bvi captains log blog

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...

Day one of our adventures...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:10:37 -0700

Well hello there! I have missed blogging the last few days...and I am sure some have missed my scintillating running commentary on the non important details of my life!
Found this on my camera, this is looking out our RV window in our driveway in Victoria. There is some pretty sunsets there too.

Being on the 27th floor of an apartment hotel downtown in Brisbane is interesting watching the lighting storms that came through last night. I kept on waiting for the building to shake being so used to both the boat and the RV doing that!
TIme to catch up on this blog somewhat...It has been a very busy whirlwind few days and I have not had to worry about getting any walking in as by the end of the days I can barely pick up my paws to place them one in front of the other!

Since we had quite a good sleep on the plane I have a new strategy. Get seats in the back of the plane when you have to fly economy and book one on either side of the row to hopefully make the seats between you the last ones to fill up! When we were in the Admirals Club at LAX the Qantas rep switched our seats around like that and it worked! Both mom and I took up 3 out of the 4 seats in the middle and basically slept all night. Dad, well, apparently dads count on the flight was about 6 movies!

Still, all in all, good strategy. Funny I looked at the seats in Premium economy on our way by on the plane and they did not look any better then the economy class. I understand that Qantas is taking out the bulk of their first class flights, as they make more money on the lower price with more people on board. Apparently that is a trend, as my parents tell me that many casinos' have put back in MANY many 1 cent slot machines, as they make more money on them. Decades ago they were all taking them out for the higher priced machines. I have noticed this a few other places as well, and it just may be a trend happening. In certain ways, it is a trend that I think works well on charter boats as well, the only problem is, we have a finite number of weeks in the calendar year! It has always been easier to keep the boat full with a lower charter fee and do more charters..

Anyways, back to Oz, we picked up our vehicle, a decent sized Pajaro, and made our way downtown to Oak Bay Festival, and apartment hotel located downtown, really only a block or two off of the Outdoor mall on Charlotte and Albert. Took some time to figure out the parking (no valet) found out our rooms would not be ready for hours so off we went for a drive.

In a weird moment, even though we had gotten a GPS navigator in the car, my husband was bound and determined that he was going to relearn his driving directions around Brisbane all by himself. Which meant there was a lot of face scrunching at each intersection and intersections trying to decide which way he should be going. Hey, whatever makes you happy Bazza...we all need a mental challenge every now and then!

We stopped at McDonalds for a bite to eat (where else would you go when you first arrived in Australia?) where mom delighted in seeing the first parrots/lorikeets in the trees and the first of many pictures was taken. I had forgotten how much my parents like flowers and trees. My sister will understand exactly what i mean here, as my mother is always pointing out flowers to us and typically Syd and i are rolling our eyes back in our head. It keeps them happy seeing and taking pictures of all these and I believe in the first hour mom had exhausted Bazzas knowledge of the local fauna and was telling him what the vegetation was that we passed!

We stopped to look for Cane Toads, none to be found, but we did find spiders and birds... and then made our way out to Samford area. When I first met Bazza he had a house back here, that we sold. For about $125,000 and houses are worth about $800,000 now there. Yeah. Another one of our brilliant financial moves! We don't think we could afford to live here now, or this is about what we could afford!

Continued driving out in the hills.

This is looking over the Samford plains.. It is very green right now in this part. Bazza says it is more green then he has seen it for a long time...

By the time we made it back to the city boy did we need a shower!!! All of us. After a quick clean up we went out for a walk to the outdoor mall and to show the parents this area. Walked by the casino, got some money out of the ATM and I am sure we ate something somewhere but I don't quite recall. It almost felt like we were in Times Square in New York there were so many people walking around. AND, unlike Victoria and Vancouver, we did not see one single panhandler or homeless person. The city is very clean. I cannot get over how many Asians there are here.
I found a big bag of ice and it was into bed early and to sleep for us. I have to say getting into those clean sheets sure felt good, even though the bed was way too hard for me.
******
Review of our hotel. I am fairly obsessive while booking hotel rooms. Mostly because i know myself well enough that I make Bazzas life miserable if I do not have very good beds and pillows (and I need many of these...), air conditioning that works, internet and good tv. So, I tend to look for more expensive as opposed to less, and I search all over the place for reviews like Trip Advisor etc. I also often don't like booking them through one of the discounters like Expedia, hotels or whatever, as my experience seems to be at times when I do that, I may get it for a few dollars cheaper, but I also get the oldest, tackiest, smelliest room in the place. Sometimes I do really well, with all my searching, other times, well, lets just say I wish I had not prepaid the room at times.
Location for downtown is great. The parking is a bit of a problem. You make your way down an underground parking garage that I was sure we were three times too large for, tires squealing the entire way and pass through about 3 control points that you have to use a fob on to get into. We parked our large SUV in a miniscule spot, and quickly found out that they do not waste any money cooling the parking garages, hallways, elevators etc. Felt like a sauna, most of the time.
Found in quite strange in the underground parkade, as obviously long term rentals here have storage lockers down there. However, the storage lockers are nothing more then pens of wide spaced link fence type corrals, which leaves every treasure you think you have on display for everyone driving through and EVERY item you have coated with the cement dust, and soot from the cars. Personally I would have thrown in the garbage most of what we passed. By the second day I was doing whatever I could to avoid going into that parkade. Hot, dirty, dusty, claustrophobic and you waited forever for the elevator to get down to you. I had hoped, no indeed, expected, valet parking to avoid all this, but apparently my research was lacking.

Upon checking in, we received good old fashioned keys, which are really becoming passe for key cards most everywhere. You also had a fob that you needed to operate the elevator, get in every door, the parkade etc. Fine, etc for 4 of us they only had 1 to give us. The hallways, again very hot and smelt like boiled cabbage or old curry like apartment buildings do. We had plenty of time to figure out the heat and smells as elevator wait time averaged about 14 minutes! For the first couple days we were convinced that only 1 out of the 3 elevators worked, and maybe 2 at times. We found the elevator waits in hot smelly conditions probably our least favorite part of the hotel.
The room itself, except for the lack of any soundproofing (while at the elevator you could hear the conversations in the rooms plain as day) was good. Full apartment with 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms, full size kitchen including washer and dryer (which came in handy!)
The beds were way too hard for me and although they had satellite or cable channels on the tv in the living room there was only to air tv channels in the bedroom??????????????

The A/C appeared to be building wide and not really adjustable apartment wide, with no fans, we found it quite warm sleeping at night in our rooms. Even the others in our party were hot, so it was NOT just my personal summers happening! Funny showers that had great pressure, but was flat throughout the bathroom with just a half an inch decline going to the drain... First time I got in, I turned on the shower nice and strong and quickly watched the entire bathroom floor fill up with water, meaning I had to turn down the shower to just above the trickle to avoid flooding the place.

Although comfortable, not one of my better choices for hotels and I would not stay here again.
******

I leave you today with a pictures of a Magpie...so ends day one in Oz, next time day 2...

slow blogging...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:55:17 -0700

Screaming babies on the plane over, a reality check on what humidity actually IS again after stepping off the airplane (how soon I forget when I am on the left coast about that!) Internet that costs me a lot of money for not much download time and horrors of all horrors...NO Full THrottle energy drink!

Such is the life of a world traveler and blogger... Will blog and you will get all the uploads later with pics. Off to the Gold Coast today. The parents saw Koalas and Guyanas in the wild yesterday up at Noose Head so they were pretty happy! (if a bit dripping with sweat...)

Bazza is happily munching his way through Australian Meat Pies....

Sitting in LAX...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:46:47 -0700

Listening to children scream in the Admirals Club.... So much for an oasis of quiet.... We jumped on the ferry Sunday morning and the seas in between Victoria and Vancouver were Flat, Flat, Flat..I saw fins of various water creatures and we had a great sky...

My husband was not being very nice to me when I was trying to take "going away pictures" I really need to send him back to work!

My parents smiled pretty though!

Loved the pictures of the birds on the way down to Seattle. Actually saw a Heron right by the side of the road.

We went all the way down to Fife, and stayed over night at the Emerald Queen Hotel and Casino, so my parents could go play. Bazza and I went into bed pretty early to watch TV. I was pretty tired as I had had hardly any sleep the night before attempting to get all caught up and everything ready to go away. I made it, but I was reminded once again how much work it is to get ready to go away! The boys were being very helpful here watching my mother load and organize the car this morning.... Smoky places those casinos in Washington. Thought it was weird hauling your luggage right through the casino, but the rooms were OK. Did find it funny, as i went up to the desk, leaving everyone else in the car and asked for two rooms. She asked me if I had stayed there before and I said "no" She said "well the room rates are $119.00 each" I said "ok" and she said "But, if you are AAA or Military I an take it down to $99.00" I said "my dad is both but he is in the car" and then she said "and if you are corporate I can take it down to $89.00" I agreed I was corporate as well, and started digging for a business card. Did not even need it! Thought it was quite funny...I just kept on agreeing and the rate kept on going down.

First flight, Seattle To LAX. Not too full, we had open seats in between us which meant both Bazza and I half slept all the way to Los Angeles. First time I have transferred in LA, found in funny that we waited for a shuttle bus and then zig zagged around all the planes taking off and landing over runways to get to the other terminal. This plane not taking off until midnight. Trying to tell myself that I want to stay awake until then so I have a chance of sleeping on the plane!

Had to love this perfect picture that Bruce caught on Promenade yesterday. One of the best I have seen of people getting wet on the trampoline there. SOme of our guests will recall when it gets like that it has a tendency to break the trampoline!

I found this picture on my laptop, that I have obviously borrowed from somewhere, but it is a bit old, so not sure where. Somewhere in the Caribbean, but I loved the colors...The colors still get to me after this many years of living on the water...

Another one, I found was of pelicans, obviously off of St John I would say. I just adore the Pelicans!

See you on the other side...

Will I be ready?

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:41:12 -0700

When I booked these plane tickets a few days ago, I thought "perfect, I am about caught up on everything" . That thought was great until I tried to do all the little details to finish up all the loose ends until I returned. I think I have been sorting, clicking, typing, doing up contracts, checking for wire transfers, and putting more holds on yachts in the last two days then the last two weeks!

Which, obviously is very good. Some for Promenade, some for other yachts, but it has been amazingly busy and I have been ignoring my sister (love you Syd) my parents (but I figured that was ok as I was going to be spending two weeks with them) and trying to ignore the boat! (They are going on charter now for a few months straight, so they will be too busy to talk to me anyways...)

I had the very smart idea to make my mother the administrator for this trip. She controls the paperwork and sorts it out, along with the passports etc. I am HORRIBLE at that! Bazza usually does it, but even he is happily giving over that roll. I had to giggle. My mother has envelopes on the table with the paperwork for each city we are going to be in ! Yes, you are correct. I would never do that in a hundred years...

We are all very excited. I even made them stop taking me for walks today as I was so sore from doing exercise I could barely get into bed, never mind looking forward to the pleasure of staying on a flight for 15 hours. All the leftovers were eaten out of the fridge last night, and my dad is taking us out to Swiss Chalet for dinner tonight...

My mother had time to get her nails and toes done today. I had time to do more paperwork. Now the parents are at a dance this afternoon. I want to be them!

Now, I have to pack. Then have a bath. That is what i have left to do. Of course I will still be blogging while gone! I think I would die if I could not do that. I also have my phone, my laptop (which I just spent awhile putting everything important on it since i use my desktop all the time now) So if anyone emails me they may get answers at odd times!

NO worries, g'day mate...off we go!

Look out Oz, here I come...credit card in hand! Parents and husband in tow!

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:19:45 -0700

I meant to write this last night, and then I was side tracked...Why was I side tracked? Well we decided the parental unit and ourselves were going to OZ on Monday...Literally, since I bought tickets for show and dinner to see WICKED in Sydney, Australia.
When I decide to do something, no playing around. We had told my parents we would take them with us for their 50th wedding anniversary last summer, (but you can just make it into whatever celebration of the year we are around the trip is for. Their birthdays, Valentines day, Fridays, whatever) I know that is a 180 degree turn from taking them to Las Vegas that we had thought would be the plan this week!
But we get to see our granddaughter! AND she has on something other then pink! I did not think she owned any colors other then pink...

By this morning I had flights...Seattle to Brisbane then on to Adelaide, then onto Sydney and then back, car rentals, activities, hotel rooms and by the end I was furiously changing credit cards around to see which one still would let me charge up one more little thing on it! I even took Bazzas...

Usually bit of a problem buying things on line with our British VIrgin Islands credit cards, the screens just put up a picture of some one rolling on the floor when you try and find the BVI in the country list!
Thankfully, Qantas let us do the air tickets with one of the BVI ones, which helped a lot! Did you know Debit cards only let you take out a few thousand a day? Does not matter how much is in your account.. Anyways, on to other important things. Like food.
One of my many food pleasures is making a rather large (none of these wimpy microwave popcorn bags for this girl!) and taking it to bed. A couple nights ago, EVERYONE else ate dinner (sniff sniff) while I watched as I decided that dinner was going to be popcorn. You know that mouth feel you get when you are looking forward to something? No, well you skinny people just don't get it now do you??? I bounded out to the RV, pulled out the popcorn maker, looked for oil, none, but no problem, I could work around that. I then proceeded to turn the RV over looking for popcorn. None in sight. I pouted. Of course. Bazza offered to go get me some. I put on my best martyr whine and said "no that is fine, I am not making you go out this late to go get me popcorn" He said, "that is fine, I will go into your parents first and see if they have any" I still in my best martyr whine of "don't bother, nothing is going to make me happy now" said " Well, they would only have microwave popcorn if they had any" Then HE starting turning the RV upside down as he could not believe for a second that I did not have any popcorn! AND SOON WHAT DO I HEAR?? The sweet shaking sounds of POPCORN! He was right, I did have popcorn, and apparently not a petite little jar of it either! You read that right people, an entire 8 lbs of it!

Then, it was decided by my other half, that i had been sitting cross legged on my chair in front of the computer for too many months just gaining weight and I was going walking. Sigh. I have to convince myself I have lots of energy just to make it up the steps to the parental units place! The mean man THREW me out of the car at Canadian Tire and made me HIKE. See, I took pictures of real to god scenery....

And water! By the time he spent 18 hours in Canadian Tire and picked me up at the other end, I could barely put one paw in front of the other. Hey, it was an entire half an hour people! The most activity I have done for months...and months...

He has now made me go like 3 days in a row. Today I asked at the end of the half hour if I got a special "treat" like a starbucks moccha frappucino. Some how he laughed at me! Mean man!!

Anyways, I may think I am being humorous tonight and i am so tired I probably am just irritating, so I will leave you with this joke I had passed on that also seemed to suit me to a t!

One of the girls coming on the boat in a couple weeks was lamenting (she owns restaurants too...IN Iowa? Not sure if it is near a cornfield) that she was trying to lose weight before the trip and not sure if she was going to pack the bikinis or not. I suggested she go my route and stay in her jammies all the time on the boat!
*****

I was walking down the street when I was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked me for a couple of dollars for dinner.

I took ten dollars out of my wallet and asked, 'If I give you this money, will you buy wine with it instead of dinner?'

'No, I had to stop drinking years ago', the homeless woman told me.

'Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?' I asked.

'No, I don't waste time shopping,' the homeless woman said. 'I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive.'

'Will you spend this on a beauty salon instead of food?' I asked.

'Are you NUTS!' replied the homeless woman. I haven't had my hair done in 20 years!'

'Well, I said, 'I'm not going to give you the money. Instead, I'm going to take you out for dinner with my husband and me tonight.'

The homeless Woman was shocked. 'Won't your husband be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting.'

I said, 'That's okay. It's important for him to see what a woman looks like after she has given up shopping, hair appointments, and wine.'

Simeons- new bio on new yacht

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:43:53 -0700

The nerve of "old crew"!

I promised that i would share the link for the crew profile on the new yacht (Belline) Simeon is working on when I received it...AND I have to let you know that he is sincerely in my bad books!!
Look at this picture I took off of it where HE IS SMILING!! Lisa said he came over to retrieve the hollandaise sauce recipe. After seeing the picture of him smiling I might have left him to figure it out himself! HARRRUUUUUMMMMPPPPPHHHHHH!
Well, actually I will put up 3 of the pictures so you get the full effect.

I think maybe they have more pictures of him on there smiling then I have ever seen! I am not sure what that means...

checking in..

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:53:36 -0700

Probably thought you had been missing pictures of my parents and the food we have been eating! So, I found a few from the last week...I think that was at Moxies..
We fed the parental unit ribs...

And then mom had a plate that was about bigger then she was..

Bazza, stuck to a good old favorite. Hambugers. And fries. He is a simple man!

I snapped this picture in the grocery store for Lisa, as I can never get over how bright and colorful and fresh looking the veggie displays are here, after shopping at Riteway on Saturday mornings for quite awhile when everyone is pawing through everything before it even gets to the shelves to find something they want!

****
Ah, just for variety, here is a pic from the BVI...The new fast ferry that Roadtown Fast Ferry has brought into the territory. The story goes that we are going to have service to PUERTO RICO, and ST CROIX! (and maybe St Martin sometime). I will believe it when I see it! But it would be exciting. Except for, when checking back into the territory after everyone has gone shopping in Puerto Rico can you imagine how many cases of Pampers you will have to wait behind?????

Speaking of the islands, and boats, I understand that Promenade managed somehow to get a leak in their fridge system and blew up something on the generator in the last couple days, which means a scurry and lots of money for parts to get the replacements on island and in before the boat goes on charter this coming weekend! They did well, those items usually break the day before you GO on charter! I did suggest to Lisa that she could take her frozen stuff to Sailors Ketch...Kind aren't I? Always like to be helpful! I think Bruce will quickly learn, that if repair items are "just" in the thousands, and not in the tens of thousands, life is good! Or my other favorite motto used to be "It is just one more charter to pay for it"
****
And for the cute pictures of the day, I have Koala Bears! Which have to be right up there with dolphins I would say. Apparently with drought and heat in OZ, these koalas were coming out begging for water! I wish I could have one for a pet. But they pee on you all the time!!!

I have a new OBSESSION! Tracking ancestry through DNA. I have just about got all my family now on 23andme and Decodeme. I am trying hard to learn about chromosomes and genetically connecting relatives and I am having a ball with it! Even though, I admit, I am riding on whoever genes I am comparing mine with lately to know a hell of a lot more about the subject then I do. If you are on either one of these genetic programs, look me up, I am Puppette user name (don't ask) on either one of them and you just never know who I know that I may find a connection with!

My mother in law called today from Australia. I asked if it was hot and she replied, "no not really, only about 30-35 celcius!!" I somehow did not think that was "not that hot!"

Mr Bill has been cut up and taken away...to the final resting place...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:17:08 -0700

The saga of Mr Bill...Mr Bill is the 40' monohull that fetched up on the beach in front of Ivan's at White Bay on Jost Van Dyke. One of my former guests (thanks Kelly! and the Pirate Girls) just happened to be there to snap pictures of the boat being torn up so it could be hauled away. And she posted them on her Facebook. And I borrowed them Cuz, I knew you all would like them too!

Of course, it is entirely possible that Kelly was not taking pictures of the boat at all, but just pretending too as she sneakily took pictures of this guys butt crack!! (????Kelly????HMMMM...)

Is this about me or Anegada?

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:15:01 -0700

I don't know whether to put this post on the boat blog, the charter brokering blog or my personal blog. I seem to be going all over the place, so it will go here, and probably just links on the other sites.
**
Thursday night. Another week almost gone in my world. Not too sure where it has gone to tell you the truth. Not even sure I have that much interesting to say, but thought I should check in anyways...
**
One thing I should mention, on Promenade we have a couple cabins open still on our one and only "cabin only" sailing this spring. April 19th through 25th. $1800.00 per person. Would be nice to see those get filled!
**
My mother actually sent me a cute email...it went along the lines of...

Would you rather have a dog?

Or Children?

**
I think the answer is neither! Also had a few pictures from Comox here on Vancouver Island from last winter, when the Eagles were starving. I think because of it being too cold! That is not happening this winter, it is quite warm. I did not even need a coat when we went out for dinner tonight. Sorry about your luck down in the southwest!

**
Finally got to the point where I figured I better start eating better. Unfortunate, as I love food so much. No I am not saying the word "diet" just seeing if I can make a better choice each time, and if I can't or really don't want to I won't... Plus trying to not put salt on processed foods and restaurant food. I love salt. More then about anything. Anyways, we will see how it goes. Don't follow me, you can see how well I stick to these types of things by looking at my pictures!
**
I said I had some great pictures of Anegada, Walker of BVI Pirates, and Cow Wreck Beach on Anegada fame kindly allowed me to share them on my blog. Anegada is a mystical and magical place, which sticks deep in peoples' hearts and never lets go. He has 1243 pictures here. I did go through each and every one.

Anegada...
10 miles long
2.5 miles wide
The highest elevation is $28 feet
This is the only coral island in the British VIrgin Islands, and the underlying "rock" is coral. You can imagine how porous it is. You can see that quite well here in Walkers picture. The chalky material is actually coral. There are these sink holes throughout the entire island.

Horseshoe reef, which surrounds Anegada is 18 miles long. On the North Side is where the reef meets the Atlantic.

On the south side of the island there are still many mangroves and mangrove islands.

This island has been settled, well, like forever. Pre Historic times. I used to take people to show them "conch mountain" on the south east corner (there are actually quite a small conch piles around). I ignorantly used to tell everyone that the conch piles were 50 years old! Imagine my surprise when I started to research and found out that the largest conch pile has been there since prehistoric times! That is simply amazing...

Here is a couple pictures that i have taken of it from in the water...

And now, you get to see it from the sky as well...

I hear rumors that the goats were trained NOT to jump over all the short stone walls, which marked crops and that goats still come home at night. I find that hard to believe though! I have also heard that many of them marked land patches that were handed down from generation to generation. Something along the lines of "your piece of land Junior is from the hairy cactus tree to the banyon tree"
This picture here is from the International Space Station...Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

Remember this past spring when we walked down the beach on the west end near Settling Point at the cottages that were built too close to the waters' edge, and with having the bush break taking down between them and the water? It looked like this..

Now you can see it from the sky as well...and compare...

It is these types of things that gives a place its "tug at your heart strings" charm. You shake your head at the engineering plan, you feel sad for someones dream...but it all adds to how much you love a place anyways...

You would be surprised how many fresh water wells there are on this island. How many Iguanas, and Turtles and flocks of Flamingoes that you can see in parts of the enormous Salt Pond behind the Anegada Reef Hotel

I showed you in the spring where we went down to the Fishermens landing, and saw the scraped Turtle shells on shore, the baby sharks laying out to dry, Frigate Birds everywhere, and Mangroves. More then I imagined possible. It looked like this..

And now you can also see it from the air....

Down on the east end of the island, where there are miles of deserted beaches and shallow reef, you have to anchor your tender quite a ways out and walk in...We looked like this:

Muck and ground up coral. We lost shoes, fell over ten times each, and almost lost old and young women in the muck! But we also giggled like crazy...Now look at this shallow reef from the air? How can anyone NOT want to wade through it to go exploring??

And, at the end of the day, you walk down the Flash of Beauty Beach...

This is only a small part of what Anegada has to offer. Where else can you find this? I have not even touched on the Settlement, the reef, the snorkeling, the SCUBA diving, and the magnificent beaches of Cow Wreck and Loblolly.....

I keep on thinking "this year" this year is the year I am going to spend a week just diving and exploring around here. When the seas are flat and I can circle the entire island in the big boat. Or small boat. Or land. Or by air. "this year" never really comes. There is always painting and maintenance, things to do. Businesses to run. We scrape to get out there for one day on a charter week. I keep on waiting for that group of guests who is INTO the diving, exploring and just plain wandering around in the shallow water of the tender counting the sharks and rays. I keep on waiting for that group of guests to come the few weeks of the year that this is possible and to have them say. I want to go no where else. I want to stay at Anegada all week. You will be at one with the world at the end. Trust me. Will it be you?

Thanks for the use of the pictures Walker, they are also going to go up on a web page for Anegada that I am in the middle of doing. I enjoyed comparing pictures from the sea and sky! BUT it is too late at night for me to even begin to care that they are all not sized the same! Good night all...

I am here!

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:52:48 -0700

But BUSY! Lots of yacht charter brokering go on in my world. I have found I really love sifting through the available boats for a particular group, figuring out which ones may suit them best. But, it can take time. I am sure a lot of brokers are QUICKER then me. I tend to have to go through about 6 different sites (at least) some password protected, some not, and then look at the forums for any interesting tidbits of gossip that may be around. Then I pick out the "first choices" and make sure i have all the links and details correct, which can mean more emails and looking, before giving that out to the potential yacht charter guest.
It took me about 3 hours last night to put together a larger quote. It is definitely much more work then just quickly handing over information and people hand back a check. No matter whether the charter is worth 1000.00 or $40,000. if often seems to be the same amount of work!

I love the personal aspect to it too, and I am really happy to put all my years of looking at these yachts going around in circles in the Caribbean to use.
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My mother is in the midst of being PO'ed at my father. Canada's health care can sometimes be slow for non essentials. For Practically a year he has had a MRI scheduled on his back for mid February. All travel plans were shoved around this. Mom wanted to go down south. Finally yesterday dad called and asked to be put on a cancellation list for a MRI. He was. Less then 24 hours later he received the call this morning to come in at noon. I don't need to tell you how long my mother had probably been suggesting he get on a cancellation list do I??
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Lisa tells me that customs was walking the docks yesterday grilling boats and people. IN our little out of the way marina no less!
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I have a fun blog entry coming up from Walkers pictures of Anegada and some unusual angles from Anegada. He took a lot of pictures out in his plane. 1243 of them to be exact. They even impressed me. So, you have to wait until I can do it right, with my comments, but here is a teaser...

For those who cannot wait to see the pictures and my pithy comments with them, you can sort through all 1243 of them yourselves here!

And just because a lot of people read this blog who don't read Promenade's here is the flyer for the summer specials that is coming into effect tomorrow!

That is right! Up to 10 guests for 7 nights, $17,990. between May 15th and Sept 1st, 2010. This includes: ships bar and all meals, cruising permits, National Park fees, all activities and toys as advertised on board.

Not Included: Crew Gratuity, SCUBA diving fees, A/C if requested overnight by charter guests, transportation to and fro the yacht.

This is for a full 7 nights and it cannot be prorated for under 7 nights!

I obviously don't know whether I am rambling or advertising on this blog today...Obviously a combination of both. The parental unit is taking us out this afternoon "somewhere" They would not tell me where. I am sure it has to do with food....as realistically, look at us all! Not like we go sit in the bar...

Granddaughters..

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:25:10 -0700

I don't think there is any words needed with this series of pictures. The men will go "blech" the women will go "aw, how cute!"

Gives me a break from doing year end payroll and books today...my head hurts already and it has only been a couple hours, but I swear, I will get them done today.

Our baby grand daughter is one year old today!

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:35:35 -0700

Happy First Birthday Ella! You sure are adorable!!
And your birthday present is sitting nice and safe staring at me. It is in Canada, not Australia. Welcome to my world of missed and late birthdays...Get used to it, everyone else in the family has..

In other news we took the Lion for a run yesterday afternoon and took a couple pictures at the top of the Malahat.. That is about the excitement in my world today. Bazza is chasing down fuel problems on the RV and I am thinking a Saturday afternoon spent watching TV in bed is sounding like a great idea...

Baby is not happy...

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:28:03 -0700

And for once, I don't mean me! The Lion has not liked sitting here for about the last two years and only being started to go get propane. I think it is telling us it needs to go south! The mechanic is on it though, he had me turning it over and it backfired and scared the hell out of me. Been a long time since i have heard anything like that...

**I actually see sun this afternoon! Nice change, it has poured buckets for the last 24 hours**

Interestingly most people I talked to said they would have had the same concerns about Haiti, however, there were a couple boats who really wanted to go! I received this email from the broker subsequently, which I thought some may be interested to hear the end of the story. Almost the end. I did have someone call last night who had 8 guests on the south side of Haiti who wanted to be picked up and dropped off at DR or Puerto Rico! As the person said though, they probably wanted to be picked up immediately though and not wait for a boat to get there...

"CNN staff reports they have located temporary hotel accommodations in Haiti for their immediate staffing/staging needs. At this point they are not 100% certain those accommodations will be able to sustain their crew's needs longer than a few days until one or more vessels can reach the island, or, whether the hotel will have the supplies needed for the next week or two, as this situation unfolds.
While there is still a chance we may be called into action sometime within the next few hours to prepare one or more vessels for departure, that chance appears remote. Should I get that call, I will contact vessels directly - immediately. So, if you do not hear from me by mid afternoon today, you may all stand down. (Whew!!)
I would like to thank you all for your extremely positive responses and willingness to take such swift action, especially under such "questionable" circumstances. It's not every vessel that can truly say they are "ready, set go!" on such short notice, for such a challenging charter. And, it is not every yacht owner who is willing to put his vessel and trusted staff in what could very well be "harms way", given the dire circumstances in Haiti.
Therefore, I would like to take this moment to commend each of you for being that kind of owner, that kind of skipper, with that kind of "can do" staff! You guys are the BEST of the best! And I trust we will work together soon, hopefully on something not quite so nearly impossible!"
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I think I am really missing being able to take my fishy pictures. I have my underwater shots rotating as a screensaver and I am oowing and aahing over pictures on some of the forums I belong to.
This picture, really caught my eye this morning. I believe it is taken in Thailand and the link to the post is here Not my work at all, someone called Ilan Ben Tov. The link is a great site to go to for underwater pictures though if you need a fix! I really liked his work, and there is many galleys of underwater photos.

You can see more of his work here

I hate to giggle, but I understand Promenade is slogging through the rain puddles back and forth in St THomas trying to get all their shopping back on board. Never been there, never done that! Hee Hee!

Simeon, is staying in the British Virgin Islands doing charters for the winter on Belline, a 48' catamaran. I will give you a link to his profile when it is up...He sent me a note saying that one of his specialties on the boat was going to be EGGS BENEDICT!! WTF!! He made some for the captain last week. He never, not once, made anything like that for ME. In fact, I don't believe Simeon ever cooked me anything! I feel cheated now almost....

My Haiti entry posted on my other blog today.

admin@saildivebvi.com ( BVI Captains Log Blog) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:44:17 -0700

I don't think I need to repeat this three times on every blog.
We could have headed to Haiti tomorrow