Tuesday, July 21. 2009
Another gray windy day in the BVI
We definitely woke up to a gray and cloudy day in the BVI again, although in Little harbour on Peter Island it was calm! We did some snorkeling and wake boarding, and just generally fooled around....
We then decided it was time to go over to Great Harbour on Peter Island, so Simeon brought up the anchors and we motored slowly up there...
The guests, led by Brent, took the opportunity to get off the boat for a walk and some more good times....
Brent and Conrad...Nice picture Brent!
And the Promenade in the background...
Sister and brother love...
Our sail plan today was one tack, over to Marina Cay or Beef and then downwind to Monkey Point for a snorkel. It was rough, going around Beef Island, but other then that it worked quite well. The water was fairly murky, and I am sure it has a green tinge again, these pics actually make the water look clearer then it was. We all went for a snorkel and saw quite a few turtles...
Siblings trying to drown each other I think is this picture...
This picture is Roberto trying to figure out who is coming right up to him and sticking a camera in his face!
I got too close to the two little chicks and the laughing gull was not very happy about it! She practically sit on my head trying to get me to go away!
Good snorkel, but still light on fish. A nice school of Blue Tangs...
Another turtle, with two tags on him!
By this time it was the end of the day so we have anchored in Muskmelon Bay for the evening.
I have another funny Brent story...They were fishing this evening and Bazza watches Brent bring up a bottle of Jameson's Irish Whiskey.... when Brent comes back, he asks him what he is DOING with it and Brent told him, pouring it in the fish gills so they die instantly when they are keeping them...Bazza wondered if a knife might do just as well, or if he absolutely thought he had to use liquor why couldn't he pick the $2.00 bottle of cheap rum instead of the expensive liquor??? I don't think Brent quite had an answer for that...other then he did not think of it! He is obviously not in Canada any more!
Barbecued steak tonight, hardly a drop of rain all day, but lots of wind and lots of gray sky...Hope it clears off some by mid day tomorrow so we can finally make our way up to Virgin Gorda. The days are running out on this charter. good night!
PS: I told you about our friend Neil underneath the Willy T sign in Key West, well here it is! Not as famous as OUR willy t's I bet!!
We then decided it was time to go over to Great Harbour on Peter Island, so Simeon brought up the anchors and we motored slowly up there...
The guests, led by Brent, took the opportunity to get off the boat for a walk and some more good times....
Brent and Conrad...Nice picture Brent!
And the Promenade in the background...
Sister and brother love...
Our sail plan today was one tack, over to Marina Cay or Beef and then downwind to Monkey Point for a snorkel. It was rough, going around Beef Island, but other then that it worked quite well. The water was fairly murky, and I am sure it has a green tinge again, these pics actually make the water look clearer then it was. We all went for a snorkel and saw quite a few turtles...
Siblings trying to drown each other I think is this picture...
This picture is Roberto trying to figure out who is coming right up to him and sticking a camera in his face!
I got too close to the two little chicks and the laughing gull was not very happy about it! She practically sit on my head trying to get me to go away!
Good snorkel, but still light on fish. A nice school of Blue Tangs...
Another turtle, with two tags on him!
By this time it was the end of the day so we have anchored in Muskmelon Bay for the evening.
I have another funny Brent story...They were fishing this evening and Bazza watches Brent bring up a bottle of Jameson's Irish Whiskey.... when Brent comes back, he asks him what he is DOING with it and Brent told him, pouring it in the fish gills so they die instantly when they are keeping them...Bazza wondered if a knife might do just as well, or if he absolutely thought he had to use liquor why couldn't he pick the $2.00 bottle of cheap rum instead of the expensive liquor??? I don't think Brent quite had an answer for that...other then he did not think of it! He is obviously not in Canada any more!
Barbecued steak tonight, hardly a drop of rain all day, but lots of wind and lots of gray sky...Hope it clears off some by mid day tomorrow so we can finally make our way up to Virgin Gorda. The days are running out on this charter. good night!
PS: I told you about our friend Neil underneath the Willy T sign in Key West, well here it is! Not as famous as OUR willy t's I bet!!
Monday, July 20. 2009
Peter Island, BVI
I don't suppose I have ranted about anything for at least a week...(don't double check on that with my crew!) So, I think I will go back to one of my favorites tonight, CCT Boatphone.
Doubly ranting tonight as I cannot keep a connection for more the 3 minutes to save my soul the last couple days!
I blogged earlier about having to replace both my phones, or maybe I didn't. Who knows?
Anyways, while getting the car washed in town, afterwards when we got back in it, I put both my phones in the console in between the seats where I normally do...Only to find that they had left a large puddle of water in there and subsequently, both my phones starting really acting up and i had to replace. The Iphone, well, considering Apple had just come out with the new 3G, and i had the original, it was due for a change anyways. Only thing is, I, along with many others, am having a hard time activating it, as it tells me it is waiting for activation forever...and I am only in US air space a couple times a week...
But, I digress, back to the rant on Boatphone. They sold me on a new phone that was waterproof for 15 minutes and they said, literally, that I could throw it across the room! Great I thought on a boat, a nice little samsung. The first time I went to charge it, I just about choked as if you see this picture below.....
The adapter, is well, weird. My first thoughts were, oh, it is the UK plug style, no problem, we have those on the boat as well... Normal thought hey, after all, sometimes we are the BRITISH Virgin Islands... But it did not fit in that plug, so I asked Bazza and he tells me it is a FRENCH plug!!! With a US adapter for me to stick on the end. Of course, I shook my head, what else would I do? so I have practically a 6 inch adapter sticking out of the wall (ok, maybe I am exaggerating...a little!) It appears though, that the connections are "dicky" and most of the time I think it is charging, nope, it is not...Grrrr.....
Back to the guests and charter... We had a great couple snorkels around Beef Island this morning and then looked at the channel. Gulp! Going up SEAS to Virgin Gorda was not looking like that much fun, so we decided that a sail down to Little Harbour on Peter Island was a much better idea. Good thing we did, as even then, although a great sail, we had a couple who were hanging onto the edge of the boat...
I was ambitious as can be, and jumped in the water outside Little Harbour and s
Swam back into the anchorage. How was it? Murky as can be! Lots of Angel Fish around though...
Saw several turtles that all took off and a little Sting Ray. That is the extent of the pictures on that pathetic photo dive...
Moving right along...Little Harbour was nice and flat, with just a couple Puerto Rican boats anchored. Our guests went on a "hike" to the old house. Notice the mickey mouse hat? guess where they just spent a week at??
The next entertainment was feeding the gulls by hand....
Well enjoyed by the guests...
Quite a bit of wakeboarding was attempted, it kind of is akin to water boarding I think!
I made conch fritters for appetizers tonight, thinking that I had made rather a lot, and within about 3 minutes this is what the tray looked like! Empty!
I was in the galley making up a fruit tray for dessert tonight before supper, and I thought, for the first time in months, "oh, I might as well do Brent's fruit salad for the morning, since i have everything out"
He always does on up after dinner for the morning. I chop, and rinse and build while thinking to myself "hmm, not sure if we will have enough fruit to last the week or not". Brent comes down and says "you are not making fruit salad are you?" and I said "yep". He says, "I already made one" I laugh, as he is often playing these kind of jokes, until he opens up the fridge and pulls out a fruit salad bowl freshly made filled to the brim with about the same things I JUST made another fruit salad out of. The first time that he has ever made one before dinner!
Hey, it is the end of the season folks, we are running out of things to talk about here, never mind blog about! I tried to take a picture of Brent and Simeon being nice to each other, but Simeon disappeared as soon as I raised the camera...
A dinner of seafood, some fishing and good night to all...
I cut this out of the BVI Beacon this past week, it is a couple articles that were written about the recent dinghy thefts around the BVI lately, thought it would interest some. Here it is in PDF format.
Brent told me tonight that he had literally NOTHING he could do...I told him that there was nothing he wanted to do as there was always lots of cleaning on the boat to be done! He could not disagree with me there...
Doubly ranting tonight as I cannot keep a connection for more the 3 minutes to save my soul the last couple days!
I blogged earlier about having to replace both my phones, or maybe I didn't. Who knows?
Anyways, while getting the car washed in town, afterwards when we got back in it, I put both my phones in the console in between the seats where I normally do...Only to find that they had left a large puddle of water in there and subsequently, both my phones starting really acting up and i had to replace. The Iphone, well, considering Apple had just come out with the new 3G, and i had the original, it was due for a change anyways. Only thing is, I, along with many others, am having a hard time activating it, as it tells me it is waiting for activation forever...and I am only in US air space a couple times a week...
But, I digress, back to the rant on Boatphone. They sold me on a new phone that was waterproof for 15 minutes and they said, literally, that I could throw it across the room! Great I thought on a boat, a nice little samsung. The first time I went to charge it, I just about choked as if you see this picture below.....
The adapter, is well, weird. My first thoughts were, oh, it is the UK plug style, no problem, we have those on the boat as well... Normal thought hey, after all, sometimes we are the BRITISH Virgin Islands... But it did not fit in that plug, so I asked Bazza and he tells me it is a FRENCH plug!!! With a US adapter for me to stick on the end. Of course, I shook my head, what else would I do? so I have practically a 6 inch adapter sticking out of the wall (ok, maybe I am exaggerating...a little!) It appears though, that the connections are "dicky" and most of the time I think it is charging, nope, it is not...Grrrr.....
Back to the guests and charter... We had a great couple snorkels around Beef Island this morning and then looked at the channel. Gulp! Going up SEAS to Virgin Gorda was not looking like that much fun, so we decided that a sail down to Little Harbour on Peter Island was a much better idea. Good thing we did, as even then, although a great sail, we had a couple who were hanging onto the edge of the boat...
I was ambitious as can be, and jumped in the water outside Little Harbour and s
Swam back into the anchorage. How was it? Murky as can be! Lots of Angel Fish around though...
Saw several turtles that all took off and a little Sting Ray. That is the extent of the pictures on that pathetic photo dive...
Moving right along...Little Harbour was nice and flat, with just a couple Puerto Rican boats anchored. Our guests went on a "hike" to the old house. Notice the mickey mouse hat? guess where they just spent a week at??
The next entertainment was feeding the gulls by hand....
Well enjoyed by the guests...
Quite a bit of wakeboarding was attempted, it kind of is akin to water boarding I think!
I made conch fritters for appetizers tonight, thinking that I had made rather a lot, and within about 3 minutes this is what the tray looked like! Empty!
I was in the galley making up a fruit tray for dessert tonight before supper, and I thought, for the first time in months, "oh, I might as well do Brent's fruit salad for the morning, since i have everything out"
He always does on up after dinner for the morning. I chop, and rinse and build while thinking to myself "hmm, not sure if we will have enough fruit to last the week or not". Brent comes down and says "you are not making fruit salad are you?" and I said "yep". He says, "I already made one" I laugh, as he is often playing these kind of jokes, until he opens up the fridge and pulls out a fruit salad bowl freshly made filled to the brim with about the same things I JUST made another fruit salad out of. The first time that he has ever made one before dinner!
Hey, it is the end of the season folks, we are running out of things to talk about here, never mind blog about! I tried to take a picture of Brent and Simeon being nice to each other, but Simeon disappeared as soon as I raised the camera...
A dinner of seafood, some fishing and good night to all...
I cut this out of the BVI Beacon this past week, it is a couple articles that were written about the recent dinghy thefts around the BVI lately, thought it would interest some. Here it is in PDF format.
Brent told me tonight that he had literally NOTHING he could do...I told him that there was nothing he wanted to do as there was always lots of cleaning on the boat to be done! He could not disagree with me there...
Sunday, July 19. 2009
Norman Island to Beef Island today!
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!
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!
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