British Virgin Islands

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!

No entry tonight! Just off to the Sugar Mill for dinner. Been a couple years since I have been there but it was usually my favorite place so I am looking forward to it! 4 of our guests for tomorrow are staying there tonight and invited us out for dinner, so I am sure I will have pictures tomorrow.
I got this a few days ago from the BVICCHA meeting with the Electricity Corporation along with a break down for those people who could not be there, and i thought some people would be interested in the Power Point Presentation the BVIEC had. The link is here
As well as the notes that came around with it.
Rate Structure
There are two types of electricity rates: (a) the fixed consumption rate, which has remained constant over the past 28 years; and (b) the variable consumption rate, which is the fuel variation surcharge (FVS). The FVS never exceeds the fixed rate. When the cost of fuel was at its peak, the surcharge was about 40% of one's bill; it is now at about 30% with the decrease in fuel costs.

Increased Demand
The demand for electricity has increased exponentially over the past 20 years, due in large measure to the proliferation of ACs and instant water heaters. Even when the cost of fuel was at its peak in July, the demand remained unchanged. When the demand exceeds the reserve margin of the eight generating units, power outages occur. Members were concerned that these power outages are causing irreparable harm to their equipment. BVIEC explained that, following an assessment of reported damages, if BVIEC is deemed responsible, it will repair or replace the damaged equipment. It was also noted that since some of the problems are attributable to shoddy electrical jobs, members should have their electric circuits checked.

Market Prices
It was determined that any attempt to hedge against future increases in fuel costs would be too risky for BVIEC, and a difficult "sell" to consumers.

Renewable Sources of Energy
Permission to use renewable sources of energy -- solar, wind, wave, etc., must be obtained from the Government, and cannot be fed back into BVIEC. The process of obtaining Government approvals, however, needs to happen with greater expediency.

Electric Poles and Lines
BVIEC promised to remove branches, vegetation and other obstructions from the electric poles and lines.

Personal Responsibility
It was recognized that greater vigilance about our consumption of electricity is a win-win situation for everyone and our environment.

New Initiatives
1) An advanced metering infrastructure will soon be implemented that would, among other things, allow for the remote reading of meters.
2) A new bill format will be implemented that will show customers their rates for the current billing period, as well as their electric consumption history for the past 12 months. In preparation for the launching of this new bill, BVIEC will conduct a public education campaign.

Forget I said yesterday that we were looking pretty good for charter! There seems to be more things going ON the TO DO list then coming off the to do list. All the little things you don't think about when you don't have guests on board, like, do all the fans in the cabins work? (they don't), Do all the shower pump bilges work? (they don't) and where exactly is that holding tank odor coming from every time someone flushes? (yep, a line to the poo tank!)
You get the idea anyways, all the things that need fixing when we look at the boat as a guest instead of as our home. Bleach is my best friend at the moment!
I am amazed at the different things I see by moving to a different part of the island. On our mooring in Roadtown we have the squawking parrot up above and booby birds. Bazza called me out today to look at the Oyster Catchers that were sitting (one per pole) on each and every one.

He suggested that they were hanging around looking for food, so I dutifully brought out bread only to have them turn up their pretty little noses! Guess they wanted oysters!

I was feeling a bit of cabin fever so after lunch Bazza and I went to town. You know that list we have to redo in town every few days? Off we went....After 6 weeks I have succeeded in FINALLY having my credit card from First Caribbean closed, but only once I sat in customer service for a long time and then on hold to Barbados. Don't think though that they released the hold that was on one of my CD's though as it was paid off!! Not yet me boy! Don't you be getting ahead here! They could not do it from a verbal ok from Barbados that the credit card was paid (of course not!) we did get an email through acknowledging that the credit card was paid, and they would turn it over to support for them to issue an official authorization to release the hold....Go to come back again. Since it was such a small amount that was owing on the card, I wanted really to put the money in her hand to cover it and say they really did not need to hold my large CD any longer to cover that small amount.
Went to get prescription refills for both of us old folks! This usually entails going to about three pharmacies and still coming up short. This time was no different. They appear to have a real shortage of Crestor on island. It has been like an Easter Egg hunt since we came back in August trying to get some every month! Even when I come back in a couple weeks cuz they tell me they will have more in then, it appears every other person on the island is also easter egg hunting for crestor and they buy it out just before me. A couple thoughts, isn't it bad to stop and start taking this medications?. I know that i have taken Zoloft for many years and occasionally they don't have any of that on island and that is not good to stop and start cold turkey. Me being business minded would think, "well everyone on island seems to be on these medications, let me order in double, triple or whatever so I have enough and then when all the other pharmacies run out, I will get all the business!" Makes sense to me, but I am not a pharmacy owner here and apparently it does not make sense to them. Go to come back....
We went by our cinema. You know the one, that has been going up for many many years. I really think that cinemas will be passe by the time it is finally open. In fact, looking at it today, I thought a couple things
1) that they would have to repaint it before it opened as the paint was starting to fade...

And while they were still building up on top here, at the bottom level they had all the cement from the steps and around the entrance chipped out so they must be doing maintenance already!

Then we went to a few stores. And fell over at some of the prices! I usually don't notice prices, but there was a few outstanding ones.
1) A tube of toothpaste was $7.00
2) Tube lights (you know the strands you use for fairy lights that are often used at Xmas and are about $10 to $20.00 a strand? Well they were $40.00 here.
3) A tractor sealed beam light that we buy in Walmart for about $9.00 was $15.00 in one place which was not bad then, but in another one of the chandleries it was $48.00!!!!!!!!!
4) and let me not forget the flag! Once a year, about this time we buy a new flag for the aft of the yacht. Always at the same place. When we first started buying flags here, it was about $80.00 for a very large flag, then the price of that went up atrociously, so we stepped down a size which started at about $60.00 odd dollars. Every year that flag has increased in price.
In 2006 it was $101.96
In 2007 it was $120.90
In 2008 it is $176.95!!!
Pays to keep books sometimes. I know shipping costs cannot be that much more, after all, it must weigh all of what, 2 ounces?? I hesitated for a sec wondering if I really did want a shiny new flag even if it looks nice. I could not believe the price jump. I have visions of someone sitting in the back woods of Tortola weaving this material on a hand loom (after shearing the sheep and making the yarn of course!) and using roots and herbs for colorings and that is why it is so much money.
I went to all the main grocery stores, trying to give them a once over seeing who I was going to be using for provisions this year. In other words, what was my best bet of actually getting half decent looking fruits and veg and other items that are in date? I have to tell my guests coming on this weekend that it is not looking good! There was not one that I thought, "ok, this will do it, they have most everything" I picked up items that were out of date by two months!! We came back to the pretty sunset tonight at the boat and were going to try out the restaurant across the road, Emiles, but it is not open yet, so frozen pizza it was.