bvi captains log blog

The yachts is truly starting to look like it actually may be able to go on charter someday here! On second thought, perhaps not looking at this picture.

A lot of these things were on their way to making it down to the storage locker though, to go along with everything else they finished cleaning out of the storage locker today.
Bazza has another new toy on the boat! This is a side sonar so he can get a picture of whatever is up to 400 feet on either side of him. I am sure it will have a use, and I bet it will tie in with the ROV but what do I know!

Drum roll...This is our workshop and storage locker. It already looks like we have been there for years doesn't it? And this is after we threw out TONS of junk this summer! I had to get someone else to go down and take the pictures for me, as I don't think you will ever see me step foot in there! I ascertained that the only thing I was interested in in the locker was my case for my camera, and a couple old bottles. Good enough for me!

Some of you will recognize poking out of the right lower corner is Bazza's ROV. What you don't have a picture of is him whimpering and whining and talking in a baby voice today saying it was "lonely"
Please...I don't even get that much care and concern from him!

Have a new area to take sunset pictures of, this is over East End tonight.

And I liked this picture, the boat is Shiwari from Patouche Day Charters in the foreground.

I looked out in the channel today and realized that Salt Island looked closer from here and that made my heart beat quicker! Can't wait to go back over there next week with charter guests. Yes, we pick up on Sunday. This is a diagram of the different parts of the Wreck of the Rhone I found somewhere. I think it was probably done by George Marler originally, but who knows.

Other then that, I am attempting to finish up the rest of my web work in between Scrabble games with Lisa, who is apparently heading toward a trip across the ocean from the Canaries somewhere this weekend. She seems to be whining a bit that England is getting quite chilly!

Originally built as an earthen fort by the Dutch in either the late 16th or early 17th century. It was known by the Spanish Authorities in Puerto Rico as the Dojon, (which is where the english version called the "dungeon" comes from.)

It was in and out of disrepair in the 1600's and subsequently was named Fort Purcel after the Purcel Brothers who owned plantations there. Private money often had to rebuild the forts for protection apparently.
You can see ancient graffiti carved in the walls, dating from around the mid 1700's it is believed from the style of dress. Accurate details on the history of this fort/dungeon, including whether it was really ever used for holding prisoners is sketchy.

It is very overgrown, with a lot of garbage strewn around, but we found it a fascinating look back in time. You can certainly see different periods of building styles, and the entire flat area back in the bush there has many old foundations (perhaps 50 to 60) so at one time it was very substantial as a plantation. When we were there a couple of weeks ago (October of 2008) there were many survey markers throughout the bush.

I was very good at getting my allotted work done today though, and you can see more photos on the (correct link I hope!) slideshow I built

Just since I am putting this up, and I received some pictures from my mother, I will wander into the family theme here. It was my sisters 39th birthday again, I am always sad to not see her on her birthday as we are quite close. I first opened the pictures and thought "what is that pink thing my sister is wearing on her head?" as believe me, my sister does not wear pink things on her head! Lisa may, being a princess and all, but not Syd!

Then I saw this picture and if I was my sister I would probably shoot my mother for sending me this picture so it could go straight on the blog. I don't know whether my family has had way too much to drink or it is very late at night, but it is a BAD BAD picture (which of course I shared! What else do you think I would do with it!!)

This one at least, is presentable. I had cake and ice cream here in sympathy with you Syd for reaching 39!


One other silly thing that has crossed my mind today pertains to being on dock. When we first bought Promenade, it had been on dock in between at Hodges Creek. There were many rat traps in the pantry bins just waiting to be used. I wondered how in the world we could possibly need that many rat traps! And of course, I was not that thrilled about needing that many rat traps either!!!!
Fast forward 6 months, to our very first ever boat show, as we had bought the yacht at the end of May. The night before it started, we were finally finished cleaning and nervous as hell. Would we make a good impression? How would we stack up to the other boats? We had put all our money into this venture, and were quite anxious (Kerry even suggested that we should get shirts with epaulettes and was booed down. Anyone who has seen me in my nightgown most of the time would know that it never would have lasted!)
We were sitting up in the cockpit, firmly tied onto the end of B dock but what should jump on the boat and run over our feet and disappear into the port ama? yep, you guessed it...a big old rat! After we had finished screaming horrified, we got out every god damn one of those large traps and placed them all over the boat. Then could not sleep all night as I was worried that we would not find this rat and it would run over one of the mega brokers shoes or some thing, ruining our charter career before it even started!
The next morning. No rat in the traps. We reluctantly put them away, knowing that ruin was shortly facing us, BUT the rat was never seen again. He must have climbed off again at some time. Probably about the time we stopped screaming. I have never seen a rat since on the boat and the traps were thrown out many years ago! I have been wondering if being on dock again means that we could get these fine creatures again? There is a reason they call them rat lines! Maybe East End does not have any!!!

Now I have definitely blogged and worked enough and I have about a dozen games of SCRABBLE going on with Lisa on line that I must get to!

Thought that headline would get your attention!
As I always do things out of the norm somewhat, I wanted to share this on my blog. We have had the intention of selling Promenade sometime in the next 2-3 years, and were going to really start advertising it next fall. Of course, with this economy, who knows how quickly a yacht would sell. Additionally, with us changing our program next season so we do less charters on the boat, we thought that perhaps if someone wanted to carry on our very successful fully crewed charter business, that we should maybe be let it be known sooner then that.

We have no intention of leaving the British Virgin Islands, but would love to get an opportunity to work with some of the other ideas we have going on. Bazza thinks that he should be able to get a boat that would easily hold his ROV at one point, and I would probably like a boat without the "big flappy bits" as Lisa calls them. So, I have started a web page for selling the yacht, and you can see it at www.charteryachtsforsaleonline.com
If anyone is looking for a great boat or great boat and business, that has treated us very well, lets talk! I would love to sell it to a blog reader. Before every one emails me in a panic, don't worry, we are not going anywhere, and I am sure it will give me something else to blog about, the ins and outs of attempting to sell a yacht in the Caribbean. If the people who are looking to purchase something like this are anything like the resumes I get for crew most years, I should have some very good stories!

I am being very good today working on web sites. I thought I would be done all my web work two months before we went on charter this season, but it just has not happened. I am forcing myself to sit at this chair today and finish up one more page after the one below! I have put up a page with pictures and links for the Hotel at Harbour View Marina on our web page here
Their rooms rates are reasonable, (for Tortola!) topping out with taxes and various charges around $160.00 per night.

This is our only availability this season.
Headboat (cabin only sailing) March 29th to April 4th $3600.00 per two guests, one cabin. I still have several cabins open on this week.
April 5th to 11th (Sunday through Saturday) Up to 10 guests $16,000. This is over Easter, surprised this one is still open!

Our friends Sheila and Bob from Paradise Connections, sent along a picture of the boat that was bearing down on them in the lagoon at St Martin during Hurricane Omar and grounded right next to them! I would have looked out my little boat and been fairly scared to see that coming at me! (They did grab their papers and put their kitties in a carrier!!)

For some reason they said they giggled about us hand steering the boat after it knocked out our auto pilot. Funny I was not giggling, that is about the most boring task known to man on a boat in my opinion!
Today is engine room/generator maintenance on the good ship Promenade. I think the generator looks pretty clean myself, but Bazza says it is a couple day affair.

We tried the chinese food from here at the marina last night, it was good sized portions and not too bad. The Spring Rolls were very good! Not quite as good as our old Wok N Roll that was in Red Hook that we miss now, but I see it fitting into our turnaround dinner menu quite nicely!
It just started pouring these gigantic rain drops in East End and very heavy!

First rain I have seen for awhile. Not that I was missing it!

Even with it pouring buckets though the work must go on apparently

for those interested in these types of things, here is the breakdown of what Yacht Haven Marina in Charlotte Amalie is charging (us anyways)

Dockage: $1.60 per foot per night
Dry trash removal $5.00 per day
Security Surcharge $5.00 per day
Splitter Rental $15.00 per day
Electricity .50 per KWh
Electricity SURCHARGE .25 per KWH
We did not take on water so not sure what that is, the bill for two nights came to $374.00 and we received a $20.00 discount for being a VICL member, so about $353.00
Our Marina Bill in Puerto Del Rey in fajardo drastically increased this year. It was $2.70 a foot per night as opposed to $1.50.
Our friend Janice, just came back from diving on the Aggressor in the Galapagos. She is about exactly my age, so she did listen to me when I told her how COLD it would be in the water!

She, now like me, has a ton of very expensive dive gear that she will never use again. I keep on meaning to get around to putting mine up for sale on EBAY! So if anyone is going to the galapagos and is a petit Janice size or a not so petite Kerry size, we have very gently used wetsuits!!
She found a nice Frogfish there to take a picture of.

And look at this brand new little Sea Lion

I think I liked her pictures of the birds the most. I especially like the Blue Footed Boobie bird!







Janice, I look at this picture of you and all that goes through my head is the refrain "I am diver, hear me roar" I truly want to see you wearing this on Promenade next May!!!

Another friend of mine, geoffrey from Dolphin Expeditions in Bimini is just wrapping up his season (they go out more in summer when seas are flat) and this is picture of Dolphins that Tita took on the yacht, it must be a truly amazing experience!

And our daughter in law is 6 months pregnant. they have decided to call her Ella Sandra! I think she looks wonderful!!

Now that I have caught you up with everyone else, lets see what we are doing. My nice clean shiny boat that I spent days on my knees with a scrub brush now looks like this! Yeek!!

On the other hand though the boys were busy putting back on the shiny new trampoline and it does look very pretty indeed!

This is looking out at Fat Hogs Bay from our slip, a whole new area for us to explore....

and looking out into the channel. It was a very pretty day today. I have to rush into town this morning as Bazza had paid the boat insurance for next year yesterday...with the wrong bank account check! (and you know that we are just not talking about a couple hundred dollars or so here now don't you?) I called them this morning and they had already put the check in the bank (no time wasted there!) so off I sprinted to go switch funds around. Well, sprinted may be the wrong word, drove in the car is closer to the truth. Anyone have a mental picture of me "sprinting" down East End here to get to town? No, I did not think so! Got to town to find out that i had left my wallet on the boat! Natch!!!

This is looking down the dock from our new T head dock. As you can see, noone around us. Do you think there is a reason for that?


Our power has been off a bit here on dock, and I thought I remembered on land that there was rotating schedules for different parts of the island to be dark. Could not find the info, so I asked on TTOL. I truly received some funny responses back all in this vain!

I live in East End and can verify the schedule is this for electricity going off:
1. Normally when I'm in the middle of a shower.
2. About halfway through Heroes
3. Just when I'm ready to put something in the oven
4. About 10 seconds before I'm ready to save a really big spreadsheet that I've spent all day working on.
5. When the temperature reaches 96 degrees

After being pretty unsuccessful on our St thomas trip, I followed it up by being fairly unsuccessful on my town day in Roadtown. I had stops at Labor Department, Immigration, Scotia Bank, First Caribbean Bank and DHL. 4 out of the 5 were second or third trips to get things done. I was hoping to finish up today. Silly me. At the end of the day I have to go back to 4 out of the 5 places next week (but not before about Thursday is the earliest day on some of the them!)
Labor Department, no my renewal is not ready, Labor Commissioner is off island. This has been about 6 trips in now, some years it is ready in days, other years, well....
Immigration: Yes, you should have came in and extended your work permit the day after it ran out, but just hold on to it now and see if your permit is ready next week.
Scotia Bank, Yes, you can order checks, but I have to send it to the Commercial Department and they will call you. No, they cannot be mailed to you, you will have to come in and pick them up.
First Caribbean Bank, No, your business checks are not ready, and WHY did you order them online! They take forever if you do that and we cannot track them. I mentioned that i was surprised at this as I ordered them from First Caribbean Banks online banking...She would call and check, but the lines were down for them right now. And don't even ask about the closing down the credit card that I have been attempting to do now for about 7 weeks (this was the third trip in, there will be more)
Hey, DHL happily took my check. Surprised though as they have a box number for us, but apparently they are not given any money for stamps, they just drop off bills so they never quite know what to do with our bills!
Then to cap it all off, I walked by one of the hair salons, and saw several staff looking at flowers but not dealing with any customers so I walked in and asked if I could get a haircut, cheerfully. And the answer from two women was "no" in unison. That was it, no come back later, maybe tomorrow, next year or anything, just "no". I thought about asking the follow up question and then I thought, why bother. Next week!
The Dive gear is getting a going over on the boat...By the end of the season most of them seem to have knots in them which means they need some attention, and a new lid for the life rafts is being fashioned....

We then said good bye to Roadtown and made our way up to Harbourview, with vehicle fulls of "stuff" out of the locker that is coming into the "workshop" up here. I drove up and wanted to stop the car in the middle of the road on the hill to take a picture of Promenade as it is a view I don't normally get but i did not think the cars behind me would appreciate it so I settled for taking a picture of the boat coming in,,,

It is my sisters birthday today! She is 39 years young (really!) so Happy Birthday Sydney!
Bazza sent me this picture of an "oops". Don't know the circumstances, this oops was on Pompano Beach in Florida. And we did hear from our friends Sheila and Bob of Paradise Connections in SXM on their boat "so it goes" they were fine, although someone dragged down on them in the lagoon and there 5 ft draft boat ended up in a couple feet of water! No worries, one wet bed and one pair of glasses later and they and their boat were fine!