bvi captains log blog

House shopping, boat shopping, busy, busy, busy

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:01:21 -0700

We took off driving in another direction Sunday afternoon, over the San Bernadino forest area to Palm Springs area. The scenery was spectacular, and it was a nice drive...

My aunt and uncle are spending the month down here, so we thought we would surprise them in their airstream and take them out to lunch! This is my aunt, she is actually my grandmothers (on my mothers side) youngest sister, and they look very much alike!

We went over to Marie Callenders for lunch, and I had their pot pie and REALLY enjoyed it! It was just out of the oven!!

Silly me to make a long story short, lost my iphone, spent time looking everywhere for it and did not bother to go on ME and use the "find my iphone" feature until I got back home!! Good thing we are going back over their this afternoon for a cocktail party I can pick it up again!!!

It has been positively busy trying to do all the inspections for this house. We did walk through yesterday...Here is the outside...

and today Bazza went back over for the termite and septic tank inspection. The septic tank is screwed, but we should be able to hook up town sewage right in, so we will see. It all means the place is going to cost us less anyways as they have to be done! It also has to have some cement poured for earthquake laws now too..... and the house tented for termite control, so there is a lot going on!

This is a picture of our greehouse AFTER the sellers cleaned it out! Yes, there is less in there....

I apparently also have a kitchen aid (whew, I was worried about that!) and a blender. The blender will come in handy!

Then yesterday afternoon it was going to the gas company to show them our ID up in Corona so we could get service and calling Trash, electric, water etc etc.

After all that we thought we had not had quite enough fun yet and went shopping. And those who follow my blog might have seen pictures like this more then once or twice in the past. Full carts lined up outside of a costco...

That usually means one thing. Correct! Boat shopping! I went to get the "stuff" the boat needed. And then we stuffed the car full...

And then Bazza got to pack it all and now we are on our way to the post office!

Odds and ends, and even little updates about Simeon and Brent...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:02:46 -0700

We have had fun exploring our new home and seeing what we have for restaurants. I am a pathetic person, as some of the restaurants I had to be near were NOT an option. I am too embarassed to even talk about that! I will say that we have found some good really casual restaurants near us, and in a move that just may beat costco's hotdog, we have a hot dog shop that has a hundred different combinations of dogs! My dad will be in heaven....

Bazza had bbq sauce, baked beans and bacon on top of his. I have swiss cheese and baked beans. Yum....Plus they serve beer in there, which would be a real plus for most!

In celebration of finally purchasing a place, and also to get into practice for making them again next month on the boat, we celebrated with blue drinks! funny, I have not make any for months but I had all the ingredients besides cranberry juice in the RV tucked away safely....... They were tasting way too good and I was on a bit of a high since we purchased the house that i had to physically stop myself from drinking too much.

My friend Janice over in Virginia is towing her boat out of storage for the summer. Considering I just saw snow in all her pictures it seems like 2 weeks ago I am not sure boating is the thing to do yet! I certainly know it is not warm enough to boat on this side!!

Question all: Does anyone recognize this fabric? I saw it on a couch and I think it would be perfect for the salon couch on the boat. I want it. Just not sure how to find it!!

And with the kite jam being last week, and apparently everyone in the world getting their picture taken with Branson as there was not enough wind to actually kite sail....I thought I would throw up this picture of blog reader Drew and Branson from last night. I know some of my girlfriends think Branson is incredibly sexy so...... An eye candy picture!!

Hello hello. So how many months have passed ? Its hard to remember, and yet I seem to miss those days more and more. I follow your blog, looks like you guys are doing great. I am happy to see that.
I am now 8 months into this company. We have grown and are doing well. (For those who don't know, he went into a landscaping company with a friend of his and he is now really grown up and looking at buy a place to store all the STUFF that goes with that!)
It has been a very steep learning curve. I do payroll, WSIB, accounting, book keeping, sales, and fix and maintain most of our equipment. So my hours are long. Too long, almost half as long as Promenade's
I have to thank Bazza for the little electrical skills I learned from him. I have a volt meter and have repaired many things. On one occasion I even saved the day fixing a salter motor. AND, on occasion, someone cleans up tools after me How the days have passed.

And then I even heard from Simeon and he had this to say about him SMILING for new employers!!
"I know, I admit i was smiling on the photos, my first thought was I hope kerry does not see this. We were just messing around with no real posed shots, honestly."
And apparently, he is doing most or all of the captaining..."I've been on the helm from minute one and do 99% of all driving, he's busy cooking so he leaves me to it. Diving is all down to me as well."

We will catch up with him in April, and I will take new pictures and see if he gained any weight!

A sunday afternoon drive..

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:23:14 -0700

Well, hello there. Coming to you from a rainy Sunday morning...Just finished my SaildiveBVI charter blog web work, now I will try and get up a personal blog and then I think I am free to roam for the afternoon.

Have to explore our new living environment you know! Yesterday we went up a bit to Lake Elsinore and then over to San Juan de Capistrano before going down the coast to San Diego and back.

This is just north of where we are, about 10-15 minutes, Lake Elsinore. We looked at about 17 different houses out there one day. I really think the realtor misunderstood us when we said we did not want any yucky areas. Although not yucky and scary, it certainly was not my idea of an "ok" neighborhood (for me, let me clarify that...)
Housing was affordable. If you wanted a place for a hundred thousand, you could find one. Of course you had to debate whether you wanted the ten dogs beside you with the jacked up cars on one side of you, or the condemned HUD houses on the other. When we left there, I did not ever want to go back. It also has somewhat of a hippie/biker feel, at least the area we were at. But then the next day I saw the tattoos on our realtor and realized why she said she would like to live out there!

Anyways, here is a couple pictures of the lake there, just as we turned. Yes, I did climb a hill. Yes, I thought I was going to die. Moving right along...

Drove through some forests, watched the clean up from a car going over the mountain! and was glad we were in the car NOT the RV while I was looking over...Made it to the coast a short time late and turned south...

Ah, yes, forgot this picture...Bazza enjoying the view in the hills, threatening me about putting the pic on the blog! Hey Bazza, it is so much better then a conch shell picture isn't it?

There appears to be no shortage of seagulls here on the beach either. Thank god. I would hate to not see a ton of them like everywhere else we live. In Victoria they are very bad at shitting on our car!!

Down to the Enbarcadero in San Diego. Lots of glass, lots of flash... What we could see in between the rain drops anyways!

We wandered around looking at the boats in the Maritime Museum...

And saw the Star of India...

And even though there is not ONE single solitary boat here that I want, I LOVE the rigging on them all....

Watched more birds who were not afraid of us at all...

Watched a couple cruise ships leave in a monsoon. Somehow cocktails on the back deck was not sounding like such a great idea watching! Also instead of tshirts watched the outside vendors selling jackets and the tourists with socks in their teva sandals! Had lunch at the Elephant and Castle and was immediately jealous of Bazzas roast beef and yorkshire pudding instead of my fish and chips, took him down to the border with Tijuana so he could see it and back home!

Mi casa,

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:50:07 -0700

...have to learn Spanish now having a place in Southern California! Not sure of my chances as I have not learnt how to do anything more then to order beer after living next door to Puerto Rico for the last 12 years!

These pics have nothing to do with the house or my blog entry. I just thought they were spectacular and wished I was able to crouch down in the surf to take pictures like that, but it is not going to happen!

These are done by CLARK LITTLE

Instead of boring everyone and their dog with a billion pictures on the blog, I put them on a separate page for those who want to look at them. They are not in any order of "good areas to worst" in fact, I would say the first pictures are the worst, but carry on, they get better!

I think I finished my blog entry there too!

You can see them by clicking here...

That was my major blog entry tonight..I have so much work to catch up on tomorrow from doing this the last few days...

I am not sure Bazza was impressed when I sent him links of boats for sale too!

I know I am quiet...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:30:20 -0700

There is a very good reason for it...

I bought a concrete pad on a piece of land for our RV to live at! Halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles. Temecula/Old Town Murrieta!!.

Well, this concrete pad also has a garage, carport, greenhouse, swimming pool, 3-4 sheds, 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 office, and a 1/4 acre with it.... For really not that much more then what i would have paid for a damn concrete pad!!!

It is also 7 minutes away from Costco and Outback, which might have just been the deciding factor for those who know me well!

More later and pictures.... Must sign our signature a million more times now...

A trip down the Oregon Coast Line for us...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:11:00 -0700

Feeling quite grumpy this morning...I don't think I have an upbeat post in me. No reason I don't think other then probably that time of the month. Well, also had no cel service or internet really for 24 hours going down the coast line of Oregon. Did not think that was possible in the states nowadays. The only thing I could think of in my head was the Verizon commercial where it shows how much more coverage there is then ATT. Obviously ATT does not have a lot of presence on the coast of Oregon... Also was on some lovely northern california roads last night which practically shake everything off the damn RV. Then since we may have been on a "freeway" but it was no interstate, we did not find a place to stay until late.

It has been a bit of the "I hate RVING" couple days like "I hate BOATING" days you sometimes get... Since leaving...

- GPS Navigator died so we replaced that
-Realized how HORRENDOUSLY filthy the tow car gets while being towed (not like a tender on a boat!) and quickly got flaps of some kind to put on the RV, but the car is still thick with dirt and grime. I hate to see my paint under it.
-Lousy internet and cel phone service
-Poured incredible amounts of rain going along the 101 on the Oregon Coast. Stopped somewhere just before sunset which had "RV turnaround" to see the water, as it was blowing winds and crashing like crazy. Turned around where we were supposed to without unhooking car, but it was SSSOOOOOO wet, the RV got stuck. Yep, a couple hours ensued of trying to tow it with car, or back it, putting down boards etc etc in the pouring rain, and finally a policeman came to watch over us. Still no luck, so we had to get a larger truck with a cum along to tow the RV out. Continued on looking for a RV park in the pouring rain and I thought the RV just might blow off the highway.
-Pulled up at the Walmart to stay over last night and lined up behind a few other RV,s. just as the one in front of us had had a tire lock and his holding tanks had exploded which we were now sitting in, thank you very much. And did I mention it really smelt? Like wanted to make you gag smell>
-Although there were a couple restaurants around here, I wanted to get far away from the sewage smell so we went to unhook the car and the battery would not turn over...

That was probably part of the reason both husband and i were grumpy and take out sandwiches from Arby's had to suffice!!

Making our way down the I5...Funny this funny little house on top of a bridge just north of Portland and of course it appealed to my quirky sense of humor.

We stopped in Portland for dinner with an old friend of mine from high school. Young high school, like i was 14, in SHAPE Belgium...We have a very large community of friends on Facebook, and it sure has been fun to catch up with them all, and also learn more about people you went to school with but actually did not really know at all then. The shared connections...especially for military brats. Had to really laugh when Beth mentioned touring every military cemetary in Europe with her father and I could certainly relate to that, and usually when it was freezing cold out. She thought she had relived the beach landing on NOrmandy a million times, and all I could think was i felt the same about Vimy Ridge!

Then to top it all off my MOTHER came up with this old newspaper clipping of me (note that it is freezing cold in this picture as well...)

Beth looks still the same as she did in high school I believe, hair just shorter!

She says that Portland has like a 100 top restaurants, and took us to one of her current favorites Clyde Commons, where Bazza had the lamb. How unusual for him!

I had some type of pork shank with friend spatzle, brussel sprouts (misnamed as it was about 4 leaves from brussel sprouts, not really brussel sprouts!)

And we all had a lemon meringue tart for dessert!

Stayed overnight at a RV park just south of town and this picture is just where we had the RV stuck the next night. You cannot see the water pounding up and wind blowing, but the police man told us that was quite calm for here and this time of year! We truly are good time sailors...

The next day was a bit better for seeing the water going down the southern coast line in Oregon. Lots of place where we first went over to the coast that you could not see any water because of the trees...

I have the name of this dredger somewhere, but it was a great setting for photo's!

AND we saw seals and sea lions! So wildlife viewing was good!!

It has finally stopped raining and we have crossed over into Northern California, so we will see what the next day brings!

Eating our way around

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:05:26 -0700

I think we are still going down the Oregon and Northern California route here. I took this picture for my parents who like old cars.

We were impressed as we managed to see lots of Elk...

And even went for walks in the forests...

We made the winding drive along the avenue of the giants to see all the humongous Red woods, and they really were. We both enjoyed seeing them. Still wonder where ALL the animals are! Hardly see any it seems any more...

I am not sure the dead pelican counts...

The first thing we did when we made it to my sisters was to unhook the car and take it to the car wash. It had layers upon layers of grime...

The second thing we did was go to Hap's Original Steak and Chop house for dinner. It was pretty good. Pricey somewhat for suburbia though... I was trying to be arty in these pictures...

The next night we had my niece so we went for the less cost options at Applebies for dinner. My niece does not like looking at the camera!

And I am afraid to say that our next days entertainment looked exactly the same...Out to dinner at Espetus Churrascaria, a Brazilian Steakhouse. Not quite as good as Texas de Brazil, but we still stuffed ourselves full with cow! This is actually a picture of my sister smiling...Very unusual! See what happens when she gets lots of meat?

Chris still had his tab over to green for more meat long after the rest of us had gone on to dessert!

Of which I am not sure how I found room for peanut butter and oreo ice cream pie but I certainly did and then whined all the way home! I am thinking maybe pasta tonight!

Somewhere over the rainbow...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:39:13 -0700

Or at least somewhere over the mountain outside Temucela, just north east of San Diego....Beautiful hills, views, wide modern cities, avocados, (CALVOS), Oranges and vineyards..... We are at a RV resort at Pechanga casino which I have not been into yet but appears to have about 16 restaurants in it....

There seems to be a theme in my life lately with vineyards, although I also told someone this morning that if they were fields of flavored vodka instead of grapes I would be MUCH happier... We are going to spend a few days looking around this area at properties...
****

Had to laugh, when I stopped to take the picture of the sunset above, there was a mail box wwwaaaayyyyy above our head, which said "air mail". Someone had a sense of humor!

Me who is not a fauna and flora girl even stopped to take pictures of the flowers on the sides of the road today and we could have had enough avocados and oranges forever...Bazza helped an elderly man hook up his tow car today at the park and he kept on trying to give us both of those. He did not offer any wine though!

Cherry Trees in bloom...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:03:04 -0700

Gorge Road where we live in Victoria is covered with cherry trees in bloom on one side of the road only. The side that gets sun! I went out to take pictures and my camera battery died short there after. That ok, people weren't too crazy about us pulling over to take the pics anyways...

We wondered if taking mom out for peanut buster parfaits at Dairy Queen and sticking a straw in it as a candle counted? We thought it did...

Very ambitious now, the rv and car are getting ready for a ROAD TRIP!! New mud flaps were installed to try and save my pretty car from rock chips...

Doesn't matter what we are doing Bazza has something to "fix"...

And we are ready. We are really going to like having our car with us. Off the island Sunday night on the 5 PM ferry, cost about $200.00 for us to get us and the vehicles off the ferry and we are on our way south!

You understand why I had to finish blogging about the Australia trip so I could move on to other trips!

charter yachts and go fast boats that go boom in the night.

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:11:33 -0700

Anyone who does look at my charter blog, should to see these pictures of what a go fast boat does to an anchored charter yacht in the middle of the night.

Still in Australia, I wonder if I will have blog material until I get back to the BVI in April?

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:52:47 -0700

I am not sure if I am on a new day or an old day! But I will continue along until I get to the end of the pictures anyways.... My sister in law Kaye is VERY artys and craftsy. Something that my mother is as well and I do not have one single bone of arts and crafts in my body, and quite truthfully, the tediousness of being precise would drive me straight up the wall really quickly!~
Anyways, Kaye does these intricately designed and folded cards that she sells at markets...

Mom thought they were perfect Australian Souvenirs, grabbed a few, wrote them out and before you could say lickedy split had a stamp on them and in the Oz post office. We had a dinner out the very aptly and British Sounding SLUG AND LETTUCE.

This was a dinner with a lot of the cousins and nieces and nephews, always fun! It was good, my father was happily eating beef schnitzel with gravy and did not have to suffer through another rocket salad cuz he could find nothing to eat!!

Seemed like there was a lot of rules though for going out for dinner!!!

This is Bazza and his mother one more time. I never can get over how similar they look!

My parents and I were thrilled to see this "thing" on the road. I believe it was called a Skag something. Apparently they bite. And there is quite a dance you do to confuse them so you can pick them up that Bazza says he was much faster at when he was younger! We were amused watching the performance though and god knows none of the three of us were going near picking it up! Nice to tour Australia with an Aussie to find out all these little thins!!

Went down by the water in Adelaide. took a picture of an old anchor. Of course. Boaty people that we are!

And, birds in the tree...

Bazza says that this water tower looked exactly like this when he first came to Australia...when he was about 8! He was surprised that it still looked the same...

The rest of us just loved this "house on top of a house" there were birds living in it so maybe it was just a large bird house??? Ambitious anyways.

Tomorrows blog has some of the prettiest scenery. We went quite far out into the plains and took some great pictures....

Bright Lights, Big City of Sydney

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:56:40 -0700

On the road again... Since I just realized that we have to be back in the British Virgin Islands in 6 weeks, my opportunities for going down south are slamming shut quickly! We discussed options today, do we fly, take the RV, just take the car...just don't go or what? You know how I decide things quickly? Well, I am cleaning the RV and putting away all the crap we have scattered around from the last 3 months of not moving at all. Funny that, I had an old guy stop and want to look at our RV today as he liked the size. He mentioned that it looked like we were living in it...Very astute as there is so much crap laying around that would fly all over the place and decapitate us!!

The plan: Take the RV and car, head straight down to San Diego, spend a week or so there. Take a look around to see if we see potential RV spots that we may want to look into for buying. Then probably go by Palm Springs and see my great aunt for a few days, head up to Las Vegas, take in some shows, go to Texas de Brazil (FOOD!), let Bazza visit the Hoover Dam, and go metal detecting, and then come back up here for a week or two before flying back to the islands.

I will have to see if I have any pajamas or swim suits that fit before going back to the boat! I have a picture of me hitting the water trying to go diving and just floating on my back with all my appendages up in the air and not a hope in hell I will be able to put on enough lead to actually get under the water!

Anyways, although we may be going on a road trip the blog is back in Australia still, and I need to get that finished up! I don't like being a week behind.

We went out for a tour of the Sydney the next morning. This apparently here is the oldest pub in Australia. And it had a cellar under it where they dropped drunk men to send them out on the whaling ships...

The obligatory picture of us with the Opera House in the background...and a couple other assorted city shots. It is a very pretty city.

Sydney Harbour is very protected. This is the only entrance into the large harbour area. They tell me the water is fairly clean in here, except we had had lots of rain the last couple days so it was pretty dark and brown. Apparently more sharks in here too! That was enough for me!!

I like the couple cuddling on the ferry in front of the opera house!

We met up with a friend of ours for lunch that day. Laila, used to run the yacht Fantasy Island in the BVI for a couple years and then went sailing around the world in high and low altitudes on a monohull. SHe is Danish and a heck of a sailor! I have put pictures of her before on the blog. She is working on a white boat that is docked in Sydney Harbour for the next few months and then I believe is going to PNG. She looks wonderful, thin and tanned. What can I say? She was always such a pretty girl!

No, I am not trying to get a picture of your breasts here Laila, I was much more interested in the food on your plate!

We enjoyed catching up with her and she has now bought a place west of Sydney, although her heart might just be still in the Caribbean methinks!

We had arranged to meet mom and dad on the steps of the Opera House late afternoon. Here they are oblivious! Not everyone gets their picture taken sitting on the steps of the Opera House!

Mom could not get over the fact that we were going to see Man in BLack, a tribute to Johny Cash in the Sydney Opera HOuse. THe show was sold out, but we were there hours in advance at the box office hoping to get some turned in tickets, as we knew the parents would love it. We did manage to get wonderful seats too! Well, most of us. Bazza lost out but he did not appear to be too sad about going back to the hotel room! It was a very good show....

OUr joy was complete walking back to the hotel in the pouring rain as we found a Belgian Chocolate cafe. Which meant dessert for everyone. It was MUCH better then a starbucks or TIm Hortons! MIne had frangelico ice cream on it...Don't know why I have not thought of that on the boat, our ice cream maker could do something like that easy!

Bazza had no problems stuffing his little chipmunk cheeks...

And I think dad was wondering HOW he was going to eat it all....

Went back to our hotel room and enjoyed the night lights of the city. Time to pack up and find a plane again in the morning!

Sydney, Australia here I come...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:15:34 -0700

I don't think my husband was amused with me yesterday. I told him I had bought him presents and when he found out it was a couple pair of board shorts for his trip back to the boat and the BVI in April he told me board shorts would only be a present if he was actually going on vacation. Spoil sport. I am always happy to go back to the boat for short periods as I get to go diving and take underwater pictures!

Mom and I had tears watching the movie Dear John last night. I knew I was in trouble when I saw it was adapted from Nicholas Sparks when the opening credits rolled. Dad said there was not enough shooting and Bazza twisted a piece of paper 16,000 different ways. I don't think it was their favorite. Wasn't their birthday so it did not matter now did it??

I think we are almost at the end of our Australia adventure, being that it is time for us to move on to the Sydney portion of the entertainment hour. Never having been there, I was looking forward to it and since it was the finale and we were going to shows etc, I decided to "break the bank" so to speak. If you are looking for a very nice place to stay in Sydney that has great views and is right in the midst of the action, try Grand Suites on Circular Cay. I know this is going to be something very unusual you hear from me, but I am not sure I have anything more then a couple minor things about the hotel that were not to my preference, but I would be too embarrassed to even write them down they would sound so petty! That is high praise indeed from me!!

The concierge/bellhop type person was incredibly helpful, so much so, that aft I finished checking in and before we were even shown our rooms, we had our entire time there planned, maps, ferry schedules, private tours and other shows to see. This is the first suite I have been in that i actually got Bazza to do up a diagram of the lay out etc as it had everything I would want, with lots of opening and curved walls...

Here are some of the views from our two rooms....

And here is some of the rooms. Can't believe I miss the living room looking out to the balcony and water!

This is looking at our building from the water.

After oohing and aahing and having a drink we made our way out for a walk and watched the old men feeding the Seagulls... They are baby seagulls compared to the seagulls we have in Victoria!

On the ferry we went. Sydney has great bus and ferry public transportation. Had to see the sights from the water and make our way over to Darling Harbour...

This is the cruise ship dock. It docks right in the middle of all the action as well. In fact there were tons of boats going every which direction ALL the time. Believe me, I have never seen anything like it! Even with living in the BVI...

Of course we had to take a picture of the Opera House from the water...

And Luna Park as well...

And just scenery.. Lovely ferry ride.

Found another Kangaroo for mom to have her picture taken with...

Had a pre theater dinner at Meat and Wine, or something like that..Maybe it was meat and water! Nice place, right on the water although it appeared that they shoved as many tables into the room a la Paris as they possibly could and had on a whole bunch of staff that were not familiar with the restaurant either. Service tried, but it really fell down.

By this time we were nice and hungry though!

I ordered an iced mocha tino or something that i swear had about two ice cubes blended into it (which anyone who knows me, knows that that would drive me crazy!) AND had an entire can of whipped cream squeezed on top. It quickly became Bazzas... Speaking of ice, I was surprised that ice was not a particularly large thing in OZ. I spent a lot of time asking for extra ice. You would think with the humidity it would be. Apparently having to use copious quantities of ice is mostly an American thing!

Had to laugh, as my father, going over the fixed menu prices and not seeing any hambuger helper, thought he was being quite safe when he chose cheese as his appetizer....

You can probably tell by the look on his face that his idea of cheese and what he received on his plate were NOT one and the same thing...

I don't think the Bruschetta was a hit either, although it looked good.

My caesar salad had an entire poached egg on it!

We all had steak, which was average, and then walked over to the theater to see WICKED. We all enjoyed the production very much and two weeks later I am still humming "defying gravity" all day long! This was a very good day...Next morning is the Sydney Tour...

On the plains around Adelaide today

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:54:10 -0700

We spent the entire day driving to the North East of Adelaide. You come out over the mountain (and I use that term loosely) range and there are all these glorious fields spread out before you with old buildings that are pretty as can be scattered everywhere. Most small towns we went through seemed to have a bar and a bakery. Of course we stopped at the bakeries!

So, I will just share the pictures. We all agreed that it was our favorite scenery day.

We also stopped at Manam on the Murray River. Big river, lots of house boats that you can rent from there and go up and down the river. Truthfully, it just looked very hot to me. Did not see that there would be a ton of air conditioning inside, the water did not look like anything you wanted to swim in and the flies might have carried you away in the over 40 heat. I think I will pass!

We made our way winding over to another wine region (God, South Australia is BLESSED!) at McClarenvale, where we stopped to see Bazzas younger and prettier sister and her husband Mick. We went down to the local pub with them and they had schnitzel. We were full from lunch, but dad still jealously eyed their schnitzel and thought it was a better place to go to then the restaurants where he only wanted salad cuz he could find nothing. Funny man, as he is really not a steak eater. He likes his beef ground up into hamburger. Nothing makes his eyes light up more!

We then had a drive along the south coast over sunset, and the sunset was spectacular too.

We stayed at a HOtel called Majestic Roof Top Gardens in Adelaide, downtown on Frome St. Expedia or Orbitz or something rates it as the #2 hotel for value in Australia. I might disagree with that. Although MUCH better then our hotel in Brisbane, with air conditioning that worked really well and helpful front desk staff, there were all kinds of problems with the room keys and we were constantly having them changed and having to get staff to let us up the elevator and into the room. Similar to Brisbane! Our bad luck or are these key systems unreliable? They had a wonderful deep tub, however, the japanese inspired sink was so shallow I constantly got water everywhere. The bed had heating blankets on it (!) and even though a room was in the $200.00 range, you paid $25.00 a night Valet Parking on top, about $27.00 a day for internet connection (found internet VERY expensive everywhere we were for basically not much download data..I think everywhere has decided there that they are going to make up on internet charges what they loose in long distance phone calls in rooms nowadays...) and a further $25.00 a person for a crummy breakfast buffet in the morning and pay extra for your hot chocolate please and thank you. We arrived at the buffet shortly after 9, knowing it closed at 930 AM and while sitting down we were informed by the waitress that the buffet closed at 930 SHARP. It did not give us a warm and fuzzy feeling.

I had another episode in Brisbane like that. When we went to the airport to get our plane to Brisbane, we had time to spare so we went into the Qantas Lounge which you have privileges in with your AA admirals Club. In AA you can bring your immediate family in. I pulled out my ID and the temp card I had gotten from the Admirals Club in LA, since when I renewed it there, they told me since it had been expired by more then a month, I had to get a temporary and the permanent would come in the mail. No problem.

At Qantas lounge the one girl looked at my card and basically said she did not know what the hell it was and couldn't accept it. I explained and she kind of tossed it over to the other girl who read it and said "it must just be their temporary card" and then said "how many cards do you have" I said "just the one" and she said "well you can only bring one person in with you" I said "but they are my family and family is allowed in" and she said "not when you are using a AA membership on Qantas" and I started putting everything away and said "well how am I supposed to know that?" She said "it is all plainly spelled out on our web site"

Well forgive me, when I am told by AA at LA that I have no problem and can use it at the Qantas lounges in OZ, I did not rush to the web site to read all the fine print!! She was very busy looking down here nose at me, and I am not sure what i said then. I had finished putting everything away and was then told "that I was going to forgive it today and let you in for today ONLY" Which really pissed me off, as would it not have been better customer service to rearrange how she told me it and say " I am going to let you in today with your family,but Qantas policy is for AA Club members to only let you bring in one guest each time?" So my back was not immediately up by being told no?

I did tell her that I did not appreciate being chastised, and I sure as hell don't like many of the versions of customer service nowadays! We ended up going in for breaky, with us feeling quite uncomfortable.

Ok, enough ranting today. It is my mothers birthday today. The big 70! We all took her out for a high end lunch of Costco hot dogs, and now we are going to take her out for Dairy Queen instead of cake and then off to see the movie Dear John that she wanted to see!

I am starting to look for a RV lot for sale around the San Diego area...Just in case anyone has any knowledge of them! Or a piece of land to put the RV on and build a workshop, although so many places have zoning restrictions in that neck of the woods for putting RV's on property (in California? No, you are kidding!) Decided the not-as-humid- left coast might be better for our RV.

Old graveyards and old country farm houses..

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:19:05 -0700

In the afternoon it was out for a drive again. We spent a lot of time driving around watching things...

This is one of the most picturesque spots we found. The flowers, the old houses, the graveyard that goes with the house. Obviously family members still keep up this cemetary as there were a lot of head stones that had been replaced...

Mom was thrilled as her son in law stops at a lot of little places that my dad would NEVER stop at...He says that if they stopped at everywhere she wanted they would never get anywhere... The mangoes they bought here all pronounced delicious, the best they had had in a very long time...

By the end of the last night in Brisbane, the heat and humidity was really getting to us all, but we still drag ourselves down to the Botanical Gardens to feed the Possums! That was neat. We had never seen possums before!

Off to Adelaide on the next blog....Where the temperature is hovering near 40 degrees!

Lou Mirandas, Barossa Valley, Food, Cheese and Wine. Pretty much a perfect day except for the heat

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:44:07 -0700

Lets go onto the next day in Adelaide..We decided to take a drive out to the north and northeast. We stopped at Whispering Walls, where it is a perfect "something" oval shape and you can hear people whispering from a long way away across the dam. That is about as technical as I get.

My god was it hot out today! Bazza kept on thinking we should get out of the car for little walks and we kept on complaining (although in his favor, both my parents have said they lost 5 lbs on the trip which is pretty amazing for vacation!) We saw no animals. Why? Because it was too damn hot for the animals and they were all sleeping! Where we should have been!!!

I guess I had not realized that there was such a large wine district by Adelaide. The Barossa Valley. There were vineyards from many well known variety's, Penfolds, Wolf Blass, Hamilton, Jacobs Creek, and a ton more. We decided that it was a perfect day to stop at a nice AIR CONDITIONED wine cellar and restaurant. It was one of the best decisions we made the entire time! We stopped at Lou Mirandas...

What sold me was the fact it was obviously air conditioned! But, it was lovely inside as well. Massive wood tables, wine bottles made into wall sconces, and a great menu..

The Pinot Grigio we had was totally clear.

We had a great cheese plate that we all enjoyed and also had fresh almonds and dried apricots with it..

We pretty much just picked a whole bunch of meals that really did not go together and put them in the middle of the table. I had forgotten how GOOD REAL fresh scallops taste! It was amazing. I am sure the ones we get in the BVI now are stamped rays cut out. There is no comparison. We also had baby corn with a mayonnaise on top, salt and pepper calamari (which is still big everywhere in OZ) and of course, lots of fries for dad.

The piece de resistance though was dessert. We had a chocolate fudge banana cake that was to die for. I can still taste it weeks later!

Took this picture from my daughter in law. She had a baby picture of her Wade with Bazza in the shower. LOOK AT HOW SKINNY HE WAS!!!!!!!! I also hated the beard! Apparently he also had a lot more hair then!

Compare that to the man happily eyeing over the pie counter here in Australia!

OK, it is just possible that there was more then Bazza looking over the dessert counters!

Went out for more meals with our son and daughter, Karen and Wade. One thing all our children have to admit is that they get fed well when I am around! Imagine....

I am on a plane, but the blog is in Adelaide now...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:00:59 -0700

Backside is square. And I have another 8 hours of sitting like a sardine with the 4 of us across the entire middle row. I like it better when we fly overnight! It is much easier to sleep. The plane had engine troubles before leaving today, so we were a couple hours late taking off. That may just be enough time for us to miss our flight to Seattle..They can always re route us through Las Vegas if they want!!!
Any ways, we have some family time pictures now..We took the kids and the parents out for dinner in the Casino Railway Station in Adelaide as well as to go see Warriors of Brazil. Dinner was good, pricey somewhat. I find most of the meals quite expensive in Adelaide when you are changing our lowly US dollars nowadays...
My father was stumped by this meal, and come find nothing on the menu that passed to something similar to hamburger so he had to settle for Rocket Salad! The rest of us mostly have steak. It was fairly good.
This is us all sitting down to eat...

Probably the best part was the assortment of fresh breads, mostly middle eastern with the dip of mushroom spread. But, Of course, I have pictures..
This is the Rib Eye steak with the bone still on. I don't see that often where I go!

Bazza had lamb. Lamb and meat pies seem to be a staple of his when he is in OZ. Enjoy them dear, I don't do either at home!!

Of course, we managed to find room for dessert. After all, it is not like it is a LARGE dessert now is it? We enjoyed the Warriors of Brazil show. They were acrobatically sound, enthusciastic and some of those men could do things with their body and hips I have never seen before! I was teasing Bazza and Dad that mom and I would be ready at 9 AM the next day to see them practicing! They shook their head. The choreography was somewhat amateurish and they had a ways to go to be tight, but still very enjoyable.

This is our car license plate! We are in the Outback!! I wanted to take the license plate home. The 4 wd drive we have is big and lumbering and with a hundred thousand kliks on it, I think it has spent quite a bit of time there too!

We made the family rounds over and over..This is Bazza and his mom. She is busy fixing up here ranch still out at Pinery..

This is an old picture of here that she let me scan. Bazzas mother Barbara, is the one holding the baby on her lap. Bazza has his mothers and grandmothers eyes!

The bird liked me. At least this time the old dog had died who delighted in spending his hours when we visted licking all or one of uses crotch! I mean, you could NOT get rid of him..

Mom had to get into the bird action too here. Could not be left out!

Then we went and saw the baby. ALL the clothes I bought her she may be able to fit into a year from now! Obviously been a long time since I bought baby clothes, as I really thought they would be too small!
So, this is Miss Ella, her dad Wade and grand father Bazzy. We are on our way to TOYS R US to buy toys off course!

One of the toys was a ball of course..

She warmed up to the grandmothers before she warmed up to the Grand Fathers! Of course she had no idea who we were at first, but we did get her to sit on grampa's knee. By the third day we were there though, when we came in the door she had a great big smile and went around to each one of us in tirn wanting to say hi and have a quick cuddle!

Gramma got to hold Baby girl as well...She hoots like a little owl! In a very quiet voice. And of course, is into everything! Bazza and I just laughed and thought "your turn" Yep, I have spoiled here but it is now time for us to hand baby back to the parents for de spoiling and go on our merry way.

This is Bazzas older and prettier sister Pearl, just moved back to Adelaide from Tasmania...

There were birds everyhwhere, Magpies, Lillakeets, Galahs, Parrots etc. I often had my nose up a tree taking pictures!

Bazzas mom has storage barns and sheds everywhere on her property. We went into a couple of them to have a quick look around. Oh. My. God. Lets just leave it there! Crammed full to the rafters. My father said I could never complain to him again that he had too much "stuff"! Doesn't he know that i can always complain!!!

A trip to the Koala Sanctuary

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:15:26 -0700

We had a mornings outing to the Koala Sanctuary, before it warmed up too much...It was fun, we petted lots of animals and enjoyed ourselves very much...Probably these pictures are pretty self explanatory!
These Koala Bears are sure cute!!!

A trip to the playground?

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:58:28 -0700

Bazzas idea, not any of the other three of us!

Going for a walk along the beach looked like fun...But apparently I was going to have to go back to my childhood.

My mother looks like she is scared to death and just wants off...

I am smiling!

Did not like these rides at all!!

Bazza says there was a weight inequality here and he could not make it teeter. I prefer to think that He was too out of shape to get up on the other side!

A kangaroo...with silly billies on top..

Sand diggers that everyone besides me decided they had to try...

I think the problem here may be that Mom managed to get into this, but I am not too sure it was too easy getting out...

I think my parents look like they are about 5 or so here!

My mother on a zip line!! So, it was the childs one and her feet kept on dragging on the ground! I swear these were easier to do when we were a lot younger. We are all huffing and puffing by this time!

We decided to watch Bazza go down the slide. Only one problem, I think his behind barely fit in the slide, which meant he was not sliding at all, just sitting. He says different.

This is what old man looks like after the hours trip to the playground!

Still in OZ, still in Queensland...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:17:24 -0700

Way back in the dark ages, before Bazza even knew me, he came out to the Caribbean to work on Lonestar as Engineer and First Mate. His friends, the Kelseys, got him a nicely inscribed going away present of a compass with some saying that he could always find his way back home with it. As things go, he never received it. They left it under his house before he went, it could not be found, it came back in the mail to them months later, and then they put it away. Heather came across it a few years ago and since we were sporadically in touch, she wrote a letter to go with it and meant to mail it off to him.

10 years after leaving Oz, we have come back and he now receives the compass pointing the way home! I guess it worked in a round about way, after all, he did come back to Oz! Complete with going away card with best wishes and everything. He did have good luck and best wishes, he met ME and the rest is history!

We have a nice Pajero 4 wheel drive. Apparently they don't call these SUV's here and no one knows what I was talking about. NIce vehicle.....

We made our way down to the Gold Coast. Down to the Sand pumping jetty and the sky was, hot, crisp and clear. I found some spectacular pictures...

Surfers eyeing the waves....

Looking down the Gold Coast at the large buildings looks like something out of a science fiction movie to me. Reminescenst of Battlestar Galitica or some such...

The birds were not too bothered by us...

We walked out to the end of the jetty and back. Sat and had ice cream. In that 35 minutes I found Heat Prickle for the first time in my life. I was scratching myself raw. All the time living in the Caribbean and I have never felt that before. Off we went to pharmacies for me to pour medicated powder and aloe all over myself.

Took the parental unit out for another drive. I believe we have now covered thousands of kilometers, but what else are you going to do when it is hovering around 40 degrees celcius and more out?

As normally happens to me, I have so many pictures I can't decide which I like best so I will just put them all up!

Here we have paddington bear and the "evil man who gave me a cold" looking for more tissue to blow that nose one more time!

We stopped to get fish and chips at Scarborough, and to see the shrimp boats... Do you think it is just maybe possible that this table might have FED the birds???

Not us boy! We were not sharing...

The boats and lights were pretty though...

ANother food shot, the next morning I think eating at a sidewalk coffee shop...

We continued driving around Brisbane forests, and stopping in the boiling humidity to take more walks. Apparently I am much more in shape for walking now!

Went up driving by Springbrook, which I thought would be lovely and cool to live at. great falls, views of cloud etc etc. Bazza told me I would soon be tired of everything being damp and moldy....

Even though this is a horrible picture we were still thrilled to see Wallabees in the wild, quite a few of them too!

Had some wonderful scenery...

And had a little Goana looking for food from us. Probably takes us to the end of that day I would say!

Next blog entry is cute and koala bears figure prominently in it!

Must go get ready to go out for another meal.....

Our Australia Trip- Day whatever...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:08:40 -0700

I will take a stab at getting the second days blog off here before we venture out on the town for another day. I have a cold. Of course I have a cold, I was on a plane. Not only that but my father had the cold FIRST so it is HIS fault..Now there are two of us snifflling and coughing away...
It was out for a drive today. Ettamogah pub has been made famous here by mostly a newspaper cartoon that is was featured in a lot....

Pub, pies, Ice Cream, kiddy play land not open and shops...That about covers it...

There seems to be one of these types of attractions about everywhere you go..

Like the man with his pants down...a favorite type of male for most females!

Bazza being mean to my parents! Is he tired of them already??

We walked in and out of the stores..

And then Bazza was drawn like a magnet to more meat pies...

They were good too and we all enjoyed them.

Out to Noosa Head, we have been here before. Some of about the most expensive commercial real estate in Australia. Used to be a tiny little surfers village, but although there is still lots of surfers, I don't think they can afford to eat at some of the places in town!

I have been enjoying taking pictures of the various birds around, I never get to see too many in the BVI.

Lots of these types of buses around with surfer types trailing there boards up and down the trails at the headland.

We were just impressed to make it out the trail never mind doing it with boards and bare feet! I think my mother looks like Paddington Bear in my hat here! So cute!

Mom was ecstatic to see a Koala Bear, even if it was not a real one!

This is just walking along out to the headland....

And the parental units first wild koala bear. Yes, we took about a billion pictures...

The water colors are reminding me of the islands!

Also, saw my first wild Goana! He was large and did not really want me taking pictures of him here as you can probably tell...

After having melted in the mid day sun and humidity, we drove down to MooLooLaBar. Took a picture of this little "boat" for sale $25,000. and what I thought was funny was the sign called it an "exclusive yacht" although reading the listing later it did say that it was a life boat off the Queen Mary! Even with that cachet I don't think I could quite call it an "exclusive yacht"

My father makes friends wherever he goes.....

It was on to Bunderim to visit friends afterwards, the Kelseys, who have a great place up in the hills. These are friends of Bazza that he has known since he was 15 years old. In fact, Barry Kelsey was the one who offered Bazza a mechanic apprenticeship when he was only 15. I laughed when Barry said that "he taught Bazza for the first 10 months and then Bazza taught him" Sounds about like my husband it does!! We had a great time catching up, here Bazza is sharing pictures of our boat and travels in the BVI.

We went over to see the boat that they are "Just" about finished building, a power cat. Typical boat stories in building a boat, had to laugh... and also recognized the boat stuffed full of maintenance and building equipment. Looks just like our boats! They tell me it is ready to go into the water in about 4 days. Bazza says it is true, but to me it looks daunting!

After visiting the boat we met up with their son Christopher and his family and we all went out for a great steak dinner and visit in Bunderim, at a restaurant that had a fabulous view! I had to giggle, as the guys swapped old fishing stories from way back when and they sure enjoyed doing it. Would have like to spend more time with them and heard more!

Next blog entry I will tell you a funny story about this picture below here..

HATE being a few days behind in my blog!!!! First of all I don't remember, second of all, I write so much trivial crap that I have massive amounts to catch up on! Today we are in Adelaide, saw our baby granddaughter last night, but that is getting way ahead of the story... Must go get dressed to go out again. The days are sure going quite quickly...