Back Home Again

Well, we are home after one of the best vacations we have every had. Wait...can you have a vacation if you don't have a job from which to vacate? Hmmm. That deserves some thought, but another time.

I should point out that this series of blog posts were done exclusively with my iPhone. That is a testament to how technology has progressed with gadgets, but also explains how some photos and text might be better. Sorry, but lugging a laptop through the BVI did not seem to be the way to go, and it worked reasonably well.

I need to take a moment to say that the BVI are a very welcoming group of islands. The people are great, the service in every establishment we visited was very good, and the food at every restaurant was very good. Aside from the two boys stealing our dinghy in Cane Gardens Harbour, it was a wonderful experience. The boys were joyriding and brought the dinghy back, thankfully.

Our greatest thanks goes to those we sailed with for being such good boat mates, and to Malcolm Read and his wife Julie for organizing the event. We presented Malcolm with a conch horn from the Bahamas and told him of the Florida Keys and Bahamian cruisers tradition of saluting the sunset with  a conch horn. He embraced the tradition and we closed each day with a hardy salute. Malcolm got so good that towards the end of the week he was holding a note longer than anyone I have heard before.

So, let me close this particular series of posts with Malcolm's first salute!

Road Town, BVI Day 8

End of the line. We cleaned the boat while sailing back to the TMM base. We had a ball!

Now it is a ferry ride back to St Thomas and our flight home Thursday. We were not able to get our room right away, so they made up for it by giving us a nice beach side room. Sweet!

The Bight and Willy T's, BVI Day 7

Last full day with the boat. We had a terrific sail across from Sopers Hole and arrived in time for lunch at Willy T's, a notorious watering hole in the BVI.

The Willy T is a permanently moored rust bucket of a vessel that has been converted to a restaurant bar. Food was actually pretty good!

Major claim to fame for the bar is giving ladies a T-Shirt if they dive topless from the upper deck. Judging by the squeals coming across the bay that has already started and it is only 2:30.

We will have dinner onboard after some initial boat cleaning, then it will be back to Road Town Harbour in the morning and the end of our charter. It has been grand. We can certainly recommend TMM charters highly.

Soper's Hole, BVI Day 6

We had a short but rough ride to Soper's Hole this morning. The winds were in the low thirties and gave us quite a ride. Everyone else was diving for cover, too, so despite it only being eleven in the morning we got the last mooring! Again!

We fixed a nice lunch then went in for drinks at Pusser's and a little shopping. The more genteel crew went for showers. I will continue with an evening cleaning off the stern.

Internet availability remains spotty. We final all bunched up behind D'Best Cup coffee shop to do emails.

Jost van Dyke, BVI Day 5

We were lucky to get a mooring ball at Great Harbour on Jost van Dyke. A short dingy ride got us to shore for the obligatory visit to Foxy's bar. We were not impressed and returned to the boat for a wonderful pasta dinner. We awoke to find a large sailing cruise ship at the mouth of the anchorage. Pretty cool. Internet is very spotty, but I will trey to continue posting from my iPhone.

Cane Garden Bay, BVI Day 4

It only gets better! We had a wonderful breakfast at the Bitter End and followed that with a nice long down wind sail. It has been the nicest sail so far for the non-sailors.

We are moored in Cane Garden Bay for the night. Very picturesque.

Bitter End, BVI Day 3

I must say once again that life is good! We have had another beautiful weather day and took full advantage. We got a reasonably early start and returned to the Baths. Everyone had a great time ashore for a few hours and returned to the boat for a nice lunch.

We have had great winds so we have been able to sail every leg. The winds have been in the high teens to early twenties, and that has been just right for this heavy cat. At home in the gulf this would kick up some chop. Here? No worries, mon.

Marina Cay, BVI Day 2

We had a nice sail today. It was a late start as we worked through our first morning afloat. We spent an hour or so after leaving the mooring getting the non-sailors acquainted with boat handling. By the time we reached a scenic area called The Baths all the moorings were taken. We anchored nearby for a quick snack, then headed for Marina Cay to avoid the problem we had yesterday of nearly not getting a mooring for the night.

They have us stacked in here very close. I think closer than the Marathon, FL mooring field which I thought crowded.

We will go ashore for happy hour and a look around.

Cooper Island, BVI

Wow, what a day. We started the day getting oriented to the Big KaHanna, a Lagoon 410 catamaran. We are chartering through TMM Charters and have found them to be a first class operation. Alex gave us a thorough briefing on the boat systems while the provisions from Bobby's market were stowed.

Once everything was squared away we cranked up the engines under the supervision of our checkout captain, Jerome. What a ride that turned out to be. It is a big boat so the 20+ knot winds were not too bad. However, we did get hit with a squall with much higher winds and a ton of rain. It was exciting and a great thing to have happen while we had an experienced catamaran captain on board. We dropped off Jerome and headed to Cooper Island confident in both the boat and crew.

In closing, I should point out that damp charcoal is very hard to light with 20 knot winds.

Road Town, BVI

We arrived in Road Town, BVI early this afternoon by "fast ferry" from Charlotte Amalie in the US Virgin Islands. Yesterday we had flown to St. Thomas and met two of the other couples sharing the charter at the Caribe Beach Hotel across the street from the airport. We had a great dinner at The Greenhouse in town before heading to bed.

The ferry to Road Town on the island of Tortola was quick and comfortable. But we were taken, in both senses of the word, by taxi to our hotel where we will stay tonight prior picking up the boat in the morning. It cost $5 per person (6 of us) to go about a quarter of a mile. Next time we will know better.

More to come:

Tampa RV Show

Just a quick note to say we attended the Tampa RV show today. Maybe it is the weather (real nice), but it seems there are a whole lot more people this year. Last year we froze.

We can honestly say we did not see a new coach that would cause us to move away from our current Journey 39K. That is not a negative for current coaches as much as it is a testimonial to how lucky we were in the selection of our first coach.

If we were to down size it looks like we would go for the Newmar Ventana 3434. It had a very livable floor plan and the fit and finish were very good.

We stopped by the MCD shade booth and decided to upgrade the shades in the living room. We will measure the windows tomorrow and get the order off. So, while we did not buy a coach, we still dropped a bunch of bucks.

I am trying this posting from the car on the way home using my iPhone. This is to test this capability in hopes of being able to share next week's sailing charter with you. I really do not want to lug a laptop on the trip.

Man of War, Day Nine

We are home in one piece. It was a very nice flight on AirGate from Marsh Harbour to New Smyrna Beach via Fort Pierce for customs.

We were impressed with the progress on the new terminal at the Marsh Harbour airport. For years the old building has been over stressed. They finally gave up trying to have seats indoors for waiting passengers and moved the waiting area to the curb. The new terminal looks huge!

The AirGate Cessna 414 is cozy. Six passengers and the pilot max. Today there were five and the pilot.

They do offer in-flight meals and entertainment. Here is the galley.

On departure we had a nice view of Marsh Harbour. That is Man of War Cay near the horizon.

Man of War Day Eight

Well our last full day on Man of War has drawn to a close. A nice lasagna dinner is in the oven and we have watched yet another gorgeous sunset while enjoying a glass of wine on the porch of Seadream with Huguette. 

The weather has continued to be perfect, so we spent the morning doing yard work on Dickies Cay, and after lunch came over to Seadream. Tisha is running OK, idling...not so much.

We walked the northern portion of the island today. It is the less densely populated portion of the island. It narrows at one point where you could literally throw a rock into the Atlantic Ocean or the Sea of Abaco depending on which way you faced.

Atlantic to left, Sea of Abaco to the right.

November wind storms made a mess of the beach.

Tomorrow we fly home via New Smyrna Beach, FL.

Man of War Day Seven

Day Seven dawned quiet and calm. It is an absolutely gorgeous day. I took a walk around the property to give you a better idea of the place. The property starts on the point where the navigation light marks the entrance to Man of War harbour. Hence the name of the property and home: Harbour Light.

Barbara likes to comb the shore line at low tide looking for, well I am not sure exactly, but she comes back with all kinds of stuff. This trip it is predominately sea biscuits. Frequently she finds conch, but pickings are slim anymore. I think the conch have been over fished around the populated areas. Too bad, too. Thirty years ago when my parents moved here you could walk out at almost any low tide and bring home dinner.

Harbour Light has porches on three sides, the largest faces the Sea of Abaco and the island of Great Abaco. It is terrific for sunsets.

Besides the main house there is a one bedroom guest house and a tool shed that also houses the auxiliary generator. The power here is spotty, so the generator is a must have item.

If you are wondering how we get our location in the blog (see the right margin), we use the SPOT personal locator. Besides tracking our location on the website you access through our link, it sends an I’m OK signal via satellite and email to selected addresses. It also has the capability of sending an SOS to a central office that can alert the proper authorities to come to our aid. While in the states there is also a road service capability. If we breakdown where there is no cellular service we can hit that button and that same office calls our roadside service contractor and supposedly help is on its way. Haven’t tried it and hope we never do. 

Here on the left is the SPOT at the base of Man of War light.