family

The yacht filled up with diesel yesterday. The crew thought it was newsworthy enough to phone at 730 in the AM and tell us it was $5.70 a gallon at CSY Dock. Oh my Gosh! $2000.00 for something that potentially lasts 2 -3 weeks! I think a lot of boats in the BVI will be discovering the long lost art of sailing! It is just about $7.00 a gallon at Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor I understand. How quickly and how far can this all go up?
There has been a lot of queries on the new addendums to the Marine Ports Authority act. Basically what they are saying is that there has been a mechanism to collect harbor fees (whether you are in a harbor, marina, or indeed just checked into the territory) for many years, but it was never collected. They have now decided that they MUST collect it. Good plan! Although, the wording seems a bit ambiguous, and it definitely says that BVI registered boats are exempt, but not sure how and where it will be collected. As a BVI based, registered and licensed commercial vessel, we firmly support anything that could give us an edge over "foreign yachts" as we are beginning to feel like we are licensed and taxed up the ying yang. These fees they are implicating are fairly hefty, ie $1.00 per foot for the first day, $.075 per foot for the second day, but it would not take long before it would just be cheaper to pay the $200.00 fee for temporary importation into the country, for a foreign yacht, but perhaps this is on top of that!
Here is the PDF, if you can figure it out...
I guess while we are putting up paper, here is the link to the changes in the SCV Code (Small Commercial Vessels in the Caribbean)

My parents have had a cute little bird house with babies on their balcony that looked like they were about to fly away soon, so I thought I better get out my camera and take a picture! I am not sure that he was too impressed with me sticking my lens in his house!

It has been very cold here on the Island. Believe me, no air conditioning is needed at all! They, as well as every other place it appears, is putting in a mega yacht marina in the Inner Harbor. It is all on "First Nation Land" Here we are standing about where they are going to be putting it in yesterday morning!

We have been very busy and it is amazing how the time is going although I am not sure that i am accomplishing much...Bazza apparently was quite happy to be at my parents for the summer, as he has taken over the downstairs patio as well for his ROV project. It has gotten too large for the RV now!

We have had honeymooners on the boat a couple times, and we just found out why they were not back this year! Congrats Kim and Brendan! We will have future sailors!!

And one of our friends, Janice, who has been on the boat several times (as well as being a keen scrabble player on line with Lisa and I) just went diving in Key Largo, so I am taking the liberty to share a couple pictures of her trip there.
They saw a dolphin...

And I love this bird sitting on the balcony!

And I guess they have some pretty sunsets in Key Largo as well! Not as good as Lisa's from last night though!


We tried to take some family pictures of the 4 of this with the timer on my camera. This is what we looked like for a half an hour and never did get the time figured out! Have to go back and read the manual.

So we did get one with my dad, all three bellies sticking out anyways! This was on our way to the afternoon at the legion. Yes, we really do know how to live!

Our overnight stay at a casino was here in Oregon on the way up. Went in for dinner, but put no money in the machines!

They also had this great old bathtub for a horse trough, but I would have liked for a bathtub!

We took the ferry over from Anacortes in Washington, and IT WAS VERY COLD!
THiS COLD


This was Friday Harbor, I am sure lovely in the sun...

No wind, which did not make it any warmer.

Big marina in the San Juan Islands

So, I had quite the shock of my life this morning! Before we went across the border to Canada, we remembered that the last time we used our air card from ATT up here we spent thousands of dollars for web usage roaming. Well, no sirree we were not going to let that happen again, so before we came up we phoned and got the upgraded package so we could use the card in Canada and Mexico as well. Another $50.00 a month or so.
Imagine my surprise when they called me this morning and said that in two days our web usage was almost $5000.00!!!! My jaw dropped! It turned out that they had not put the package on when we called the other day, (what a surprise!) so they did not and backdated it so the charges should come off!
Considering I just want through a back and forth with ATT over my IPHONE trying to make them believe that my IPHONE was not making calls from Haiti, St Lucia, Jamaica, Trinidad and the British Virgin Islands all on the same day, it was like a re occuring nightmare!
The best line I heard with that customer service rep was it was "possible" that I picked up those networks from the BVI so they could not do anything about it. Hell, we have a hard enough time picking up our own cel companies down there, never mind the ones in Haiti!
And, the International Roaming Package for your cel phone that give you 50 MB of data a month, just works in 42 countries Internationally! The BVI is not one of them either. BUT at least if you have the International Traveler and the International Roaming package for IPHONE it is only going to cost you 1.9 cents per kilobyte instead of the $5000, it just about cost us for 100 MB of data in Canada!
So beware of that, when you bring your phones down to the islands. There is nothing that tells you that you are getting data from Haiti or Trinidad, in fact, mine said ATT the entire time. So I naturally assumed I was picked up the ATT St Thomas network. Live and learn one more time.
We had gone out to a Mexican Place, and I don't like spicy things, and this chile looked way too dangerous for me!

I urge all my guests, and everyone else who has flights booked next winter on American Airlines down here to DOUBLE CHECK their itienaries. When they did the schedule shake up over the last weekend, a lot of people who thought they were flying direct to San Juan, found out they weren't and many others found out they had overnight flights, getting there and back. Or more.
If this has happened to you, you are going to have to get on the phone and get a better flight plan. Do not leave it. Additionally, if you have charters booked for next winter down here and you do not have flights BOOKED yet, you are going to want to get on it. The availiblity is, going to be in one word, pathetic.
Delta is still flying a fairly reasonable schedule into St Thomas, and there is talk that the Tourist Board will be working together with the Government and the ferry operators to put on at least one evening ferry coming over, so we can get people over to the BVI.
I wonder if they will put more lights on Johnson's Reef at night so the ferry operators have a better chance of avoiding it.
There is also rumor of a high speed ferry coming into play from Puerto Rico. I will let you know as I hear of any of these things happening.
Please contact me if you need help figuring out your schedule and how to work it all together! I am going to get out a personal email to everyone on this, but this is a much faster way of getting it done.

Anyways, this is home for the next while, we just fit in the driveway and the satellite dish is going through the veranda to get the narrow little beam it needs for Directv! All is good and we are just getting comfortable and I am going to catch up on work!

From somewhere looking at Mount Olympia in Washington, I thought I better check in so family and friends can know where we are!
We enjoyed spending time at my sisters, although since she had just had surgery on her knee she was not too mobile. At all. I did what any good sister would do though and went and bought her get well presents, you know, like flowers, chocolate and balloons..OR if you are me, you buy much more practical gifts!

Come on, I put a bow on it! I have been looking at one of these things for the boat for years, but it is just not practical for the size of it to only make one blender full at a time!

It does chip and whir (and does not spill all over the counter, unlike Lisa and I with our blenders though!) So, I finally bought one. I was walking around Costco with everyone giggling saying "I know what you are doing tonight" EVERYONE. I felt like I might as well just tattooed LUSH over my forehead! My sister liked it though!
Not that it is such a bad thing, but we wonder what the point is of buying drinks when you go out, and I swear it would take you about 20 to feel anything unlike our drinks on the boat!

Anyways, we left her entertainment and started up the I 5 to my parents place in Victoria. The roads in California were HORRIBLE! We shook quite a few things off the bottom of the RV going through that state!
Remember I showed you a picture of a croc eating a kangaroo awhile ago from Australia? Well I don't know if these are made up, but here is a croc eating a SHARK!!!

So after that I will show you a cute little picture of a squid, I found on the roll of my camera.

For those who bareboat and give a damn about keeping up on all the latest things in the BVI, as opposed to our guests on Promenade who expect us to just keep up on this stuff, here is a link to a PDF of the National Parks act that was signed into law as a condition of the government receiving Sandy Cay from the Rockefeller Foundation.

I read the entire thing, for those who don't want to and the thing it is missing is a CHART! When we had the meetings about this act years ago, it was basically said that about 30% of every habitat would be protected under the act, and there would be fishing, snorkeling, and other types of priority areas. These could be changeable, depending on conditions, and perhaps may rotate to allow some areas not to see as heavy a use. There is usually a debate in the BVI as the fishermen say the divers scare away the fish, and the divers think the fishermen just take the fish. So, fishing priority areas for example you would not be able to dive in. Although the Marine Guide that was released awhile ago, had the places pretty broadly laid out, ie, saying "great Harbor Peter Island" it did not mean that the entire bay would be closed, and in fact we were told each area would be about a room size or so. I believe the areas were not exactly decided and signed into law.
Although it always scares me in the BVI when we get passed a "fait accompli" as it usually is not good.

The gist of what will be happening is: There will be areas that will be off limits at different times for different activities. You will not be able to anchor within so many feet of a National Parks Mooring. YOu will not be able to go more then 5 MPH in a dinghy in a Parks area. That means there will be some bays that you will not be able to do water sports in. There will be some places you cannot fish. YOu cannot dive. You can only snorkel. Etc. There is a provision for fines. UP to ten thousand. There is also some talk that National Parks would like to take over all the Moorings in the territory and farm out the upkeep and just do the enforcement. Conservation and Fisheries and a couple other departments will be under one umbrella and elevated to an equally important ministerial department like, say, Immigration. There are pages and pages in this act of things you have to apply for special permission for. IE, salvaging, historic shipwrecks etc etc. Down to taking pictures for advertising in a park. And of course pay the appropriate fee. Of course the other question that comes up is the enforcement end, as currently we do NOT have that available in the BVI,
I will let you know more as we know more. The head of National Parks will be talking to the BVI SCUBA Operators this week at their meeting, so we are ALL lining up our questions!
Here is the link to the PDF. National Parks May 08

I think it is a great idea to protect part of every habitat, as what The Virgin Islands Environmental Council is trying to do with Hans Creek!
I understand the petition against Hans Creek Development is over 12,000 and climbing!

I think there is strong magnets that pull this boat into the mangroves as soon as it has a day off charter! Then we get the sweet sound of grinders and the crew running around looking for old coffee cans to put paint in! The cocktail table upstairs immediately makes its way to the saloon for the computer table and quite frankly, there is stuff everywhere!
I have a lot of pictures and scanning to do from the last few days boat show, so that is on my agenda for the day (or should I say week!) a lot of website updates!
We went out for dinner with ALL the family last night!
Richard and Lisa started by saying they were going out with friends, B was supposed to be going out with friends, but apparently they got drunk and passed out so he decided to go along with them as a third wheel, and then I thought "Peg Legs" Sunday Night. Roast Beef. Yummy. and the other 4 of us horn in as well. We all piled into the dinghy and we were there about 830, only to be told that kitchen was already closed and they were trying to clean fryers! They nicely accomodated us though with a few items from the menu, Lasagnes, cottage pie, chicken and mushroom pie and roti's with salad! It was all quite good. Just at the end, the power went off, and then we were told we would have to leave as they were not staying around there in the dark with money in case they were robbed. Makes sense, I thought they were stolen from once not that long ago!
Here is my oldest son Chad and his girlfriend Christina. Still good looking kids! Somebody said that Chad had the exact same family features as we, poor Chad! Looks like a menopausal, middle age fat white lady!


I put up some comments and pictures of the boat show over on our charter boat blog that I won't repeat here, but for those who are interested, the link is

More from me later! Happy Monday...

This is particularly for my old folks at St Mary's. All keen golfers!

Found this picture along with the "caption this" and immediately thought of you all.


Link to original article

"I knew I should have used the 7 iron instead of the 9!!"

"Well, the last thing I remember was the fish finder saying this was a sandy bottom and the GPS said everything was in the green............"

"No, no, no. I said turn at the red marker, not the red FLAG!"

+Look, either go boating or go play golf....You cant do both..."

"New game called bolfing..."

"It's a peach Hon! How about my new golf cart?"

"Bob arrives late for his tee time......"

" Our propellers even bite in sand".

"Mind if I play through?"

"FFFFFOOOOOOUUUUURRRRRR!!!!!"

"Funny, the article mentions the boat owner apparently jumped off the boat when another boat's wake changed his course. Is this normal boat operating procedure in Scotland? I suspect a single(or more!) malt may have been involved there somewhere."

We are at apartment units at Village Cay for the next few days for Boat show! Who knows what will happen...We stepped of Promenade this morning, but i still have a blog entry to get up after this!

Yep, sounds like San Francisco..We had a big day, picked up my sister et spouse and drove into Fishermans Wharf bright and early. My sister likes the hot fresh donuts here and they were very good!

We had a perfect day for sightseeing in San Francisco today! First we went to watch all the Sea Lions on there own docks. They did not smell as bad as the ones in the Galapagos did!



We did not tell them what we were doing so imagine their surprise when the shuttle bus turned up to take us on a helicopter sightseeing tour.

Syd and Chris had never been on one before.

It was such a clear perfect day with not a cloud in the sky! Of course we had bundled up warmly but we hardly needed it cuz it was so warm. I think the most interesting part was flying UNDER and then OVER the Golden Gate Bridge! We could see lots of Sea Lions from up in the air as well.



After that it was on to Sausilto where we landed and went into town to an Italian Restaurant for lunch. Good lunch, everyone enjoyed theres! We walked around a bit and then took the ferry back over to San Francisco and that is where the jackets came in handy! My sister was laughing at my hat! I don't know why, I have carted that around in my bag since the first time I was in Australia since developing Roseca to try and avoid outbreaks!!!

Nice view of the Skyline from the water, even if I think my guests who live in this area and go sailing on San Francisco Bay are CRAZY!! I think I am spoiled by the warm wind and the blue water in the British Virgin Islands!

And I still think they are crazy for swimming over to Alcatraz here! Something for out Swim Vacation People from last week to do.

The crew I know shopped there little hearts out in St Thomas yesterday, and were glad to get back to the BVI.
I had an email from an old crew member, Scott, who worked on the boat for awhile back in 1999. He is applying for the coast guard and needed to submit some scenario's and how he handled them.
He included the tale of an incident that happened on New Years Eve back then. I had forgotten this story and now looking back, you can spot the things done wrong from a mile away, but hey, luck and sometimes common sense wins out in the end. I quote from Scott:
Alone at Sea
What Happened: New Years eve, 1999, working on Promenade, 65 trimaran, British Virgin Islands. Captain sent me to get ice in Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda. Set adrift from Promenade in a 20 ft open boat in middle of channel, Promenade carried on to Bitter End Yacht Club. Could not get engine started. Did not have radio contact with Promenade or any other boats!
What I did: Signaled other boats using life jacket, eventually local fishermen stopped. I had been drifting in channel for about 2 hours, while charter boats went by, some even waved back! Towed into Spanish Town to main ferry dock. Tried to determine what was wrong with the engine with help from the police superintendent, customs man and fisherman. Went with money for ice to get more gas for boat, this did not work. Figured I better get to North Sound to let Captain know what happened. Hitched a ride to Gun Point, and begged a free ride on ferry to Bitter End Yacht Club which was about 6 miles away. Found a friend who gave me a dinghy ride out to Promenade, now had been missing for 6 hours.
What was the result: Captain went to Spanish Town and got boat going, came back in time to take guests to Bitter End for New Years Eve Party.

So from the experience of a decade on, you can look back and say and ask REALLY quick off the top of your head... No blame being placed on anyone, just thoughts. Why were we untying tender from large yacht before we made sure it ran? (Perhaps this was on the reasons we learnt to always hang on to the large yacht until we got tender going, whether underway or at anchor!) We always seem to have to drop a tender in the water for some reason or other (and ice is as good an answer why as any other, but we eliminated a lot of that need by putting an ice maker on board!) Why did the tender not have a working radio and why was the main boat not in eye contact to make sure all was going fine? We always have a hard mounted radio in the tender now, and we try and remember to also always take a handheld, so lesson was learned again somewhere along the way! The VHF radio's do not last to long in the tender, even though we are supposed to get ones that are made for it. Cel phone? I know we had cel phone on boat, so why did crew member not call or was it that we did not hear it?? I seem to remember a couple other things about this incident. We had two tenders, but the other one had broken I believe so we only had the one with us, and no way to get ashore. I remember we were exasperated with Scott wondering what took so long with the ice!! Poor guy, out in the channel and we are wondering why he is taking so long! I remember calling up the captain from Cuan Law and he brought us ice (gotta take care of the guests drinks you know) and arranged to get our guests taken into Bitter End. Obviously now looking back, without myriad back up communications systems, we should have put out a PAN PAN asking people to be on the look out for him, or tried calling where he was picking up the ice to see what had happened. I am sure others will see a million more things that should have been done here, but this is a start. One other thing about that day, was poor Scotts New Years Eve was NOT quite over with yet! You are probably thinking the poor guy deserved and had a drink or three two many after that, but the truth would be that night was blowing 25-30 knots in Bitter End, as it often does, and just around midnight, our Bruce anchor drug, or we were having problems with swinging with all the boats (we were on two anchors and line at that time, no chain) and in the midst of reanchoring the line, all 3-4 hundred feet whatever we had, was let run out of the locker and disappeared with our heavy strong anchor with it! Scott's job to end this fun New Years eve was to go diving at midnight looking for a missing anchor and line! Which he found. And we now carry CHAIN! When Bazza came on board he took a couple looks at the line and thought "nope" not happening! It was very funny though as we always put down the two anchors, and when Bazza first came on the boat we had a short term deckhand, who was oh, I don't know, about 55 or so, and we called him "one ball Ken". Why did we call him "one ball Ken?" because Ken would let all our guests know on the very first day that he only had one testicle! Especially the girls. He thought it made him a start, we just thought it was ridiculous. Anyways, Bazza did enjoy the anchor lines the few weeks Ken was on board as even with the windlass, once they were up you would have to coil the damn things into the locker and Ken would have to lay down on the Bimbo Mats for a break spread eagled after the first anchor he was so pooped! I am sure I saw Bazza giggling more then once! End of stories tonight, time to see how the plane ride goes tomorrow night back to the BVI! Oh, and just for clarity, neither Bazza nor I was the captain on board on New Years Eve 1999! I was the lowly cook!!