bvi captains log blog

Well, good evening from a very windy and squally BVI! We saw 45 knots on the leading edge of squalls this afternoon and we were sailing at 14 knots..Quite an accomplishment for this heavy charter boat! Of course, we quickly put DOWN the sails then, they were already heavily reefed!
Look at this picture of the Banana Boat...Nice pic of our guests hey? Now, notice the person on the back looking REALLY happy! Yep, it is Simeon! EVEN on the banana boat he looks dour! I wonder how they talked him into that!

There was banana boating and wakeboarding this morning at Privateer! Lots of it. The seas were pretty big looking out from there as well...

I gave the guests three pancakes each for breakfast yesterday morning and today, they quickly told me "light, we will have the cold buffet!" Those who have been on here before know the size of our pancakes!!

Getting ready to Wake Board...

The "no hot breakfast" meant that I had my bread rising and all my prep work done very early, so I took the opportunity to jump in with my camera looking for turtles. Which I did not find and should have had a macro lens instead of a wide angle...Ah well...It was still nice to go for a swim! Mostly I found anemones (which I love) and arrow crabs...

One spotted eel...



A little ray kept on going around and around me...

One thing that concerns me everywhere I go is the state of the hard corals. Our soft corals are wonderful, but it appears the hard corals have taken a beating, whether from the algae bloom or I have just noticed it from over the years. Here is a few random shots from Angelfish Reef there, usually very healthy.







We heard a couple calls about boats out on the VHF today. One, a boat shredded its sail, then must have wrapped some of the shredded sail in the props as the engines quit, off of Spanishtown. They did manage to get straightened out without help though. Another we heard was a boat was on the rocks at Trellis Bay and someone had at least dislocated their shoulder. Don't know which boat though. Also heard about a small plane down off Puerto Rico... Nasty, nasty squalls! To top it all off, on a tack Brent went into Roadtown to go to Bobby's and when returning a squall hit him and he lost a plastic bag over board with $20.00, Bobby's discount card and the receipt! I have been using the card with Lisa's picture on it at Bobby's all year. I guess she will now have to use one with my picture on it!

We found a nice spot late this afternoon around Beef Island, but you can see the gray skies! We will see what tonight brings...



Dinner is pesto pasta tonight and brownies and chocolate ice cream....Just going to finish the blog, play my scrabble games on line and go to bed. We have been into watching the last series of the Amazing Race the last few nights in bed, so, lets just say we have not been sleeping too early! Bad habit to get into on charter! Funny, at the beginning of the year you are ready to drop into bed with exhaustion every time you turn around on charter, towards the end, although you are mentally more fried, you don't need to sleep as much....



Neil, you say you read my blog daily! Well Neil, nicely called me tonight from Key West saying he had his picture taken underneath a Willy T's sign there. Unfortunately for Neil, Brent scared the hell out of me behind my curtain when he yelled for me, as I was intent on something! Poor Neil thought I was not happy to hear from him and that was not the case! It was Brent's fault! I promise.. Send me the pic so I can put it on the blog!