bvi captains log blog

So, after I left you with my "rant" this afternoon.. (generally I reread them and delete them the next day once i have it out of my system, we will see what this one does tomorrow.) Some soothing activities were definitely in order.
We pulled up our anchor in Inner Harbor, and remember how mucky I told you it is in there? Well, Bazza said the first hundred feet of chain looked like something he has seen growing in sewage containers!

I spend a good half hour therapeutically trying to get it all off the deck! It helped..

Then it was a trip up to Penns Landing in East End, as we think this is going to be our new dockage space for the coming season! We had to make sure that we fit....

This winter we are so heavily booked that for time and sanity we need to turn around on dock, and with having our own dedicated slip, we never have to worry about "trying to get on dock" in one of the (expensive) marinas in Roadtown. Plus, they gave Bazza part of a workshop and a storage area RIGHT at the end of the dock! It will be very convenient for when the guests bring those three tons of dive bags with them for storage.

More on this later, when I do an "official" entry!
After measuring ourselves up for where to put lines and where to put sand screws (to keep us off the dock as the prevailing winds can be nasty in winter) we were off again! This is just a pretty picture of the clouds today...The most sun we have seen for awhile!

We were going to go over to Salt Island, but we were both dripping so much sweat that we opted to just go around the corner and drop anchor off of Buck Island. I had my snorkel gear on and was in the water within thirty seconds! No swimming for the last ten days in Inner Harbor (you saw the anchor chain, I better you would not swim there either!)
What is the first thing I saw in the water? A Grey Reef Shark! yep, it is a horrible horrible picture, as I just had my snorkeling camera, but it proved that it was a shark I saw anyways!

I snorkeled almost up to the castle on the end of Buck Island, and around the rocks. The coral is really rubbly, and it was cloudy, but I still enjoyed swimming. Went right up behind the rocks to see the pelicans.

There were quite a few schools of Blue tang around, surprisingly the color in this turned out not too bad.

Bazza went for a dive to see why the A/C was not working, and yep, exactly what he thought, a plastic bag was stuck in the intake, so he cleaned all those out. A hour snorkel and swim went a long way to calming me down and then when I got back to the boat he wanted me to help him change the transducer for the depth sounder, which was not working.
Yep. he wanted this done in the water. And yep, once you take the old one out LOTS of water comes in the boat. He told me to be quick! Down I go with wire and transducer in hand, he had it all bundled together so I could as soon as he pulled out the old one I would put up the bundles of wires and then quick as a bunny plug the transducer in. AND I was quick like a bunny, so quick that his thumb was stuck in the hole while I was trying to shove the transducer in and we had a tug of was for awhile, with me wondering why it was not going in any further! but finally success.
Then since I was already in the water I went for a 45 minute dive. I did not have a camera of course, but of note were the two spade fish that I could have reached out and touched and the slipper lobster sitting right out in the open! By the time I returned to the boat I did not care about A/C and enjoyed my several hours in the water! Life is good!
Here is a picture of the moon over Buck Island tonight and now it is dinner time.

I received this email from Dear Miss Mermaid about my rant last night on my blog... (by the way I read your blog as well!)

"I read your blog about being stuck on hold for two hours at BVI rates. Well, you NEED to know about Skype.com nearly everyone in the BVI is using Skype.com to make phone calls all over the world. Even using skype to call a BVI number is far cheaper than using your cell phone.
Also, you can get interest access for around 49-69 a month unlimited with CCT, it just plugs into your laptop and off you go on the internet!"

Aaahhh, but we do have CCT "high speed" internet thingamadoodah, on the boat. Have for many years. Even though they advertise it as high speed, it is not fast enough to run SKYPE on very well. We have to take the darn laptop to town to a wireless and sit some where in the sun somewhere to use it. Some days that just gets old! Especially now when it is so hot and humid.
Time to leave Inner Harbor as all our intakes have gotten so much crap in them it keeps on tripping the air conditioning, and it is way too warm!
My husband had just came back from Boatphone this morning, as I had read everywhere about this NEW HIGH SPEED card, and that is exactly what it is..A new high speed card that will not give us any faster speed as their equipment cannot handle it. Apparently we are only getting about 10% of the capability of the card we have now. We mentioned to them that we thought they were lying in the advertising then, and they said "well not really, as we say a new high speed CARD (and they are selling you a card that has the CAPABILITY to go much faster, if the equipment only supported it).

We then went on too our second complaint that we were being charged $99.00 a month when new people are getting it for $49 to 69.99.... Well, we can get that too if we sign a new contract! What a great way to treat your loyal customers. I "guesstimate" that over the last 12 years we have given around a hundred thousand dollars to Boatphone, and we have paid for internet from the very first time they had a card. I don't have any problems with less money for contracts, I just laugh when the long term loyal customers have to hunt them down instead of them telling us about a new contract. It is not the 18 months contract thing, since we have been here this long, 18 months is neither here nor there. It is the attitude.

So you probably think that we signed right up for the lower contract price do you???? Ha! Even though the phone and internet card is IN MY PERSONAL AND BUSINESS NAME. I have to make an "appointment" cuz we are on a boat with "corporate" office to go in and sign the papers!! No lower rate until then!

I pay $99.00 a month for very slow data service here. How slow, well, at the APPLE store I can download an hour episode on Itunes in about 10 minutes. In my mothers driveway wirelessly hooked up with the house, it might take me an hour on a bad day for that same episode. Here in the BVI it can range anywhere from 17 hours to 37 hours for that one hour episode. Do we really consider this "high speed?" AND in that 37 hours it will drop the connection 23 times. This is in low season. Don't get me started on high season.

Does anyone know if there are better options for the boat in the BVI with the new cel phone companies??? (why do I doubt it....)

My problem this weekend was that on my ATT system, (which international plan on the data card, apparently gives you a whopping 100 MB a month, and my "overage" for three weeks in Canada was $9500.00!!) We have not been able to make them understand yet that noone in their right mind would pay that if they understand what they were getting, they would just pay a 5 year program data card in Canada for the few weeks and then throw it out! Cel phones are so good at twisting and turning things around so I never know what I have or do not have on my plans, then when you ask they start listing them all off, all the different plans and all the "depends on what plan you have"
I don't want depends, I want "look up my account and tell me what i am paying" Seems simple... And just before I step off my soapbox here, let me say that the person from ATT who was going to call my husband back in two mintues 16 hours ago has not called yet....
That is it, I am done, you can probably see the steam coming out of my ears..and this was just one of the many stops in Roadtown today. Going for a dive, going for a dive, Calm, Calm...UMMMM...UMMMM...meditate, breath deep, let it roll of shoulders and NO it is NOT funny!

On another note today I hear the commercial divers from Aquaventure here are about single handedly keeping the electricity working on island today as the intake pipes that have been failing for a long long time have failed and they are clearing to keep water going in. Forget about whether it is your day or not for electricity, just be thankful you have ANY (But don't forget to get that written permission to put in a generator)


And yes, my friend Rick, at the end of the day "the pleasure is worth the pain here"...just not today!