family

Sorry that i have been too busy to blog much lately...We were getting out of the showers about time we were picking up people at 2 PM on Saturday afternoon...
I cannot believe that we have still had to do more shopping, but it is true. We have been too Cost Uless, KMart, Pueblo and the Gourmet Galleries. I think I am about broke!
My cousin Karen and her husband Gordon came out to the boat to visit us Friday night for an hour..It was a late cocktail night with more music then political speeches then we have ever needed to hear coming in all directions from shore...


Kim managed to get her cabins together for the first charter of the season and they look pretty damn good too! We have a full boat, so this is her little corner of the boat, I am sure Pink and Black is her favorite color, and she picked color coordinated sheets...


The wine glasses are lined up and polished, the junk basket is filled and the yacht has new pillows for lying around the cockpit too...


See where we have thrown out the books for something much more practical, which would be liquor bottles. Save the whole having to bend down and get them out of the floor locker you know...


Since I brought my big Mac down with me, I have even more computers then usual around....


Cabins are clean and smelling pretty...





These are the new readying lights going throughout the boat, they certainly look much better then the old ones! We have moved up to 76' RV type lights now as opposed to 72' type RV lights!


...and the last couple...The rooms could use a good varnish, we will put it on Felix's list of things to do!




Even my galley is looking shiny and bright. Really I am just showing off my new cooktop that the burners are NOT rusted away on yet!


We were collecting luggage all morning Saturday while everyone was shopping. Some even found a place on St Thomas that an 85 year old woman makes you custom sandals. And it entails about 3 fittings and a week to get it done. I will be interested to see if they turn out to be very comfortable...



Then they started arriving ....




Some were happy to accept the painkillers on offer as soon as they put their little piggies on the boat!


Of course we had the old, "we were taking pictures of each other getting on board"


We made them take shoes off...


And wash feet, which meant they were then blessed enough to get on board.


Then we had more painkillers....




Someone showed us the bruise they received by lunging into the dinghy the night before....


Our first plan of attack was to get fuel at Crown Bay, so we made our way over there. All of us glad we were out on Promenade and no the big boat....


This is Cousin Karen saying to Milton "I love you bestest" which is a kind of a family saying I understand...


We were still waiting for late arrivals to come in, but we figured then we would have time for a snorkel and a dive over by the Marriott, and it was REALLY NICE to get in the water after spending the last couple days working in the hot harbor to get ready for charter...


Even Bazza went for a swim....


We had the cutest little Remora that kept on sticking himself to Bazza that we started feeding at the ladder. We could practically pick him up..Gee I wanted my camera put together so I could take pictures but I only had a crappy little thing that took pictures that looked like this. Not quite up to my standards!




The dive and snorkel however, was totally up to my standards! We had a great time and spotted many neat things.. Have I ever mentioned how much I like the water???









After diving we went back into Charlotte Amalie Harbor to anchor for the night...this was then COCKTAIL hour and RULE TIME! I need a piece of paper to remind me of the rules, I had forgotten them about all except "don't fall asleep on the beer locker, it will piss off your cruising mates and they may roll you off"



Kim's first cocktail tray of goodies....


Connor did the towel lessons for the groups. Everyone is amazed when we tell them they need 7 clothespins...


Apparently we must have been extra funny at cocktail hour judging by the faces, either that or we were feeding the guests strong drinks!


Matt was too enthralled by the sword that Bazza had found awhile ago to care about rules! I have also given him the task of figuring out what the other bottles we found are....


Still waiting for our last three guest to arrive, we amused ourselves with fishing. Many more fish were caught by the NETTING method of fishing then with an actual line and hook....


Liked the comments that were written under this picture when I posed it to facebook...!

Kerry Lynn Hucul I am sure there is fish in these seas...
Sharyl McDonald Ferguson how many cousins does it take to catch a fish answer 6, 4 watching for the fish one watching the sky (there could be flying fish tonight, and one with the pole..



Our stragglers arrived a bit late, but at least we could all stop staring at the fish then!

Crystal is almost a year older then me, and many say that I look like her... ( I noticed how I pointed out that I was the younger one!)


That meant we had to have more welcoming cocktails. Now it is getting to be about 9 at night, and no dinner yet!


Some were a bit more looser and weren't being shying about showing us their boat bite!



Others did not want to be left out of this party though! I was waiting for the strip poker game to come out and wondering what i had gotten myself into this week!


Murray had had family tshirts made up for everyone....


Aren't we a good looking group though in our matching shirts???


It was a simple dinner tonight, rotisserie chicken from Cost U less, Fresh bread, and a large salad...Looked a little sparse with Kims nice napkin display! Brent will be all jealous of her napkin folds now...


Missing some pictures here..Oh well, next blog entry...We had a good night. There might have been one or two who looked like this the morning though! (although Not Sandi!!)


The swells from Tomas are quite large coming in from the south, so it was time to bite the bullet and make our way over towards St John where it is more protected. Everyone stayed up top looking forward, the swells were 5-7 feet....








And that is it for now, We are anchored at Cruz Bay after a SCUBA dive and all are going ashore for a look see...I made it my mission to kind of catch the blog up!

I am going to cross post this on the yacht promenade blog too, as really this is where these should be, but I know lots of people go to my personal blog to see what is happening on the boat...

Thought I would take a break from cleaning to put this up. Being Lazy this morning I think, and there is no time to be lazy on board this yacht right now.

My replying to personal emails is going to be slow for the next week, too busy trying to get this boat into some kind of living shape. The boys went out shopping while I cleaned on Monday, and Connor came back saying "you should see all the neat stuff we got" I ran upstairs to see all boy stuff, and cleaning products and a stereo. I was not nearly as thrilled as he was!


I did have a couple observations...I live on a boat. WHY do we have all these keys in the galley?? These are not house keys either!


Every single thing needs de molding de mildewing and de rusting. Next time, we leave a demudifier running! EVERY single piece of cutlery... Yeah, I am feeling arthritis in my hands again all of a sudden that I have not felt for a few months...


The boys did manage to get all 16 of their new batteries back to the boat. They were not very exciting either!!


Yesterday it was back into San Juan to pick up Pirate Girl Kim who is helping me out for the next month or two...Brave girl! She looks perky!


I left the boys to putting sails back on the boat....


Of course not only did I pick up Kim but I also managed to go shopping so we brought more stuff back to the boat.....


Connor, our fair headed deckhand, apparently did not spend too much time in the sun this summer in California as he is BEET RED. Said he was not going to get Bazza to put sun tan lotion on his back and then Bazza may want some on his hairy back!!!


Meet LUCY the cleaning lady as I call her now... We are both cleaning ladies. All the training we have done in our life and I scrub.


Did make an awesome dinner last night, kind of like philly steak and cheese sandwiches. Got to keep the cleaning crews strength up you know! I have a bit of a problem now with shopping and "easy food" and things like the food at Costco are no longer my favorite as so much of it is not "real food" but processed and salt and fat which I can't and don't eat any more. So much for a lot of "throw in the oven meals"

Also went to the large grocery store in Fajardo last night. Believe me the produce section was not Safeway! Quite disappointing. I will get used to it again, it will just take a bit....


Had to laugh at this jeep, as it is mostly hand made from the bumpers and fenders being wood, fiberglass for a lot of the body and an interesting wooden back seat too!









Anyways, quick entry and time to get back to work...

Quick update, as we made it back onto the boat in Puerto Rico. Actually, I am going to post this on the boat blog and my personal blog, so it will be the same info. Then I can get back to cleaning, cuz there is no shortage....

Flight was a flight, at least it is non stop from LAX to SJU. Although I am sure that AA has the most uncomfortable large seats in the front I have ever been in. Plus they are slippery.....


We got off the plane and had all but one of our bags...surprising how many less people check bags nowadays now that they charge! Unfortunately, we got down to the end and their was only one loan bag going around that looked just liked ours but was not ours..You know what that meant!

I had the bright idea to see if they had a cel phone # on the bag and they did! So I called her and they were in the bus to the car rental place. I heard her turn to her husband and say "honey you picked up the wrong bag" and then to me "did you get it at Costco?" Yep... that was a stroke of luck that she had her number on the bag!

We were at the doors of Costco before it opened....


First, 8 batteries went into the car and then a ton of supplies. The first of many trips.... Doesn't he look happy to be here? I thought so too!




Back to the boat where we found Connor all fresh from a summer off and a young pair of hands to help load....


The blessed boy had even got the awning tacked up so we had some shade which was really a bonus....


And then had the "where do I start look?"


But there was a mother and baby manatee to welcome us back to the boat which is always nice here....


So, I am off to cleaning, the boys are out shopping again to get the other 8 batteries they need and who knows what else. I took a quick video of the mildew that seems to be everywhere even though I washed everything with vinegar before we went away. It truly smells like closed up old boat on here...

No the bilge pump in the crew head does not work, nor the a/c in my cabin, nor the fan in my cabin, nor the hot water heater....Typical stuff that always seems to happen and break when you are away which is amazing, it is not like the stuff has been used!