British Virgin Islands

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.
**
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...
**
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!
**
My mother actually sent me a cute email...it went along the lines of...

Would you rather have a dog?



Or Children?

**
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!










**
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!
**
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...

And for once, I don't mean me! The Lion has not liked sitting here for about the last two years and only being started to go get propane. I think it is telling us it needs to go south! The mechanic is on it though, he had me turning it over and it backfired and scared the hell out of me. Been a long time since i have heard anything like that...


**I actually see sun this afternoon! Nice change, it has poured buckets for the last 24 hours**

Interestingly most people I talked to said they would have had the same concerns about Haiti, however, there were a couple boats who really wanted to go! I received this email from the broker subsequently, which I thought some may be interested to hear the end of the story. Almost the end. I did have someone call last night who had 8 guests on the south side of Haiti who wanted to be picked up and dropped off at DR or Puerto Rico! As the person said though, they probably wanted to be picked up immediately though and not wait for a boat to get there...

"CNN staff reports they have located temporary hotel accommodations in Haiti for their immediate staffing/staging needs. At this point they are not 100% certain those accommodations will be able to sustain their crew's needs longer than a few days until one or more vessels can reach the island, or, whether the hotel will have the supplies needed for the next week or two, as this situation unfolds.
While there is still a chance we may be called into action sometime within the next few hours to prepare one or more vessels for departure, that chance appears remote. Should I get that call, I will contact vessels directly - immediately. So, if you do not hear from me by mid afternoon today, you may all stand down. (Whew!!)
I would like to thank you all for your extremely positive responses and willingness to take such swift action, especially under such "questionable" circumstances. It's not every vessel that can truly say they are "ready, set go!" on such short notice, for such a challenging charter. And, it is not every yacht owner who is willing to put his vessel and trusted staff in what could very well be "harms way", given the dire circumstances in Haiti.
Therefore, I would like to take this moment to commend each of you for being that kind of owner, that kind of skipper, with that kind of "can do" staff! You guys are the BEST of the best! And I trust we will work together soon, hopefully on something not quite so nearly impossible!"
***
I think I am really missing being able to take my fishy pictures. I have my underwater shots rotating as a screensaver and I am oowing and aahing over pictures on some of the forums I belong to.
This picture, really caught my eye this morning. I believe it is taken in Thailand and the link to the post is here Not my work at all, someone called Ilan Ben Tov. The link is a great site to go to for underwater pictures though if you need a fix! I really liked his work, and there is many galleys of underwater photos.


You can see more of his work here



I hate to giggle, but I understand Promenade is slogging through the rain puddles back and forth in St THomas trying to get all their shopping back on board. Never been there, never done that! Hee Hee!

Simeon, is staying in the British Virgin Islands doing charters for the winter on Belline, a 48' catamaran. I will give you a link to his profile when it is up...He sent me a note saying that one of his specialties on the boat was going to be EGGS BENEDICT!! WTF!! He made some for the captain last week. He never, not once, made anything like that for ME. In fact, I don't believe Simeon ever cooked me anything! I feel cheated now almost....