's favour and awarded costs to VIEC. I checked the Registrar's office, but they did not get a reply as yet. I guess the St. Lucia registry will soon send the ruling to Pump Court. Until then cheers and God's blessings on us all."

This was the case that the Virgin Islands Environmental Council brought against the developer and the BVI government about the development of a fisheries protected area called Hans Creek.

The developers had filed in court that the VIEC did not bring the case in time, so it was "time barred" In the spring it was ruled in favor of the VIEC and they were awarded costs from the developer. They appealed that decision, and it went to the appeals court in St Kitts this fall. The judge took awhile to hand down the decision, but if true it is very good news.
BEAR IN MIND that this does NOT mean that the VIEC has won the entire case, now it will go to trial, but all the money that had been raised so far to pay lawyers and costs, dollar by dollar, painstakingly in some cases, will now be able to put toward the trial and not all the roadblocks leading up to it. I understand that fund raising is still a crucial step. For those who don't know about this court case, you can read a lot more on the British Virgin Islands Heritage Conservation Group and Virgin Islands Environmental Council

There is no other updates on it as of yet. I will post if and when I know more.

One of my blog readers wrote me this today...
"I occasionally joke about not knowing what I want to do when I grow up (I'm in my mid-forties and have spent my entire career in retail -- first in store management, then buying, and now in planning and supply chain), but I think I've narrowed it down.
My first thought was it's time to open a store in the BVIs. But I'm thinking perhaps a job in government or banking, as it appears they do have to do anything but say "Come back later".
Decisions... decisions..."

So who is ready to hear todays reason why it has now taken 46 days (and counting) to get a twelve thousand CD released that was held against a $229.00 Visa bill?? I think I have decided that what is happening now is that i am shooting myself in the foot and they are actually reading my blog going "we will get you!" I think the anonymous charter captains blog went out the window a couple years ago.
We were supposed to get a phone call today when the fax/signature came through right? Well, by after 1 no phone call, so I took the bull by the horns and decided I would phone as opposed to spending another two hours sitting in the bank. I was pleased when the woman I was dealing with two days ago answered the phone. That quickly dissipated though when I realized I had made the mistake of sending Bazza in yesterday and now this lady who I have dealt with (and sits right next to the OTHER lady, and was the one QUESTIONING whether Bazza could close it) has washed her hands of the matter and said, "I don't know, it was done yesterday with your husband and faxes went back and forth" I corrected that no, apparently we now needed a magic fax signature, but wait for this, cuz you know what is coming don't you???? Or do you???

The other girl is OUT TO LUNCH and she will get her to call me when she comes back. (which she never did...call that is, I have no idea if she came back from lunch, there seems to be a tendency on island for people not to come back from lunch, so who knows!) At this point the week seemed long, and we bowed our head and have given up until later on next week. Perhaps the bank does not have enough money on hand to give me my measly twelve thousand dollars? Is that possible?? No, I don't think so, I think they read my blog and are fooling with me now.
Probably next week if it is still not happening i will have to throw all caution to the wind and make an appointment with the manager. Maybe he can also find my business checks that I have not been able to find out about for a couple weeks either.

Just to cap off the fun filled banking day, my clearinghouse went to put a deposit check in the Scotia Bank for me in St Thomas. Yep, the same bank that "lost" a large deposit sometime between St Thomas and Tortola this summer. They have my preprinted deposit slips, and I guess the teller did not want to accept the deposit. Not knowing what to do with it! I believe my clearinghouse had to finally go see a customer service rep and tell them to train their tellers, that the check had to go over to Tortola (don't we have computers in the banking industry here yet? It would appear from my latest experiences that perhaps we do not yet, and they are sitting in a back office with pencil and paper and an abacus maybe!) They cautioned me that I would want to stay on top of it and check and make sure the check actually gets here next week. Great. You can probably imagine how that made my day!

Did I mention that I was actually very excited about going back on charter? Wouldn't you be?? I know I have talked about the saga of the fairy lights for the cockpit and their costs this week. Well three days later I believe, the job is finally done! I think they have been up and down about 4 times. Every time I went upstairs one of the guys was clipping up new fairy lights (you really did not expect them all to work right out of the box did you???)
They are up now, I don't care if they give off purple, pink, green or no light! They are staying!!

Imagine my surprise when I went down to the office in the ama and saw a picture that looked very much like a lot of pictures that I have taken in the Lion! Apparently the office is a bazza electronic shop now! (He will show me for not letting him put the ROV on the boat now!)

But on the up side, we also have satellite radio "sort of" when the satellites pass over for the right time periods and the boat is at anchor and not moving anyways...at least it had the right channel on! The new country station...(Probably all our guests will soon find the "all Jimmy Buffett station, all Margaritaville all the time channel though!"

As I told you this week I made the rounds of all the grocery stores, trying to figure out my best bet for provisioning. The one I chose, I went into yesterday afternoon, looked over all their shelves and coolers to see exactly what was there and then sat down with them and gave them a list. I was sure that I had won one of the games this week and i would get everything on my order, as after all, I sat and looked at it all just before they closed yesterday...No such luck!
Did I mention that I was looking forward to going on charter this weekend? This group is practically celebrities now they have been on the boat so many times. Always right over the election period and the numbers were always 8 Republicans to 2 Democrats, with the 2 democrats grumbling about years of hell every time, so I was actually looking forward to the fireworks this Tuesday only to have them tell me on the phone that SOME OF THE DIE HEART Republicans switched their vote in the advance polling this year. They just could not bring themselves to go Republican. I am not sure about what that says about the election over all, but I am looking forward to Tuesday anyways. Although I wonder what we will be able to replace it with as a soap opera for the next couple years....
Anyways, this almost celebrity group of mine now, had their picture from last time in Lats and Atts Magazine this winter when we had Michael Bean play on the boat (sorry, don't expect him next week!)

And they also had this picture in the BVI Yacht Guide this past August. I expect no less from them then Caribbean Travel and Life or Newsweek this year!


OK, I feel better I ranted enough here (I can't believe anyone reads this drivel besides my mother, but apparently, people do!) Time to go put a show on TV..and I downloaded Survivor last night, so tonights feature is Prison Break and Survivor! Big night for pathetic Bazza and I!

Well here I sit at Immigration again. The promised work permit renewal is not ready, and the person who deals with it is "at lunch" I seem to get more than my proportional share of "people at lunch" when I go to the government departments! This is what, trip, 32 into these departments for a simple renewal?

Then I get to go back to the bank for the promised release of the hold on my CD. Maybe. They said it would not take more then 48 hours, but they also said they would phone so.....I will go into these places and sit while I still have the time.

Look at these nice sheep walking down the road! They are so cute.


Apparently I almost have a SIRUIS satellite Radio installed on the boat now! We shall see how that works. I look around the boat and i cannot see too much more that we could possibly do this maintenance period. One of the brokers today was telling me that bareboat cancellations were up this season, I did not realize that they treated reservations more like Hotel rooms where there was not too much penalty for cancelling. He also said that with some of the prices coming down on the larger boats, he is seeing people book charters and bring their private jets down. Seems like a good plan to me! I see some good bookings in the larger boats this winter, although it seems a bit slow on the very large and very small boats.
We are supposed to have some weather over the next few days, all hopefully gone by the time we pick up charter on Sunday.

My parents were in San Francisco and sent me this picture of a "neat boat" they did not know much about it, of course, we immediately recognized it as the Maltese Falcon, largest and most expensive sailing yacht in the world. Good nice close picture as well!


I am now finishing this off in the evening. My husband went back to see the gentleman who was dealing with it after his lunch, and they said he was still at lunch to come back, so he went away twice to finally get back and they said he had to go to a meeting directly after lunch, so no seeing him today. I guess we will work on 33 trips into the department. I did overhear the girl at the desk saying the Immigration Minister was off island last week and although back this week, she has not had "time" to sign any. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have someone else sign them as well. Probably a silly idea!

Sent Bazza to the bank as I sat in Immigration for hours, and then he got to sit there for hours, and when it was finally his turn to find out about releasing the hold on this CD (the promised, just waiting for an email it will be done within 48 hours) she first of all told him that he could not collapse it that I had to. He informed them that it was joint so he could definitely collapse it. Then they asked whether I was the principal or he was on it (good thing they are watching out for my money their Lisa (you know who it was) and Bazza said it was joint, which means 50/50 in his books. Then after phone calls back and forth, we apparently had to wait for a fax authorizing the release, which 2 hours of sitting in the bank was supposed to be there any minute...but wait!! The PERSON WHO HAS TO SIGN THE FAX IS "out" so nope, no closing down that CD today either! (next time will be trip 6....) and so it goes on Tortola.

We were told by a reliable source this afternoon that the lawsuit in between Oil Nut Bay former owners and Victor International (owners of Biras Creek) was settled and Victor International does own it now. Have not been up there to see yet if development has started back up, but I do understand that the same company is putting in a deep water mega yacht marina in between Biras Creek and Gun Creek. First time I have heard of that.

We stopped by customs wharf this afternoon at the light store, and while Bazza went in, I stayed in my icy cold air conditioning. Funny the things you never notice when you pass them by all the time, but this old roller was parked (and has been for a long time) right on the side of the road and look at the clever way we are incorporating these old broken down bits of equipment into garbage bins? I wonder what the pick up schedule is.


Bazza said he spied a little A/C and Refridgeration place there that he had never seen before and it is one business he can never understand how they do not make a billion dollars and stay on business on island. We always thought that if we were going to open a business on land that may be it, so in he goes to check it out and recognizes the women. She used to work at Romansco...until they went out of business, and then at A&B Air conditioning...until they went away.... so she said the same thing that she figured she might as well do it herself. Only been open for a few weeks, but it is something we need.

That is it for the day, went to Pussers in Roadtown for dinner (ah, the glory of a vehicle!) and there was a cackling gaggle of geese (female) from the cruise ship sitting at the bar, cackling very loudly! The echoes in that place are always bad...Gulped our burger down and made our daily swing by Riteway to see what we could maybe find in date in the dairy department! After looking carefully we came out with a few well hoarded in date provisions, so things are looking up there. At least I can look now, as opposed to having to settle for whatever they sent me when I did not have a vehicle...

The ups and down of pre charter life...On the way up today, thinking that there just may be a chance that we will be ready this weekend (except for figuring out what to feed the guests!) Only feeling on the up as we had Dora in to do the rooms. She has done rooms for us off and on over the years, but would never come out to a mooring to clean them, (scared to death of the water! Go figure!) but now that we are on dock again...she will be a busy girl!
The guys may find this a boring entry, but the girls will like it. These are some nice love birds in the aft of the yacht...

And one of the Ama's

The two king sized rooms in the aft



The one thing I don't get is notice in the head, there is folded toilet paper to make a fan on the toilet roll, on the kleenex box AND on the spare roll of toilet paper! How many toilet roll decorations does one head need! The rooms look way better then when I do them anyways....Lisa will also appreciate them.

The guys have also hired an outside cleaner, to do the decks today, so it will soon be us drinking pina coladas on the back deck watching them all!!!
Even our Saloon is starting to look better...

and this is the cleanest I have seen this side for months! Bazza almost has all his stuff away...


Being on dock again though we have to be concerned about security. We now have two security cameras and a movement sensor on the decks. I wonder how many times we will set it off ourselves! So, don't try to get on Promenade!!! We have done our security bit for the moment as the police are urging everyone to do!

And for the continuing saga on the car and air conditioning (no, you did not think that was fixed yet did you?) well the A/C is blazing cold because Bazza fixed it himself finally, and he is working on the electrical problem as well.

Forget I said yesterday that we were looking pretty good for charter! There seems to be more things going ON the TO DO list then coming off the to do list. All the little things you don't think about when you don't have guests on board, like, do all the fans in the cabins work? (they don't), Do all the shower pump bilges work? (they don't) and where exactly is that holding tank odor coming from every time someone flushes? (yep, a line to the poo tank!)
You get the idea anyways, all the things that need fixing when we look at the boat as a guest instead of as our home. Bleach is my best friend at the moment!
I am amazed at the different things I see by moving to a different part of the island. On our mooring in Roadtown we have the squawking parrot up above and booby birds. Bazza called me out today to look at the Oyster Catchers that were sitting (one per pole) on each and every one.

He suggested that they were hanging around looking for food, so I dutifully brought out bread only to have them turn up their pretty little noses! Guess they wanted oysters!

I was feeling a bit of cabin fever so after lunch Bazza and I went to town. You know that list we have to redo in town every few days? Off we went....After 6 weeks I have succeeded in FINALLY having my credit card from First Caribbean closed, but only once I sat in customer service for a long time and then on hold to Barbados. Don't think though that they released the hold that was on one of my CD's though as it was paid off!! Not yet me boy! Don't you be getting ahead here! They could not do it from a verbal ok from Barbados that the credit card was paid (of course not!) we did get an email through acknowledging that the credit card was paid, and they would turn it over to support for them to issue an official authorization to release the hold....Go to come back again. Since it was such a small amount that was owing on the card, I wanted really to put the money in her hand to cover it and say they really did not need to hold my large CD any longer to cover that small amount.
Went to get prescription refills for both of us old folks! This usually entails going to about three pharmacies and still coming up short. This time was no different. They appear to have a real shortage of Crestor on island. It has been like an Easter Egg hunt since we came back in August trying to get some every month! Even when I come back in a couple weeks cuz they tell me they will have more in then, it appears every other person on the island is also easter egg hunting for crestor and they buy it out just before me. A couple thoughts, isn't it bad to stop and start taking this medications?. I know that i have taken Zoloft for many years and occasionally they don't have any of that on island and that is not good to stop and start cold turkey. Me being business minded would think, "well everyone on island seems to be on these medications, let me order in double, triple or whatever so I have enough and then when all the other pharmacies run out, I will get all the business!" Makes sense to me, but I am not a pharmacy owner here and apparently it does not make sense to them. Go to come back....
We went by our cinema. You know the one, that has been going up for many many years. I really think that cinemas will be passe by the time it is finally open. In fact, looking at it today, I thought a couple things
1) that they would have to repaint it before it opened as the paint was starting to fade...

And while they were still building up on top here, at the bottom level they had all the cement from the steps and around the entrance chipped out so they must be doing maintenance already!

Then we went to a few stores. And fell over at some of the prices! I usually don't notice prices, but there was a few outstanding ones.
1) A tube of toothpaste was $7.00
2) Tube lights (you know the strands you use for fairy lights that are often used at Xmas and are about $10 to $20.00 a strand? Well they were $40.00 here.
3) A tractor sealed beam light that we buy in Walmart for about $9.00 was $15.00 in one place which was not bad then, but in another one of the chandleries it was $48.00!!!!!!!!!
4) and let me not forget the flag! Once a year, about this time we buy a new flag for the aft of the yacht. Always at the same place. When we first started buying flags here, it was about $80.00 for a very large flag, then the price of that went up atrociously, so we stepped down a size which started at about $60.00 odd dollars. Every year that flag has increased in price.
In 2006 it was $101.96
In 2007 it was $120.90
In 2008 it is $176.95!!!
Pays to keep books sometimes. I know shipping costs cannot be that much more, after all, it must weigh all of what, 2 ounces?? I hesitated for a sec wondering if I really did want a shiny new flag even if it looks nice. I could not believe the price jump. I have visions of someone sitting in the back woods of Tortola weaving this material on a hand loom (after shearing the sheep and making the yarn of course!) and using roots and herbs for colorings and that is why it is so much money.
I went to all the main grocery stores, trying to give them a once over seeing who I was going to be using for provisions this year. In other words, what was my best bet of actually getting half decent looking fruits and veg and other items that are in date? I have to tell my guests coming on this weekend that it is not looking good! There was not one that I thought, "ok, this will do it, they have most everything" I picked up items that were out of date by two months!! We came back to the pretty sunset tonight at the boat and were going to try out the restaurant across the road, Emiles, but it is not open yet, so frozen pizza it was.