Wednesday, October 22. 2008
Road Harbor, Tortola
After being fairly unsuccessful with our shopping in St thomas and spending a lot of time in traffic we managed to escape this morning:)
We took off from underneath the wall of steel that are the cruise ships.
We had a new "whipping boy" as Captain Jay said who apparently tied up in Crown bay as we were getting off the fuel dock the other day after the fun tasks of shuffling boats back from Puerto Rico without a bimini on them. We read each others blogs, (see theirs here on life in the USVI) but I never even recognized him on the boat. I did like the fact he told me that now I could go back to the important jobs of mixing drinks and diving though!!! Simeon did not think this standing still for pictures was a great idea though!
Up we merrily chugged to Road Harbor and now we are back in our comfort zone. Time for a quick sweep of the harbor here to see what boats are in. They have moved the "potential new dive site wreck" off the dock and it is now anchored by us. Maybe it is a fixer upper home?
The old SCUBA BOB boat or whatever it used to be called (where you put on those silly looked like exercise bicylces with an round aquarium on top your head and went 6 feet under the water) is now anchored behind us now. Don't know who is doing what with it....
We had a cruise ship in quite late this evening.
and surprisingly, the diesel/gas ship was in and I say surprisingly since it was just a couple days ago in BVI News I read a spokesmen for a gas importer here saying the island would get new fuel in a few weeks and then we would hopefully see a bit of relief from the prices, but if we have new gas now shouldn't we see relief this week??? (Dream on Kerry!)
A lot of people St John way were interested in the bit I had put up on using the secured docks on St John for SOLAS boats yesterday. I should clarify that I copied an email that came around from one of the boats, and that is there take on it. I don't know enough about their regulations over their to complain too much about them, but if I did, you can be sure i would!!
Found this picture on my computer, thought it was cute. This was the day after the hurricane when the awning was still down and I made very good use of all my extra clothes lines!!! Came in quite handy. Not often I put a picture of our underwear up on the blog (I know, most are saying, please, can they go back on charter so we get some interesting pictures....I agree!)
promenade has a new home!
Well, we have our city "home" with our moorings in Baughers Bay at Roadtown, we have our country "home" over at my favorite place in the world "Salt Island" and now we have a brand new marina "home" for ease of turning around the yacht for charters!
We have moved onto the T head at Harborview Marina in the East End of Tortola. Harbourview Marina is in Fat Hogs Bay and you can see their website here. This has many advantages for us, especially for us old folks turning around the boat! (Did I just say that?) Bazza has a large workshop and storage at the end of the dock, so we do not have to hump everything up stairs to the lockers. We will have a spot to leave guest luggage. We will have a dock that we can get indoor and outdoor cleaners to clean the boat on turnaround (as noone would get in a dinghy to come out to a mooring to clean the boat! Scared of the water!!) We can get all our provisions dropped off right at our side. No more trying to coordinate a time to meet the provisioners (that never show up at the appointed time anyways). We have fuel right there, water, high speed internet, eventually cable (once we put it in!) a chinese restaurant, a pizza restaurant, washing machines, a little swimming pool, and reasonable priced accommodations right there as well. We will be able to keep our credit card machine plugged in at the dock side office (we need a land line for it, so everytime I had to run a credit card I would have to take it to shore the whole kit and find a place to plug in. Not very convenient!
The marina is close to the airport and we now have a vehicle for trips into town. I am sure I have more reasons but I am tired tonight so that will have to cover it!
Since we have picked up in Roadtown for so many years, many of our guests have already made arrangements to stay over at Village Cay, and that is fine, we will pick up the groups there that like, but those who have not booked hotel rooms yet, or prefer to just step on the boat from the dock will be able to meet us at East End! We are quite excited about trying this out this winter and seeing how it works out! My favorite part may be being under a good chinese restaurant (as there is a few on island that I would not go near!) The worse part of it was my sentence "Bazza has a workshop" I don't really need to get him any more things that MIGHT encourage more work, be it for the boat or his projects!
2 other bits before I sign off tonight, found this PDF somewhere, it is a report on Anegada from Caribbean Archaeology in 2003.
Also here is a pamphlet I picked up somewhere recently on Recreational Fishing in the BVI. I would not take it as gospel though as I know that one of the areas that is "supposed" to be protected there is talk of dredging and filling in....here is the link for that.
We took off from underneath the wall of steel that are the cruise ships.
We had a new "whipping boy" as Captain Jay said who apparently tied up in Crown bay as we were getting off the fuel dock the other day after the fun tasks of shuffling boats back from Puerto Rico without a bimini on them. We read each others blogs, (see theirs here on life in the USVI) but I never even recognized him on the boat. I did like the fact he told me that now I could go back to the important jobs of mixing drinks and diving though!!! Simeon did not think this standing still for pictures was a great idea though!
Up we merrily chugged to Road Harbor and now we are back in our comfort zone. Time for a quick sweep of the harbor here to see what boats are in. They have moved the "potential new dive site wreck" off the dock and it is now anchored by us. Maybe it is a fixer upper home?
The old SCUBA BOB boat or whatever it used to be called (where you put on those silly looked like exercise bicylces with an round aquarium on top your head and went 6 feet under the water) is now anchored behind us now. Don't know who is doing what with it....
We had a cruise ship in quite late this evening.
and surprisingly, the diesel/gas ship was in and I say surprisingly since it was just a couple days ago in BVI News I read a spokesmen for a gas importer here saying the island would get new fuel in a few weeks and then we would hopefully see a bit of relief from the prices, but if we have new gas now shouldn't we see relief this week??? (Dream on Kerry!)
A lot of people St John way were interested in the bit I had put up on using the secured docks on St John for SOLAS boats yesterday. I should clarify that I copied an email that came around from one of the boats, and that is there take on it. I don't know enough about their regulations over their to complain too much about them, but if I did, you can be sure i would!!
Found this picture on my computer, thought it was cute. This was the day after the hurricane when the awning was still down and I made very good use of all my extra clothes lines!!! Came in quite handy. Not often I put a picture of our underwear up on the blog (I know, most are saying, please, can they go back on charter so we get some interesting pictures....I agree!)
promenade has a new home!
Well, we have our city "home" with our moorings in Baughers Bay at Roadtown, we have our country "home" over at my favorite place in the world "Salt Island" and now we have a brand new marina "home" for ease of turning around the yacht for charters!
We have moved onto the T head at Harborview Marina in the East End of Tortola. Harbourview Marina is in Fat Hogs Bay and you can see their website here. This has many advantages for us, especially for us old folks turning around the boat! (Did I just say that?) Bazza has a large workshop and storage at the end of the dock, so we do not have to hump everything up stairs to the lockers. We will have a spot to leave guest luggage. We will have a dock that we can get indoor and outdoor cleaners to clean the boat on turnaround (as noone would get in a dinghy to come out to a mooring to clean the boat! Scared of the water!!) We can get all our provisions dropped off right at our side. No more trying to coordinate a time to meet the provisioners (that never show up at the appointed time anyways). We have fuel right there, water, high speed internet, eventually cable (once we put it in!) a chinese restaurant, a pizza restaurant, washing machines, a little swimming pool, and reasonable priced accommodations right there as well. We will be able to keep our credit card machine plugged in at the dock side office (we need a land line for it, so everytime I had to run a credit card I would have to take it to shore the whole kit and find a place to plug in. Not very convenient!
The marina is close to the airport and we now have a vehicle for trips into town. I am sure I have more reasons but I am tired tonight so that will have to cover it!
Since we have picked up in Roadtown for so many years, many of our guests have already made arrangements to stay over at Village Cay, and that is fine, we will pick up the groups there that like, but those who have not booked hotel rooms yet, or prefer to just step on the boat from the dock will be able to meet us at East End! We are quite excited about trying this out this winter and seeing how it works out! My favorite part may be being under a good chinese restaurant (as there is a few on island that I would not go near!) The worse part of it was my sentence "Bazza has a workshop" I don't really need to get him any more things that MIGHT encourage more work, be it for the boat or his projects!
2 other bits before I sign off tonight, found this PDF somewhere, it is a report on Anegada from Caribbean Archaeology in 2003.
Also here is a pamphlet I picked up somewhere recently on Recreational Fishing in the BVI. I would not take it as gospel though as I know that one of the areas that is "supposed" to be protected there is talk of dredging and filling in....here is the link for that.
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