British Virgin Islands

We had an island special wedding today at the Soggy Dollar Bay!
We had a ring bearer... (rings nicely pinned on one of our deck cushions) although the ring bearer looks a little old for the position!

We had a flower girl who had on less clothes then the bride! Her flower bucket was a pot of sand that was spread out on the beach aisle. We also had a half naked wedding videographer, who also had on less clothes then the bride....

We had a bride with a long train and volunteers to hold up the train...

We had a nautical groom with a tuxedo...

We had someone to give away the bride, as her parents were not here.... We had the wedding song playing in the background...

We had a father who was I believe got his papers on line somewhere. The scroll with the wedding vows seemed to be very long, and include items like Sandy promising to always clean up after Dietz...I believe our father actually looked more like count dracula! I think she also had to promise to keep her head under the covers when he farts

I believe our blushing bride was almost in tears when she saw her sparkling ring and could not believe that they had the right size. We did not know that this was the day she got married the first time on!

A lovely ceremony was held water side, with about 70 onlookers on the beach watching them all...

Then it was time for the group photo to cherish for ever and show all their grandkids! Then we had the first dance song which was "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC!

After the ceremony the groom bought mango daiquiris all the way around!
Who says you have to spend a lot of money to get married in the islands!!!

Once again, firmly taking off my tourism hat here, but it is necessary. Our rule of dealing with anchorages and areas of the BVI that we do not think are that safe, is we just do not go there. Cane Garden Bay has been on that list for many years.
I don't want to hear "just keep a sharp eye out" "there are many more dangerous places (insert whatever)" Our reasons that we had chosen the BVI for chartering are many. One of these reasons was safety.
I am not going to repeat the entire story leading up to this, but we had guests who wanted to go to the full moon party last night at Bombas. Us anchoring at Cane Garden Bay made the most sense. Simba thought he would go along with them, and we told him that we would drop him off then as we will not leave the dinghy on dock there. When he heard our reasons, he decided to stay behind.

Our standard operating procedure here is No dinghy on the dinghy dock at night, locked or not. Someone must remain on the boat at all times with all security lights and cockpit lights blazing brightly. In addition, Simba napped in the cockpit last night. May seem extreme, but it appears to be a place that boats are often boarded in the evening while people are out enjoying the festivities, and rifled through. We did not have our motion sensors on as we had a crew member in the cockpit, otherwise, they would have been on.

When he went in to dock to pick up the guests around midnight, he found people from a couple catamarans jumping up and down as they had been robbed. Proved our point once again on why we either do not come here overnight, or take the precautions we do. I do not know any more details then that, but I am sure they will come out in the coconut telegraph soon.

I know the businesses in Cane Garden Bay are quite cognizant of what is going on and have banded together to hire a security guard at least on Friday and Saturday nights near the dinghy dock. But, this was a Thursday and a Full Moon Party and a security guard is not going to be out patrolling the anchorages, where there seems to be a lot of the thieving action.

We need to do MORE as a community, land and water based here to clean this up. It is in all our best interests. The above is what we do, I suggest boats anchoring here overnight implement some of these measures.

Today went by in a real short minute. This was my view mostly today, as I seemed to spend the entire day in the galley cooking, except for one dive! Literally. Maybe I am just getting slower in my old age.

Apparently we ran the spinnaker down to Muskmelon Bay on Guana Island, where I thought I would jump in with my camera and take some pictures of the group. This is looking up at the ladders while waiting.....

And here is a couple brand new resort divers coming down the line.

I think I probably picked the worst visibility dive that it was possible to do! I would stay away from Muskmelon for a few days if you want to dive!



Took a picture of a jelly and a sand dollar in the muck....



And the highlight for me was three large Spadefish that always circle around and around you, quite curious. They are very easy to get pictures of.

Seem to have some awful hues in my underwater pictures today, ah well, not enough practice I say!

We carried down to Cane Garden Bay where the group is going to Bombas Full Moon Party tonight and we had some nice conch fritters for appetizers today.

My napkin rings were earrings again for the men tonight. The things they come up with!

I think by dinner time they were just wishing I would go away with my camera and let them eat. It is now 10 PM and I just finished chopping up fruit salad for the morning. My husband has promised me a back rub and scratch tonight so that is one offer I am going to run and take him up on!

It has been another busy 24 hours on this charter yacht. When the guests went to the Soggy Dollar Bay, some of the elderly crew members took the opportunity for a cat nap!

The group reappeared with dozens of empty plastic painkiller cups just at sunset. They said we could forget cocktails and just get them food, but they were enjoying themselves in the water so much, we just gave them cocktails in the water instead! These two pictures have had nothing done to them, they were just taken with two different cameras. It was so beautiful out that I wanted to snap picture after picture.



Then there appeared to be a dancing party before dinner, with some of my "better then bushwhacker drinks"

And I have to put up more sunset pictures as it was just so beautiful.



After the painkillers and the tequila shots, they look like they are going to crash here at dinner, but they rallied and all went to Foxy's for a few hours last night and a good time was had by all.

Today things were moving a little slow, but they did rally by the time we arrived at the Indians for a dive. Then, some place I hate going anymore, around to Money Bay where this group has always loved, but the places natural beauty has been ruined forever.

We anchored among the breakwaters.

The beach has been totally destroyed, and there is tons of green algae in the water from the digging up process. No more sand dollars here for me!

The guests were in about the same position as last night though, except for this time they had chairs along with their cocktails in the water!



I went up to take pictures of the Pelicans

and unbeknownst to me, my husband was taking pictures of me!

We finally caught a fish that was NOT a barracuda ( and only lost one lure today, I believe!) Here is our Tuna

and two hours later this is what our tuna looked like! Apparently it was very good!!!

Good thing we had air conditioning last night tied stern too in Muskmelon Bay! It was very still. We spent all morning in the Bay, there was first a dive (including a crew member running out of air and having to guide the dive from on top of the water!. Said crew member said he could not blame anyone else as he did not check his tank as he filled it himself...) to say that the rest of us had a good chuckle over that would be an understatement! They watched a Nurse Shark for awhile...
Then it was onto Banana Boating

And then Predatoring...wait that is not predatoring, that is attempting to get on the predator! Some guests are just getting a little long in the tooth for these things I guess!



However, Bazza seemed to be relaxing enjoying the show!

Of course everyone else was quite amused watching them from afar as well, margaritas safely in hand...

We wanted to do a spinnaker run down to Jost, but there was NO wind, and i mean NO wind. Flat as can be. And warm! So we motored slowly and tried our luck at fishing (ha! The crew put the lines in the water, the guests had a good two hour nap is what happened!!) No fish either, not even a barracuda. The bait balls were out in full force which meant the birds were dive bombing everywhere...

I love this blue chattel house up on the hill at White Bay, seems like a place I would like.

All the nav buoys on the west side of the Bay are missing, so we picked our way in.. All our toys and kayaks are very colorful!

Although some guests say that it was perfect hiding underneath from the sun on the way down.

The guests have all gone now to Soggy Dollar and etc, Soggy Dollars in hand, the day boats are just leaving back to the USVI, and we are having a quick clean of the boat before getting cocktails and dinner ready. I imagine that won't be happening until after a trip into Foxys though as well! Here is White Bay today, I wonder why all the palm trees are yellow on the bottom? It cannot be from lack of rain!!??!!!

It was a busy fun filled day, with not a drop of rain anywhere! We spent most of the morning at the Baths, a shopping trip to Spanish Town and the boys went off on a bonding trip to go onto the wreck of the vagabond on Fallen Jerusaleum, I wish it would sink so we would get a new dive site! Then it was off to dive the Visibles on Cockroach Island. Apparently the viz was the worse that some have ever seen in the BVI, an entire 6 feet!!! They also had some current so had a big of a swim back, although they still had tons of gorgonians and soft corals

Mid afternoon we took sailing and trolling to see if we could catch some fish, but alas, even trolling over all the good underwater mounts all we came up with was another Barracuda!



The guys bonded over fish on the back decks and the women watched from afar from the front. They were curious enough to look up when the barracuda was on the line, but not move too much!

They quickly went back to their enjoyable spot for the afternoon!

The sunset over Jost is always spectacular up here, and tonight was no exception. This was during the sail...

Coming around the point into Muskmelon

And of course, a ton of birds everywhere!

We went stern too with all the noisy birds on the shore tonight...

And we still had sunset once we were all anchored and settled in!

We had a birthday girl tonight and she had requested our famous shot game for her birthday (you think they would have learnt in years gone by don't you?)

You can see our game winner here, ones stuffed in everywhere...

And this is the birthday girl giving thanks to her friends who took a shot for her once she had had way too many!

The table set for dinner tonight...

and birthday dinner dish was shrimp, scallops and lobster scampi which there was not a drop left of!

Two birthdays this week, so tonights birthday cake was Key Lime Pie!

And this is the entire group..They are all out on the trampolines watching the stars and I am about to head to bed to watch the election!