bvi captains log blog

When I booked these plane tickets a few days ago, I thought "perfect, I am about caught up on everything" . That thought was great until I tried to do all the little details to finish up all the loose ends until I returned. I think I have been sorting, clicking, typing, doing up contracts, checking for wire transfers, and putting more holds on yachts in the last two days then the last two weeks!

Which, obviously is very good. Some for Promenade, some for other yachts, but it has been amazingly busy and I have been ignoring my sister (love you Syd) my parents (but I figured that was ok as I was going to be spending two weeks with them) and trying to ignore the boat! (They are going on charter now for a few months straight, so they will be too busy to talk to me anyways...)

I had the very smart idea to make my mother the administrator for this trip. She controls the paperwork and sorts it out, along with the passports etc. I am HORRIBLE at that! Bazza usually does it, but even he is happily giving over that roll. I had to giggle. My mother has envelopes on the table with the paperwork for each city we are going to be in ! Yes, you are correct. I would never do that in a hundred years...


We are all very excited. I even made them stop taking me for walks today as I was so sore from doing exercise I could barely get into bed, never mind looking forward to the pleasure of staying on a flight for 15 hours. All the leftovers were eaten out of the fridge last night, and my dad is taking us out to Swiss Chalet for dinner tonight...

My mother had time to get her nails and toes done today. I had time to do more paperwork. Now the parents are at a dance this afternoon. I want to be them!

Now, I have to pack. Then have a bath. That is what i have left to do. Of course I will still be blogging while gone! I think I would die if I could not do that. I also have my phone, my laptop (which I just spent awhile putting everything important on it since i use my desktop all the time now) So if anyone emails me they may get answers at odd times!

NO worries, g'day mate...off we go!

I meant to write this last night, and then I was side tracked...Why was I side tracked? Well we decided the parental unit and ourselves were going to OZ on Monday...Literally, since I bought tickets for show and dinner to see WICKED in Sydney, Australia.
When I decide to do something, no playing around. We had told my parents we would take them with us for their 50th wedding anniversary last summer, (but you can just make it into whatever celebration of the year we are around the trip is for. Their birthdays, Valentines day, Fridays, whatever) I know that is a 180 degree turn from taking them to Las Vegas that we had thought would be the plan this week!
But we get to see our granddaughter! AND she has on something other then pink! I did not think she owned any colors other then pink...


By this morning I had flights...Seattle to Brisbane then on to Adelaide, then onto Sydney and then back, car rentals, activities, hotel rooms and by the end I was furiously changing credit cards around to see which one still would let me charge up one more little thing on it! I even took Bazzas...

Usually bit of a problem buying things on line with our British VIrgin Islands credit cards, the screens just put up a picture of some one rolling on the floor when you try and find the BVI in the country list!
Thankfully, Qantas let us do the air tickets with one of the BVI ones, which helped a lot! Did you know Debit cards only let you take out a few thousand a day? Does not matter how much is in your account.. Anyways, on to other important things. Like food.
One of my many food pleasures is making a rather large (none of these wimpy microwave popcorn bags for this girl!) and taking it to bed. A couple nights ago, EVERYONE else ate dinner (sniff sniff) while I watched as I decided that dinner was going to be popcorn. You know that mouth feel you get when you are looking forward to something? No, well you skinny people just don't get it now do you??? I bounded out to the RV, pulled out the popcorn maker, looked for oil, none, but no problem, I could work around that. I then proceeded to turn the RV over looking for popcorn. None in sight. I pouted. Of course. Bazza offered to go get me some. I put on my best martyr whine and said "no that is fine, I am not making you go out this late to go get me popcorn" He said, "that is fine, I will go into your parents first and see if they have any" I still in my best martyr whine of "don't bother, nothing is going to make me happy now" said " Well, they would only have microwave popcorn if they had any" Then HE starting turning the RV upside down as he could not believe for a second that I did not have any popcorn! AND SOON WHAT DO I HEAR?? The sweet shaking sounds of POPCORN! He was right, I did have popcorn, and apparently not a petite little jar of it either! You read that right people, an entire 8 lbs of it!

Then, it was decided by my other half, that i had been sitting cross legged on my chair in front of the computer for too many months just gaining weight and I was going walking. Sigh. I have to convince myself I have lots of energy just to make it up the steps to the parental units place! The mean man THREW me out of the car at Canadian Tire and made me HIKE. See, I took pictures of real to god scenery....

And water! By the time he spent 18 hours in Canadian Tire and picked me up at the other end, I could barely put one paw in front of the other. Hey, it was an entire half an hour people! The most activity I have done for months...and months...

He has now made me go like 3 days in a row. Today I asked at the end of the half hour if I got a special "treat" like a starbucks moccha frappucino. Some how he laughed at me! Mean man!!

Anyways, I may think I am being humorous tonight and i am so tired I probably am just irritating, so I will leave you with this joke I had passed on that also seemed to suit me to a t!

One of the girls coming on the boat in a couple weeks was lamenting (she owns restaurants too...IN Iowa? Not sure if it is near a cornfield) that she was trying to lose weight before the trip and not sure if she was going to pack the bikinis or not. I suggested she go my route and stay in her jammies all the time on the boat!
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I was walking down the street when I was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked me for a couple of dollars for dinner.

I took ten dollars out of my wallet and asked, 'If I give you this money, will you buy wine with it instead of dinner?'

'No, I had to stop drinking years ago', the homeless woman told me.

'Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?' I asked.

'No, I don't waste time shopping,' the homeless woman said. 'I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive.'

'Will you spend this on a beauty salon instead of food?' I asked.

'Are you NUTS!' replied the homeless woman. I haven't had my hair done in 20 years!'

'Well, I said, 'I'm not going to give you the money. Instead, I'm going to take you out for dinner with my husband and me tonight.'

The homeless Woman was shocked. 'Won't your husband be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting.'

I said, 'That's okay. It's important for him to see what a woman looks like after she has given up shopping, hair appointments, and wine.'

The nerve of "old crew"!

I promised that i would share the link for the crew profile on the new yacht (Belline) Simeon is working on when I received it...AND I have to let you know that he is sincerely in my bad books!!
Look at this picture I took off of it where HE IS SMILING!! Lisa said he came over to retrieve the hollandaise sauce recipe. After seeing the picture of him smiling I might have left him to figure it out himself! HARRRUUUUUMMMMPPPPPHHHHHH!
Well, actually I will put up 3 of the pictures so you get the full effect.







I think maybe they have more pictures of him on there smiling then I have ever seen! I am not sure what that means...

Probably thought you had been missing pictures of my parents and the food we have been eating! So, I found a few from the last week...I think that was at Moxies..
We fed the parental unit ribs...


And then mom had a plate that was about bigger then she was..


Bazza, stuck to a good old favorite. Hambugers. And fries. He is a simple man!

I snapped this picture in the grocery store for Lisa, as I can never get over how bright and colorful and fresh looking the veggie displays are here, after shopping at Riteway on Saturday mornings for quite awhile when everyone is pawing through everything before it even gets to the shelves to find something they want!

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Ah, just for variety, here is a pic from the BVI...The new fast ferry that Roadtown Fast Ferry has brought into the territory. The story goes that we are going to have service to PUERTO RICO, and ST CROIX! (and maybe St Martin sometime). I will believe it when I see it! But it would be exciting. Except for, when checking back into the territory after everyone has gone shopping in Puerto Rico can you imagine how many cases of Pampers you will have to wait behind?????


Speaking of the islands, and boats, I understand that Promenade managed somehow to get a leak in their fridge system and blew up something on the generator in the last couple days, which means a scurry and lots of money for parts to get the replacements on island and in before the boat goes on charter this coming weekend! They did well, those items usually break the day before you GO on charter! I did suggest to Lisa that she could take her frozen stuff to Sailors Ketch...Kind aren't I? Always like to be helpful! I think Bruce will quickly learn, that if repair items are "just" in the thousands, and not in the tens of thousands, life is good! Or my other favorite motto used to be "It is just one more charter to pay for it"
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And for the cute pictures of the day, I have Koala Bears! Which have to be right up there with dolphins I would say. Apparently with drought and heat in OZ, these koalas were coming out begging for water! I wish I could have one for a pet. But they pee on you all the time!!!















I have a new OBSESSION! Tracking ancestry through DNA. I have just about got all my family now on 23andme and Decodeme. I am trying hard to learn about chromosomes and genetically connecting relatives and I am having a ball with it! Even though, I admit, I am riding on whoever genes I am comparing mine with lately to know a hell of a lot more about the subject then I do. If you are on either one of these genetic programs, look me up, I am Puppette user name (don't ask) on either one of them and you just never know who I know that I may find a connection with!

My mother in law called today from Australia. I asked if it was hot and she replied, "no not really, only about 30-35 celcius!!" I somehow did not think that was "not that hot!"

The saga of Mr Bill...Mr Bill is the 40' monohull that fetched up on the beach in front of Ivan's at White Bay on Jost Van Dyke. One of my former guests (thanks Kelly! and the Pirate Girls) just happened to be there to snap pictures of the boat being torn up so it could be hauled away. And she posted them on her Facebook. And I borrowed them Cuz, I knew you all would like them too!






Of course, it is entirely possible that Kelly was not taking pictures of the boat at all, but just pretending too as she sneakily took pictures of this guys butt crack!! (????Kelly????HMMMM...)

I don't know whether to put this post on the boat blog, the charter brokering blog or my personal blog. I seem to be going all over the place, so it will go here, and probably just links on the other sites.
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Thursday night. Another week almost gone in my world. Not too sure where it has gone to tell you the truth. Not even sure I have that much interesting to say, but thought I should check in anyways...
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One thing I should mention, on Promenade we have a couple cabins open still on our one and only "cabin only" sailing this spring. April 19th through 25th. $1800.00 per person. Would be nice to see those get filled!
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My mother actually sent me a cute email...it went along the lines of...

Would you rather have a dog?



Or Children?

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I think the answer is neither! Also had a few pictures from Comox here on Vancouver Island from last winter, when the Eagles were starving. I think because of it being too cold! That is not happening this winter, it is quite warm. I did not even need a coat when we went out for dinner tonight. Sorry about your luck down in the southwest!










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Finally got to the point where I figured I better start eating better. Unfortunate, as I love food so much. No I am not saying the word "diet" just seeing if I can make a better choice each time, and if I can't or really don't want to I won't... Plus trying to not put salt on processed foods and restaurant food. I love salt. More then about anything. Anyways, we will see how it goes. Don't follow me, you can see how well I stick to these types of things by looking at my pictures!
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I said I had some great pictures of Anegada, Walker of BVI Pirates, and Cow Wreck Beach on Anegada fame kindly allowed me to share them on my blog. Anegada is a mystical and magical place, which sticks deep in peoples' hearts and never lets go. He has 1243 pictures here. I did go through each and every one.


Anegada...
10 miles long
2.5 miles wide
The highest elevation is $28 feet
This is the only coral island in the British VIrgin Islands, and the underlying "rock" is coral. You can imagine how porous it is. You can see that quite well here in Walkers picture. The chalky material is actually coral. There are these sink holes throughout the entire island.


Horseshoe reef, which surrounds Anegada is 18 miles long. On the North Side is where the reef meets the Atlantic.



On the south side of the island there are still many mangroves and mangrove islands.


This island has been settled, well, like forever. Pre Historic times. I used to take people to show them "conch mountain" on the south east corner (there are actually quite a small conch piles around). I ignorantly used to tell everyone that the conch piles were 50 years old! Imagine my surprise when I started to research and found out that the largest conch pile has been there since prehistoric times! That is simply amazing...

Here is a couple pictures that i have taken of it from in the water...




And now, you get to see it from the sky as well...






I hear rumors that the goats were trained NOT to jump over all the short stone walls, which marked crops and that goats still come home at night. I find that hard to believe though! I have also heard that many of them marked land patches that were handed down from generation to generation. Something along the lines of "your piece of land Junior is from the hairy cactus tree to the banyon tree"
This picture here is from the International Space Station...Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?


Remember this past spring when we walked down the beach on the west end near Settling Point at the cottages that were built too close to the waters' edge, and with having the bush break taking down between them and the water? It looked like this..




Now you can see it from the sky as well...and compare...







It is these types of things that gives a place its "tug at your heart strings" charm. You shake your head at the engineering plan, you feel sad for someones dream...but it all adds to how much you love a place anyways...

You would be surprised how many fresh water wells there are on this island. How many Iguanas, and Turtles and flocks of Flamingoes that you can see in parts of the enormous Salt Pond behind the Anegada Reef Hotel




I showed you in the spring where we went down to the Fishermens landing, and saw the scraped Turtle shells on shore, the baby sharks laying out to dry, Frigate Birds everywhere, and Mangroves. More then I imagined possible. It looked like this..








And now you can also see it from the air....


Down on the east end of the island, where there are miles of deserted beaches and shallow reef, you have to anchor your tender quite a ways out and walk in...We looked like this:

Muck and ground up coral. We lost shoes, fell over ten times each, and almost lost old and young women in the muck! But we also giggled like crazy...Now look at this shallow reef from the air? How can anyone NOT want to wade through it to go exploring??


And, at the end of the day, you walk down the Flash of Beauty Beach...


This is only a small part of what Anegada has to offer. Where else can you find this? I have not even touched on the Settlement, the reef, the snorkeling, the SCUBA diving, and the magnificent beaches of Cow Wreck and Loblolly.....

I keep on thinking "this year" this year is the year I am going to spend a week just diving and exploring around here. When the seas are flat and I can circle the entire island in the big boat. Or small boat. Or land. Or by air. "this year" never really comes. There is always painting and maintenance, things to do. Businesses to run. We scrape to get out there for one day on a charter week. I keep on waiting for that group of guests who is INTO the diving, exploring and just plain wandering around in the shallow water of the tender counting the sharks and rays. I keep on waiting for that group of guests to come the few weeks of the year that this is possible and to have them say. I want to go no where else. I want to stay at Anegada all week. You will be at one with the world at the end. Trust me. Will it be you?

Thanks for the use of the pictures Walker, they are also going to go up on a web page for Anegada that I am in the middle of doing. I enjoyed comparing pictures from the sea and sky! BUT it is too late at night for me to even begin to care that they are all not sized the same! Good night all...