British Virgin Islands

I understand that some people like my late night tired blog entry last night. Thank you. I am not sure if I can come close to it tonight though. I apparently could not even make it around to 11 boats today, only getting to 9. That is now 20 out of 68. One more day..
We will get right to the important part of the program tonight. Towel folding! I had some pictures yesterday I had not put up, of swans. We have ALL had towels folded into towel shapes on our boats, as one of the most popular cleaning ladies around that most use, Dora, perfected the Swans.





I am here to tell you Dora, that it is now time to come up with a different towel fold! Every second boat is sporting swans, and after the 100th time viewing them, they do not look quite as impressive! So who are we going to give the towel award to today?? I think todays prize has to go to Kerry (great name by the way!) off the yacht Fantasy Island. Kerry has learnt how to make bunny rabbits! It is advanced towel folding folks, as you have to cut the felt eyes out!

I also liked Kerry's champagne and wine glasses, and think that someone should do that for me every night on my bed!

I also liked the breakfast tray set up on the bed...and also thought that someone could do that for me in the morning, although I prefer eggs benedict to fruit and orange juice! This is off the brand new Lagoon 500 Caribbean Soul.

I also had to give the captain of this yacht the most organized award of the day. Instead of me collecting brochures, cards, info and taking a ton of pictures he handed me a disc and said "everything you want is on there". I was impressed. Now mind you I have not loaded the disc yet, so I may have to take this back!!

I am on a roll here, and this boat gets one more award. Best decorated toilet seat. I want to see those put on my throne every time I get up all week long thank you!

The crew met at Willy T's, just like Bazza and I did. He asked her to dance and she said "I don't speak english" He said "I asked you to dance, not speak english!" Thought that was cute. Willy T's has apparently spawned a few marriages while we were all cold stone sober studying museum pieces and art work there in the Bight!
May December Marriages among crews goes to Whitey on True North. I hear rumor that he was the oldest captain in boat show too!

JUST KIDDING!! Sitting on Santa's lap is the stewardess, and his wife Max was right beside us... Max and Whitey ran the catamaran Tamarin 2 of Tortola, a decade ago and really pioneered chartering down in the San Blas Islands. This season they are running True North, the 65' Privilege...

Sad broker of the day award goes to Gail Hartman. On the first night of boat show, Gail who is arguably the busiest broker around, fell DOWN the last couple steps of the Bat Cave. (I know people are going to ask so it was about 11 pm, and I have no idea if alcohol was involved or not) Poor Gail had two gallant men carry her back to the boat she was staying on and did not go for x rays until this AM. Where they told her she had two broken bones above her ankle and had to fly home for surgery. Yes, in pain with the boot on. She should be winging her way there now. Gails' sister Valerie owns Myetts at Cane Garden Bay, so at least she had family around....

This is the only other version of our lounger I have seen on boats, and it is a small 3 seater, but I am sure it is just as popular (on the yacht Caribbean Soul)

LEAST favorite bedding for me would be this set today. I probably don't need to say anymore. I felt like I should be in Northern Alberta waiting for a snowstorm....

My favorite colors/sheets were the pastel colors of the seashells on Cuan Law. I always think these colors are so much more appropriate for the Caribbean...



Duncan and Annie, our pioneers of the charter world (Annie said on December 11th it would be the 40th year anniversary of the launching of their first charter yacht, the MIsty Law. I think that counts as pioneers! Nice to be getting saluted, Duncan going the extra mile for the brokers!

I probably have to give Annie the favorite person award too as she gave me CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!

Here it looks like Annie is lecturing our two boys. She probably was!

Moving right on from sheets and towels, (I can't believe I could dribble on for so long about them!) we turn our attention to table settings. I love Fantasy Island's colors (that Caribbean theme again)

More of these rich red themed settings, I live on a boat in the islands, so I am probably way behind the "what is trendy" curve and these are the new "in" colors... This table setting is from the 105' Power Yacht Texas Star....

Seeing quite a few boats giving out "toiletry packages" Makes sense with the airline restrictions on anything over 2 ozs...Here is a package from the 51 beneteau Bleu Turquoise that each guest receives....

And Fantasy Island again....

Speaking of heads and galleys...Another new buzz word is corian and granite countertops. I heard it EVERYWHERE. Everyone pointing out how they have remodeled their counters to one of the two. I always thought anything you could not sit on was a bad idea for kitchens and bathrooms!

Probably the yacht that I was most surprised by the interior was the yacht ran by our friend Gerry Matt. Viaggio (Or Viagra, as it is nicknamed I understand, after all, he does have an all female crew) I knew the boat was new, and I have certainly looked at the pictures and hung off the side in the dinghy when we are in the same anchorages to talk, but I never realized how NICE the interior was!

Plus I love watching another chef work! Lisa has done freelance cheffing here for about 15 years in the BVI and now is permanently on Viaggio. She is busy getting ready for a big cocktail party on board tonight, with a menu that sounded wonderful. I selflessly turned down going to any of the evening activities to sort my pictures and do my blog! Selfless, I am.

I really liked their top deck, along with Texas Star's (which has a full hot tub on board) however, I ran out of batteries just as I was taking the pictures of Texas Star's so here is two different views of the top deck on Viaggio.



Now, on reflection, I may have to tie Viaggio for favorite boat as well, as they did not give me chocolate cake, but they had a outcall masseuse set up on the back deck from Serenity Spa, who was giving neck and back massages!! All compliments of them...

Gdila told me that I was tight as can be along the vertebrae, and I had no problem sitting there for longer getting them worked out!

Below here is Brad and Kerry from Fantasy Island. Some of my guests will remember Brad from Promenade 2-3 years ago, as he worked as a deckhand on here when he first came over from South Africa!!

I saw no more goldfish floating in bowls today, but in what i can only say was a BOLD move, Cuan Law beat the goldfish, raised the duck pond by having a real OSPREY nesting on their top spreaders!!

This only because I giggled. My husband is taking pics of the outside of boats and made his way up to the front of a monohull, only to come back telling me, that although he has been around boats all his life, he found it more difficult to walk on the slanted deck and fit between the lines then he ever had! Fat people love company you know!! The very reason I made HIM climb up to the front of the boats to take pictures

And in the quickest change of crew I have ever seen...while I was typing my blog last night, I had looked at Capt Sasha's blog post on Hypnautic at http://hypnautic.blogspot.com/2009/11/boat-show-ready.html Saw all the pictures of the boat ready and thought, I have to make sure I get over there to see the boat today, Only to find out first thing this morning that they got the boat READY for boat show, but today a NEW crew was scheduled to take over and they were flying up to Annapolis tomorrow to oversee a refit on the 58 Catana DIadem! More info on that another day....
There was a couple crew that had only been on board the boats for days, which you just did not know until you asked them a basic question and they had to ask!
Kitchen gadgets of the day award has to go to the brand new oyster, Astahaya, which believe it or not, will be doing captain only charters! At a reasonable price too!



Now you know these are just a selection of pics and I have about a billion web pages and slide shows to update.....and then link to so you can see more pictures on each, but that is enough for tonight. Time to go to bed and play my SCRABBLE games!!
We had one more giggle when we returned to the hotel room tonight, the A/C was not working. And, as you can tell, it is in a really convenient location!

Thankfully carrying an Engineer with me at all times, meant Bazza could get the accumulated decade of dirt out of it and thaw it out so I did not whine too much!


Tomorrow is a big day, a few more boats to see at the boat show, and i have to cram all our things into luggage that I have not used for over a year to go up to Florida Sunday morning....I suggest you only read half this entry tonight so you have something to read tomorrow night.

It is after midnight, the first day of the CYS Tortola Boat Show and I have just managed to sort my pictures from the day. I am sure that this boat show is one of the largest, and Bazza and I are in awe of all the charter brokers who manage to get through about 70 boats and ONBOARD in about 4 days of the show. Today we did 11. We will be at the show for 3 days. You multiply it out! The stamina of some of these women in the heat is absolutely astounding!
Spread out over 4 docks, it is 98% catamarans.





We show up bright and early, with me already melting into a puddle of sweat on the dock (when oh when will they air condition the outdoors for this heavy middle aged woman?). The Charter Yacht Society led by Janet has many years practice of putting on these shows and is always organized to the max. We signed in, picked up our tote bags, name tags and "eco friendly" water bottles....

And somewhat giggled when we saw the bright new green recycling bins on the docks with nice new signs like "glass only" as I did not realize we had anywhere for this to GO on Tortola....It is a start and it leads my mind to the article I read in the paper the other day about sanitary napkins and condoms ruining our sewage pipes on Tortola. Let me stop right there. No need for any more details!
The Tourist Board, one of our main sponsors, was just setting up there booth...

And we were off and boat hopping!

I believe I am too tired to write too much tonight, so with only my very short survey sample of the show today (remember, 11 boats only...) let me give you a few highlights.
First, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I started seeing goldfish swimming around in bowls on these boats! And I am NOT only talking one boat now, but several! All I could think was, that I knew how much our boat jiggled (is that a nautical term?) around when the ferry boats came within inches of us, I could just imagine how well these goldfish stayed in their bowls!!

The COMFIEST idea I saw was these humongous pillows for lounging on on Ocean's Seven! Probably totally impractical, and you would forever be running to drag them in when it started to rain, but I sure could picture myself curled up with a book (and that pina colada in hand, just for a change to drinking them on the back deck Lisa!)

Here is a nice close up of them!

One boat that always amazes me with the amount of colorful toys on it is Priorities. Every time I look at it I imagine Children getting as excited as being at a circus! They still win the prize...

But hold on, there is a twist on the goldfish bowl, they have matched them and raised them one duck pond with a wading pool!

At least these are not real ducks so I imagine they will fare better living on board!

I stopped by the CharterportBVI booth to pick up their boats' info and saw the local smiling (and always colorful) charter guru, Dick. I swear he has bought every single one of those hawaiian type shirts in 3XXX from around the world!

I have to admit that I am a typical pathetic female at times (can I say that?) I don't give a damn whether the boats have engines in them that WORK or not, but show me cute towel folds and I will ewww and ahhh with the best of them!
Ad Astra gets a towel prize today...



And the yacht Breanker is no slouch in that department either!



Probably the nicest smiles I saw today were on the crew of Catatonic....Or they could be smiling as they have one of the few places that had a great breeze blowing on them...

NIfty gadget of the day also goes to Catatonic for this nice little presto instant one serving tea, coffee hot chocolate maker that guests can help themselves too...



And I think that best table displays of the day have to go to Green Flash. Although I felt a bit like I was in a Xmas store, it is saying something that I really loved the settings, as red and green are probably my least two favorite colors

She had them decorated inside and out, with a lot of care having gone into them. Interesting to see them, when believe me, I have seen boats just throw a wrinkled table cloth on for boat show and call it set. Or not even go that far!



That brings me to the end of my scintillating commentary tonight, off to get some sleep now...
One final observation, (and not to get hackles up) but a predictable question asked by charter brokers when they don't know the boat is " Is the boat air conditioned" A simple yes or no is fine. Some people like A/C some don't but I have to find a new way to ask the question as without fail I get the same answer from every crew who does not have a/c on board. "we have great ventilation, open hatches, and we anchor out to catch the tradewinds (and then explain to me how the tradewinds work to cool the boat) and then give me some version of "we have never needed it" to "the guests have never once asked for it" (????? Why did we never get these on our boat?)
I have had the cooling principles of trade winds, hatches and anchoring out explained to me every time. I get it. I really just want to know if you have A/C or not. It is not a trick question!
I hope I am coming across as humorous here, it is 1 AM so who knows!!



I leave you with a picture of Mike Johnson showing how brokers should REALLY be doing the boat shows!

Fireworks going off! Fireworks!! Yippee!!

Justice Indra Hariprashad-Charles just minutes ago in the High Court ruled that Hans Creek is a fisheries protected area and that the approval letter issued by the Minister on 31st January 2007 is void for illegality.


If you read down though, you will also see that it is just the beginning, as there is a certain amount of "doublespeak" in the judgement, and we are sure this case will continue all the way up to the Privvy Council in the UK.
HOWEVER, this is another important victory in the case to protect Hans Creek and it's surrounding area. It also awards costs to VIEC, which will be so important down the line, although it may have to go all the way to the UK before they see any.

The case involved judicial review of the former NDP Government’s planning approval for a five-star hotel, marina and golf course that would destroy the scientifically documented biologically important Hans Creek Fisheries Protected Area in Beef Island, British Virgin Islands.


In the controversial case a battery of UK Lawyers, headed by renowned environmental lawyer Stephen Hockman Q.C appeared for the VI Environmental Counsel (VIEC) - who was claimant in the case, the Attorney General Kathleen Quartey who represented Government - the defendant and Gerard Farara Q.C who appeared for the developer, Quorom Island (BVI) Limited.

However, the Judge in handing down her judgment explained that Quorum made two applications for planning permission - one covering the master plan and the other the golf course.

She further explained that the master plan approval related to several main components other than the golf course, but including a hotel, inner marina, residential development, commercial development and infrastructural development which may not have an adverse impact on Hans Creek and may not give rise to illegality.

“VIEC says that the decision cannot be severed since it does not differentiate between the two aspects of the Project but imposes a single set of conditions in respect of both proposals and that a proper analysis is that the approval letter constitutes one development consent within the meaning of section 20 of the planning act. Not to say too much, I believe that this may assist the decision-maker to whom I shall remit this matter.”

Meanwhile, in relation to court powers in respect of quashing orders, Justice Charles stated that she was satisfied that there is a good reason for quashing the decision in so far as it relates to the ground of illegality, “I will remit the matter to the decision-maker and direct it to reconsider the matter and reach a decision in accordance with the judgment of this court.”

In relation to cost, the Judge stated that accordingly the Attorney General shall pay to the VIEC costs pursuant to CPR 65.5 (1) and Appendix A being $14,000.00 and that Quorom is to bear its own costs in these proceedings.

In addition, on the 28th April, 2009 after the conclusion of the preliminary issue, the Judge also awarded cost to VIEC which she said such costs should be assessed, if not agreed, and to be borne equally by Quorum and the AG.

“The parties may wish to make submissions on this aspect of costs unless agreement is reached. The latter is encouraged.”

Today I thought I would look like this (well, I do look like this, it is me, but not today!) and I would have new under water pictures to put up! Alas, not to be...

The boat we thought would only take us a couple hours to clean today, seemed to take most of the day. I am not sure why, it had only not been cleaned since Brent left!
It was my Birthday a couple days ago, an entire 49 years old (truthfully, not that I am 54 saying 49!) and I woke up to find a birthday present from my lovely husband. Right in between the washing machine and the laundry soap!! Not sure what he was trying to say, but after i complete the laundry I get to have a couple massages...

I received lots of well wishes, ecards and what have you. The most original prize has to go to my friend Janice though who was diving in Bonaire last week and had this picture taken underwater for me! I thought it was very sweet!!!

This sunset picture was when we were at Salt Island last weekend, just took it off my camera...

Our destination was Thatch Island tonight. Bazza took the boat down and I took the car, as we figure we will be down this end for a week or two, what with Richard and Lisa arriving and such. Managed to take a picture of the boat from the car....

He pulled into West End to pick me up and this was about 5 PM. We went down to Great Thatch to anchor....

but alas, our calm seas have turned into January and Xmas winds in the last 24 hours...20 knots plus out of the east! No Thatch... We wandered around a bit, watching the birds, seeing if there was anywhere flat to anchor without going over to St John...

And there really wasn't. We attempted a few times to anchor in the deep off of Little Thatch (something we have never had much luck at, figure the current is so strong there is barely anything covering the rock). By this time it was dark and after 7. We ended up anchored back where we started at in West End 2 hours earlier...
Guess we will just have to put up with the ferry wash just about capsizing us here tomorrow.

Interesting comments on the BVI Heritage Conservation Group's page tonight about people emailing in comments about Scrub Island and what they perceive as bad and unsafe working conditions. I wonder if anyone listens??


Also thought some of you would be interested in this, a 105' catamaran that will be on it's way over to the BVI this winter. Necker Belle is owned by, who else?? Richard Branson. It has spent the last 3 years being refit in Australia. This below is the PR words on it, but it looks interesting, and you too can charter it for 7 nights at $88,000.00 in the BVI. With 7 crew. More later.. They also appear to have a blog you can follow, called the captain's Blog! I thought that was MY blog name!!

Virgin Limited Edition, Sir Richard Branson’s privately owned collection of luxury retreats, announces a new girl in town, Necker Belle – a magnificent 32 metre (105 foot) catamaran. Take note, she’s one fast lady, effortlessly reaching a top cruising speed of 20 knots!



Necker Belle has spent the last two years undergoing an impressive refit, following her former years as Lady Barbaretta. Currently in Australia with the final nips and tucks underway, she’ll be turning heads in no time!
With a fantastic crew of seven, she will then set sail for the Caribbean. Necker Belle will be available for tailor-made weekly charters from February 2010 onwards. It is planned that she will spend the winters in the Caribbean and summers in the Mediterranean, should her guests want her to sail the Riviera or uncover its untouched bays.
Days aboard Necker Belle will be spent enjoying the clear waters of the Caribbean, whether cutting up the sea on a pair of water-skis, trying a hand at the high-adrenaline sport of game fishing or marvelling at the vibrant marine life with scuba tanks strapped to your back. Sun lovers can relax suspended over the turquoise waters, catching some rays on the forward beam trampoline.
Whether you prefer formal or informal dining, fine cuisine on board Necker Belle is a given. Dining can be inside or outside, themed or traditional. Regardless, guests are encouraged to treat Necker Belle as their home. Whilst in the evenings, after dinner, there is always an option for open air cinema –a projector is on hand with the stars in the sky as a back drop.
Accommodating eight guests in four double cabins, Necker Belle is 14 metres wide, which means she’s extremely roomy. It’s been commented that she’s as spacious as a beautiful beach house, a fine extension from her sister property, Necker Island. Except of course she can travel at over 20 knots under full sail!
To keep abreast of Necker Belle’s progress in the run up and during her sea trials, visitors can log onto the ‘Captain’s blog’

Unfortunately, the missing person has not been found. VISAR and coast guard searched for days.
I have no blog entry tonight, just a funny picture that I stole off Lisa's Facebook...
This is her brother, Richard and her in Turkey. Besides the fact that I DON'T know what in the world they are smoking there, I think it is time for them to get back to the BVI. Don't they look like pasty white englishmen and women??? Someone joked asking if they were trying to make it easier to get through US customs!!

I worked hard all day, answering emails, doing quotes, all that fun stuff you do to try and book charters!

No Chikuzen pictures today. Bit of a somber day. We were on our way out there when we noticed Cuan Law, VISAR, Marine Services Boat and Police Plane in between Beef and Buck Island. We at first thought maybe it was a training exercise...

It was not. 2 sets of Go fast boats, were coming back from Virgin Gorda about 4 AM this morning and something happened to one of the boats, some type of accident, and of the 4 people, 2 are hospitalized, one is missing, and the captain was ok, and helping pin point the site. Search's went on all day, between a few spots. We joined in to help. I believe the only thing that was found was a lifejacket. I was really hoping that someone would find the person on shore. Maybe tomorrow...

Bazza says he has long arms from being towed behind a VISAR boat for a couple hours on a board so they could cover lots of ground. All the shorelines were checked over and over...The good thing was the seas were very flat, but the VISAR crews sure looked very hot in all their outfits and safety equipment.

My thoughts are with the family and friends tonight. There is still hope!

I took a few pictures of how Scrub Island is looking today as we were going by there. Still a long way from done and looking fairly ugly still.