For the most recent reports from the BVI see this page.
- - - 2009 Hurricane Season - - -
- MonDaze
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:35:18 EDT
The recent rains have done nothing to settle the Sahara dust. I guess more
just flew over and landed after the rains. There is a tropical wave moving
east to west, south of us and another one rolling off Africa, about midways in
the Atlantic.
86 degrees with constant tradewinds, no surf yet! So far 50 days into
hurricane season and no hurricanes yet. Amazing!
FLYING HIGH...
When I flew back to the islands recently, I had to change planes in
Philadelphia, then hop on the one to St Thomas. I fell asleep and
when I woke up it was about 2:30pm. The stewardess announced it was
3:30 local time and we would be landing shortly. I looked out at the ocean we
were rapidly descending towards. That's all you see until the wheels hit the
tarmac.
I was thinking about my friend who flew down here a few years ago, and when
they made the announcement they were about to land, she saw the ocean getting
closer and closer and concluded the plane was going to land on the water!
Anyhow, passengers all around me began changing their watches and cell
phones. I reached up with intention to ding the stewardess to let her know
it was really 2:30pm locally but I couldn't reach the button unless I stood
up. Before I got my seatbelt off, the flight attendant came on
the loud speaker and proclaimed it was 1:30 local time and apologized for the
previous error.
Folks dutifully changed their watches and cell phones again. I
giggled. Maybe now was not the time to point out this new mistake. Then
the captain came on the intercom, thanked us for flying with him, and announced
the correct local time was 3:30pm. You could hear a loud groan now, as people
changed their watches and cell phones for the third time. Then a different voice
came on the loudspeaker and announced the time was 2:30pm, and had been locally
verified. At that point I heard some cursing, groaning and loud sighing followed
by giggles and laughter.
The islands don't do daylight savings time in the summer, so we are on
Atlantic Standard time year round. Which means in the summer, our time is the
same as Eastern Daylight Savings time, but in the winter we are an hour ahead
(sun comes up here first).
The radar shows we have a mess
coming our way, but no storms since last night (yet!) The satellite currently
shows two tropical waves in our neighborhood. Winds are brisk and temperature is
at 84 F. Lots of clouds but the sun is out mostly. I spoke on bad information
yesterday when I said the surf was up, as it was not. It's not up today either,
according to a trusted eyewitness who just called me from the North Shore near
Bombas.
Walter
Cronkite died. So sad. He was a frequent visitor to the BVI bringing his
boat in here for months at a time. I once had the pleasure to have dinner with
him. We only spoke about the joys of being in the BVI, sailing and
paintings. I figured since he was retired the last thing he wanted was a
bunch of questions from some stranger. Besides, I was in a slight state of
shock.
I happened to be climbing out of my dinghy at a seaside restaurant. I
had just tied up the painter, (dinghy rope) and stood back
up. I took a few steps into the restaurant area, surveying
the eatery and bar for possible friends or sailors I might know. Suddenly a
familiar gravelly voice said "Here you go dear." I looked around and there
stood Walter Cronkite holding out a dining chair for me and bidding me to sit
down.
Confused and surprised, I suddenly found myself sitting down in the
proffered chair. Did he mistake me for somebody else? Was he going
senile? Was I in a dream? Who was I to embarrass this great man? Now
what if one of the other guests ejected me, now that would be
embarrassing. I nervously smiled at Walter Cronkite and looked
around at the rest of the people at the table who were all chatting and
smiling, seemingly oblivious to the stranger at their table.
The deep baritone voice announced he had been watching me sail solo into
the harbor and had in fact seen me and my boat in other anchorages, either
sailing in or sailing out, alone. He wandered what a young lady like me was
doing sailing solo. I stared at him astonishingly and thought to myself am
I being interviewed by one of America's greatest?
So I explained briefly (after finding my voice) how I I bought my boat
hurricane ravaged and spent a few years rebuilding it like new and now it was my
home between working as charter crew on larger yachts. He spoke with great
fondness about his sailboat, named Wyntje (pronounced "Vintka").
I stammered about previously owning two of his coffee table books, North
by Northeast and South
by Southeast. (He narrated and Ray Ellis painted these
magnificent paintings of sailing and coastlines.) He seemed touched
that I knew something about him other than the evening news.
All too soon, the drinks came, the food was consumed and we all bade
farewell, and I thanked him more than once for a magical evening. As they loaded
up into their tender, I climbed into my modest inflatable and went home to my
boat. I sat in my cockpit for hours, unable to sleep, recalling every moment of
that enchanted evening.
As one travels the rest of the world, the appreciation always is
greater for the efforts of the British Virgin Islands to maintain the difficult
balance between necessary economic development and the great natural
beauty bestowed upon the nation.
**************
TODAY is the flea market at Cruzins in Carrot Bay. Sometimes they have
live music too. Stop on by and sell or buy some stuff. You can also buy my book
if you go by there!
At 8:34pm tonight, the tropical wave hit us full force! Rains,
thunder, lightning, gusty winds! This has all the makings of a hurricane,
a practice run for us. I just pray the power doesn't go out.
Nice and breezy here today with blue skies and breezy trade winds wafting
by on the songs of the birds. The last few nights, the tree frogs have
been rehearsing their chorus. It's summer here and all the creatures are happy.
Surf's up!
Two tropical waves are east of us, promising to bring rains and
thunderstorms to our future. But no storm formation YET and nothing to worry
about. Just paradise as usual!
I guess it just ain't gonna
happen... So sad, to see this ship sit and rot. One of the
pictures, show the aft entrance to a large cabin below where I slept 2 fun
filled weeks while touring the BVI on my very first visit. Little did I know
that I would later, end up living in the Caribbean for 22
years!
People often ask me if I went on vacation and just
"stayed". No I didn't. I don't think many people at all can say they
went on vacation somewhere and just stayed on for 22 years! It was on a
previous trip to the islands, that I discovered that people got PAID to work as
professional crew on yachts. I thought to myself "Hmmm... I sure
don't remember THAT being presented as an option on career day at the
school!"
I thought WOW, had I chosen a career, rather than
fallen into one, I might have chosen a life at sea. A few years later, my happy
career and goal oriented life was upside down. I had a stalker on my heels who
just would not let up. Stalker laws were and still are, far and few
between, and very little you can do until the stalker kills you or injures you
seriously.
Not wanting to wait around through monumental
harassment and be hunted down and killed, I began day dreaming about life
at sea. One day I decided to make that a reality and gave myself ONE YEAR
to make it happen. I didn't tell a soul, it was MY little secret, other than
those I was corresponding with in far flung ports. I quietly sold off my
businesses and belongings then about 10 days before my scheduled departure, I
suddenly announced I was leaving for the wild blue yonder.
Family, friends, clients, and co workers were all
shocked. I emptied out my home, sold or gave away everything and off to sea I
went. I had a blast and don't regret my decision. Sure once in awhile I wonder
what if, but then I think "Hell, yes, I did it while I could and I had a
blast!"
I spent about 12 years working at sea and my body took
a beating. Finally I called it quits, time to heal and moved ashore on
Tortola. I continued to sail for fun for a few more years, but past
injuries can turn into chronic pain. I still love sailing, but my body
parts protest. It's a GOOD thing I went sailing when I did, as now I feel too
"beat up" to go mess about in small boats. I've busted knees, legs,
shoulder and head, it's a miracle I'm alive at all. But it was FUN FUN FUN and a
ton of hard work. I loved the traveling, the sailing, the fabulous yachts I was
able to work aboard.
In between working on the big boys, I had my own 30
foot boat, I rebuilt myself until she looked brand new again. I know every
square inch of that boat, I no longer own, but if you put me aboard her
blindfolded tomorrow, I could find my way around without the least bit of aid.
Days like today, I would hoist the sail and leave harbor and you wouldn't see me
back for days or weeks.
Ironically, the entire time I owned my boat, she never
once made a successful round trip day sail. I tried several times and it
just never worked out. The boat always wanted to go go go and not come back.
Those were some of the days of my life!
Only 85 boats out of 303 managed to complete the race that year. By the
time the 1979 Fastnet had officially finished, 15 people had died, five yachts
had sunk, 24 crews had abandoned ship and 136 sailors had been rescued.
TODAY'S QUOTE
The sea showed that it can be a deadly enemy and that those who go to sea
for pleasure must do so in full knowledge that they may encounter dangers of the
highest order.~~Final paragraph of an inquiry report in to what
went wrong in the 1979 Fastnet Race.
British
Virgin Islands voted Best Caribbean Islands destination Travel Daily News International -
Athens,Greece The British Virgin Islands have been recognized
as the “Best Caribbean Islands destination” in the prestigious Travel +
Leisure Annual World's Best Awards ...
Another tropical wave southwest of the Cape Verde islands. Nothing
happening yet, but it gives us something to watch and ponder. Here it is 86
degrees with beautiful blue waters and a sky that is slowly turning back to baby
boy blue with white clouds. I guess the Sahara dust decided to give us a break,
though last night at 4am it seemed especially vicious.
The electricky boyz have been working in front of my home, destroying my
nice view with two super tall ugly utility poles recently erected at two
different heights. Makes you wonder if they are buried the correct depth. Now
they are going up and down in their cherry picker, decorating the poles with
various ceramic and metallic accoutrements. A real shame the BVI doesn't start
thinking about underground utilities. These poles are the tallest on the street
below, not sure why they aren't uniform with the rest, but Tortola is full of
mysteries.
My muffler fell off my heap of a jeep. I don't know how or why. The
guys love it, they say my car sounds real GOOD! So funny. Meanwhile, I
drive around with mufflers on my ears...
HURRY up and do your business in the BVI because the Festival
is around the corner and NOTHING will get done after that. Entrance fees for
festival are $20 per person this year. Many folks are crying foul as times
are tough for many these days. Plus we will have THREE public
holidays in a row (August 3-4-5) so banks and businesses
will be closed for 5 days in a row!
The BVI courts close up for the entire month of August. Many businesses
will close when carnival opens, some will stay closed for 4-6-8 weeks, others
will re-open after carnival. Many people take month long holidays and vacations
to far flung ports or to their birth country.
Washed Ashore in a French Wine bottle was a picture of this Mermaid,
supposedly from 1420?
85 f degrees and the Sahara Dust has created quite a thick haze over us. We
need a load of rain to settle the dust and literally, clear the air, but none
seems on the horizon.
Sun is out but the haze is making the sky grayish-bluish, typical for this
time of year. The Sahara is thicker in the summer than the winter, though now
seems to be a year round phenomenon, thanks to SUV's and large 4wd vehicles.
They scar the desert's protective surface layer, releasing dust into passing
winds. Desert Farts! Now there's a giggle!
Who would have thought the camel would be replaced by a SUV's and that the
SUV would do so much damage, worldwide? Of course the BVI is notorious for
our large SUV population, sadly many are driven with one person only in the
entire vehicle and few seem to stop for hitchhikers. It's usually the old
cars, the people who remember what it was/is like to have to hitchhike daily to
and from work, that tend to stop and grab the hitchhikers.
More women than men seem to hitchhike here. Whether that is a reflection on
lower wages for women offered here, or that so many women here are raising
children alone, and they often work more than one job to accomplish that feat
that there isn't enough in the budget to provide for all and support a car.
We don't have much in the way of public transportation here. We do have
plenty of busses for the tourists to ride and sight see. Not sure how we ended
up with this lopsided skew.
Back to the Sahara Dust, it is being blamed for some of the destruction of
our Coral Reefs, (very sad indeed!)
It is also noted that when the dust lands on the sea, it encourages
plankton growth which eats carbon monoxide and cools the ocean, so perhaps
presence of the Sahara Dust means less chance of a hurricane.
I like the term desert farts better than Sahara dust! Either
way it tends to give us colorful sunrises and sunsets some days.
A few tropical waves east of us seem to offer up no threat at this time.
I know I owe you some beautiful pictures, I just need to locate camera and
cord, at same time and download some I took recently!
Light rains throughout the night and early morning greeted us, skies are
grayish blue and haze is thick. 85 degrees ad quite breezy. Nothing out there to
worry us. Day 45 of hurricane season and nothing much to report.
I wrote the tourist board, using the email on their website, and guess
what. Their email is canceled! Good grief! I wanted to know the
website for this year's festival. All my searching has turned up nothing so far.
If anyone knows anything, email me, cause I am clueless!
Impressive
lineup for East End Festival BVI News
Online - Road Town,Tortola,British Virgin Islands BY BVI News
Correspondent With Digicel as its premier sponsor The East End Festival
Committee has put together an impressive lineup for this year's festival
...
Getting
Set For 2009 Emancipation Festival Platinum News Online - Tortola,British Virgin Islands On
Sunday, BVI Platinum News dropped in at the Festival Grounds where the
Festival Village will be held, and workmen were feverishly constructing booths
on ...
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE!
Carrot Bay Flea Market
Sunday 19 July 11AM - 5PM
At Cruzin Bar' & Grille
Come check it out & relax yourself under de big trees
ALSO great food & drinks ALL day from 11am-5PM
All kinds of great stuff for your kitchen, home, car, boat and your
kids. DVD's Cd's, Books, appliances, housewares, clothing, suba and
snorkel gear, camping tent, storage bags, and so much more !
We are proud sponsors of the BVI Special Olympics and the Carrot Bay
Community
If you have items to sell or donate please contact Lena at 342 3886
- Tuesday already! Day 44 of no hurricanes (or himmacanes!)
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:35:33 EDT
84 degrees, wafty trade winds, low humidity, but that could change. A bit
hazy on the horizon *cough, cough, cough*. No doubt the
Sahara dust again. Take a look at today's image and YIKES, you see a blast
of the stuff is on our horizon.
My TV died, I was in bed for 2 days with a fever, the current come,
the current go (Current = elec-tricky) ditto for the internet and phone
service. With carnival around the corner, the islands will soon come to a
screeching halt and many will think of nothing but partying.
A NEW website full of FREE classified BVI ads. Help support this new site
by posting ads. reading ads, and alerting your email friends to this wonderful
site.
Found in a French Wine Bottle, Washed up on the Shore, was this Message in
a Bottle:
Quoting Miss Mermaid (from the other day)
'Why
is it the MEN always do these foolish things and not the women? Are we
just naturally born with better common sense?'................be careful mi dear otherwise you may
lose a good part of your readership. 'Luv
Frenchie
Ok Frenchie,
I'll admit women do foolish things too. Being a mermaid and being female, I
couldn't resist poking fun... Women may not set out in gale force
conditions to go sailing, but we do insist our toenails are painted up nicely
before setting foot on deck...
A
whole boatload of avid sailors, could be delayed while a female
is making sure her pedicure is up to snuff.
And while
universally any sailor may drink because the yard arm is past 5 somewhere in the
world, the women will generally insist the libation include a cocktail napkin or
a cozy cup or a proper wine vessel or coordinating hors d'oeuvres, while men are
happy to just drink out of the can or bottle, without the added
accoutrements.
Men may jump
aboard a boat going anywhere, just for sport, and never once worry about the
head (toilet) women generally won't set foot on a boat, unless they know there
IS a head and it's functional and it has toilet paper sufficient for the trip.
So,
Frenchie, I didn't mean to insult the male populace, as much as to poke fun, and
now I've poked a lot of fun at the female sailors, and will no doubt hear about
THAT too!
ANOTHER
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE:
Dear Missy
Mermaid,
One of the neat weather tools you can download from NASA is
totally free. There is a learning curve with this program and you need to
have a high speed connection to the internet to make it work properly.
Here it tis, it’s called World Wind 1.4 developed
by NASA, not a big program, but it gives a ton of information.Be patient with the program the first time you bring it up, a lot of
flickering and fluttering before it comes on line.If you
make the Earth too large, close out the program and restart.
Look at your location and notice
the cloud pattern in your area depending on which satellite used, may be in real
time. You could see those big time sand storm coming at you. Regards, Jim
K
THANK YOU Jim K! I will look into this, as no doubt
many other readers will too. I appreciate new links and will notify http://www.WeatherBVI.com to add this
useful tool to their long list of links.
Click
here: Cats Control HumansThese researchers went to great lengths to
prove what we cat lovers already know, cats own us and control us. Sure
you can train them. Mine wouldn't dare scratch my furniture or my skin, they've
been trained this is not good and can make a mermaid do her crazy act on them
(which is very scary!). I trained them that cars with motors running are
evil and to be avoided at all costs and roads are the work of the devil and
likewise should be dodged. But let's face it, they've trained me to be the
butler, to answer the door, to find the grooming brush, to rub a belly until
kitty sleeps, to top up the feed bowl on demand and to pass out the catnip
when they are bored.
They think the big bed was bought for their pleasure and how one 9
pound cat can stretch himself out over three feet long to sleep, is a Houdini
trick only they can master.
While I was off island, lost in the land of waterfalls, my housemate
fed the cats. They know the sound of their car, run to meet it, then escort them
down to the kitchen, l(est they get lost) and then do a dance, much like being
circled by sharks until their food and water bowls are topped up to their
satisfaction. I say sharks, because proud happy cats walk around with their tail
straight up in the air. When three of them want food at once, they tend to
circle one endlessly, tails in the air, as if I to say "We are the furry
land sharks, you cannot escape us until we are gratified with
food!"
As I write this, I watch my smallest cat, climb up into the loveseat,
bathe himself, then lay down and stretch out from end to end, leaving no room
for beast or human. Is he made out of elastic? How does one tiny cat do
that? I wish I could stretch myself skinny!
Bet you are a poet and ya just don't know
it!
Callaloo Poets 'open mic' on
Saturday, July 18, 2009 at Mellow Moods BVI News Online - Road Town,Tortola,British Virgin
Islands The reading starts at 7:00pm at Mellow Moods Café in Road
Town, Tortola. All writers are invited to share their inspiration and are
kindly asked to arrive ...
The
BVI: nature's little secret speed bump paradise! BVI News Online - Road Town,Tortola,British Virgin
Islands BY Dickson Igwe DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this
article do not necessarily reflect the views of the management and staff of
BVI News Online and its
...
AMEN to dat!
Electricity
workers urged to master their skill ZIZ
Live - St. Kitts and Nevis Electricity workers from the Nevis
Electricity Company Ltd (NEVLEC) along with counterparts from St. Kitts and the
British Virgin Islands were urged to ...
If getting swindled once wasn't
enough...
Proposed
island resort for swindled Stanford investors Caribbean360.com - Belleville,Barbados Guiana
Island was among parcels of land owned by an offshore company, Asian
Village Antigua Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands,
...
Windstar's 2010 and Winter 2011
Sailing Atlas Features 183 ... SYS-CON Media - Montvale,NJ,USA Ports of call include:
St. Kitts , Tortola, Jost Van Dyke , Virgin Gorda and St. Barts. In late
spring through fall, Wind Spirit sails 7-day Europe and
...
Another rough day in paradise. The sky is baby boy blue with a few cotton
tail clouds wafting by on a lazy Sunday morning. 84 degrees with nice
cooling trade winds wandering past.
Internet is down again, so no idea when this will get out, but I shall
write anyhow.
My crystal ball shows no hurricanes in our immediate future. Indeed we've
been 42 days without a storm threat this hurricane season. I wish the powers to
be had never named it a season. It causes unnecessary panic.
Tornados have no season and virtually no warning, so I am grateful we don't
live in tornado alley. I feel for those that do, as tornado season must be
deemed to be year round.
The birds are chirping up a conniption. Not sure what they are so happy
about, but they are merrily singing along, trading gossip from tree to tree.
On my way back to Tortola, last week, I was laid over at the
Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas ferry dock.
Usually I just go upstairs to the Pump House for food or drinks or both,
but it being Sunday, they were closed. I went to check in at the ferry and they
weren't leaving for 4 more hours, but she offered to exchange my ticket so I
could catch a competitor in an hour and a half.
I smiled. This is the islands, where people are friendly and often go out
of their way to help you. I took the exchanged ticket and then my belly
made the most disturbing noise at such a loud volume, I wondered if it was
distant thunder. It was downright embarrassing.
Red faced, I looked at the friendly clerk and apologized. I explained that
apparently the planes don't serve food on most flights anymore and if they were
selling any, I had slept through it. I wound up my tale of woe, that I was
starving, having not eaten since a late lunch the day before. My friend
got lost on the way to the airport, my hotel room was uninhabitable and I had to
find a new hotel and room in the wee hours of the night. The requested wake up
call came in an hour early, when I so desperately needed that extra hour of
sleep. My pre-reserved taxi was late (he never even showed up!), indeed, I
had to frantically call around for a new one. Security pulled me aside
for a thorough search again. The flight left on time, and I was
the very last to board, I think the ticket agent had alerted them I
was the last passenger, as they slammed the door, the moment I stepped aboard. I
dozed off and missed the explanation why we arrived very late in
Philadelphia, but I had barely 5 minutes to catch my connecting flight,
or wait two more days. The only foods on the plane for 3 hours were
pricey junk foods and I try to avoid that stuff.
The clerk offered up her crackers, she was munching on. That was incredibly
kind of her. Again, I smiled, and thanked her, happy to be back in the islands,
but turned down her offer. I asked her where would be the closest place I could
walk to that might serve me at this time of day. She suggested Percy's Bus Stop,
an icon I have seen parked on the side of the road for 25+ years on St Thomas.
It's an old London double decker Red bus.
The rain was starting to come down, and I asked her if I could store my
luggage with her, rather than get it wet and she quickly agreed. I
inquired if she would like me to bring her anything back from Percy's Bust
Stop and she giggled and said no. I said I readily didn't mind, would be happy
to bring her food and drink, but she declined again after thanking me.
It's quite common throughout the islands to apply for and get a mobile
vendors license, then set up in a broken down truck in one place, and never
gravitate to permanent location or to be mobile again.
As I recall 25+ years ago, food was served on the lower deck while the
upper deck was used as a storeroom. Now it's expanded with a shady but open air
casual building in back. I wandered inside and was warmly greeted as if I
was a long lost friend by a group of elderly West Indians drinking and dining,
one having soup solo. Somebody yelled for the chef, who came out all smiles and
ready to serve.
She fixed me an icy cold drink and I inquired about the food. Rather
than bring me a menu, she suggested the steak or the salt fish could be ready in
minutes, so I chose the steak. I had no idea what it came with, but I suspected
Sunday was their slow day, as typically they serve 730am to 10pm every day and
Sunday isn't a big work day in Charlotte Amalie and schools are out and so
on.
Why be picky? My mother didn't raise me to be picky about foods and
it's a good thing. It's enabled me to travel anywhere and eat the local food, to
accept any food invite without worry. Sure there are things that might turn my
stomach, not sure I could eat snake in Asia, but if they lied to me about it,
and it arrived looking like anything but snake, who knows, I might stomach it.
But mom made sure we ate every fruit and veggie ever proffered up to us.
You can't wrong with the garden foods.
True to the chef's word, she came back about ten minutes, all smiles with a
platter of a huge steak smothered in grilled onions, 2 tiny baked potatoes and a
large garden salad fluffed up so high, I wondered how this over laded platter
had made it from the kitchen so neatly. She brought out steak sauce (A1, my
favorite) and a few salad dressings. One was Vidalia Onion Dressing, and we all
know how much I love Vadila onions!
It was a sumptuous meal that I savored every bit of. I paid my bill which
was under $20, left her a generous tip for her fantastic service and food.
As I left I bade good bye to the other patrons who enthusiastically did
likewise. What a cool spot. It had stopped raining and I made it back to the
ferry dock in time for the ferry.
After a long trip of everything going wrong, it was so nice that things
were going right again. It was good to be home!
Sun is setting soon, it's cloudy in the West so not so spectacular
tonight. It's been a summery 86 F degrees all day with gentle winds,
same for tonight, those winds could slow down further and we would prefer they
keep blowing.
I'm keeping everyone confused. I left island and forgot to change my phone
message and of course my BVI cellular phone wouldn't work anywhere else.
*sigh* A few days later, I realized my gaffe and changed my message
that me and the phone were both out of range and to wait a week or two and I
might be back in the area and all would be fine again.
Meanwhile messages were piling up. I came home dead tired and with a fever
and apparently slept right through the phone which was now piling up even
more messages. Finally today, I realized I needed to download the messages and I
was in for a shock. Now I still need to change the message, that I
am home again, and just now getting around to returning calls.
I am so confused. I now have simplified my life to remembering 3 things
each day (the same three things) my keys, my eyeglasses and something else.
Oh well, so much for remembering three things each day.
Oh yeah, the phone! Remember the phone! Take it with me, it
works now. Ah ha!
Still I lost Thursday or Friday, as I am shocked it's Saturday, how did
that happen? I think I slept through a day or something. I had a fever
that kept me real confused. I'm still confused.
I unplugged everything before I left, computer and office equipment, Tv,
cable box, stereo, all that stuff. Came home, plugged it all back in. The
elec-tricky had a zap and guess what.
They zapped my TV and laptop. *sigh*
That's life in the islands. Stuff just breaks and it isn't your fault, but
still it's broke.
I ran in to my mechanic friend who is an avid fisherman now that he is
semi-retired. I asked him what his new phone number was. He said oh he hasn't
got a new phone yet. His fell overboard out of his fishing boat about 8 months
ago and he keeps meaning to get a new phone but just hasn't got around to it.
I know the feeling.
Sometimes you are so tired of your toys breaking, that you just give up on
owning any. Less toys, less stress. I do sort of miss my TV in the
middle of the night when I sometimes wake up and can't sleep but am still too
tired to get up and work. I found out the most interesting movies and shows
sometimes come on in the wee hours.
The cats and I have seen many a strange show at 2 and 3am. But I have
so much to do now, and not enough hours each day to do it! So I am plenty
busy and not worrying about lack of TV. Just that the cable works. It's a shame
the cable works and the TV doesn't. usually it's the other way around.
My TV actually does work somewhat, it come on, and 2-5 minutes later
it shuts down. It might come back on in 10 minutes or 2 hours, then shut down a
few minutes later. Gosh, it's almost TWO YEARS OLD!
It's just a little tiny thing, but still it cost a fortune, what with the
20% duty on freight and price and the retail markup on top of all that. I guess
I was lucky the two yeas it worked. Maybe I will toss it in the shop and see if
they can spark it back to life.
- 40 days into Hurricane Season and nothing yet...
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:36:07 EDT
Very summery here. The Sahara Haze is in full force. Summer camps and the
children are out on the waters, learning all manner of skills from sailing to
surfing to Scuba diving. What a life!
84 degrees and breezy, no hurricanes, no himmacanes. Guess if we can't have
a hurricane party, then we can have a Foxys party! Saturday night, July
11th, special ferries are running from West End Tortola to Foxys at 6pm, 8pm, 10pm and then back to West End
after the show is over.
Your report about the owner of the yacht leaving
Southport showed someone who is reckless.
You might find this story inspiring about a
woman sailing around Britain. Nothing surprising in that you might say?
Well she is a quadriplegic! Hilary Lister has a degenerative disease, but not
wanting to just give up on life she decided to sail around the coast of
Britain.
Frank, THANKS for sharing! Have a Ting
and a Swing on me! When I lived in St Kitts, every afternoon we had
a Ting and a Swing, or that's what we called it then, back in the dark ages, it
was basically equal portions of Ting and CSR (Cane Spirit
Rothschild).
PLUSEQUALS a "Ting & a Swing"
I looked up Hilary's story and she plans to set sail
today! Fair winds my friend!
**************
This article and the various incredulous statements are
hilarious! Only in the BVI...
- Day thirty-eight of hurricane season and all is well!
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 09:42:25 EDT
Today is day 39 of hurricane season. One of my
gentle readers, Gary, pointed out that yesterday I mentioned it was only day
28! Well, that was a typo..I seem to be full of mistakes lately! I
could blame it on the cat paws, but he didn't write the report, though he tried
mightily in my absence. At least he wasn't a total cat-tastrophe!
I was just getting the hang of t'ings when you
took your laptop back!
84 degrees at 8am, we had some super heavy dew in the form of a very brief
shower just before daybreak. Birds are tweeting and all is quiet except for my
neighbor's jerk-hammer.
The skies are beautiful! Winds are gentle but promising to pick up.
**************
Now, THIS is a bad day at sea (link below) . Apparently the owner
refused to heed the weather warnings and put schedule ahead of safety. I
understand he managed to turn around and come back to port (and change his
undies again!)
While it doesn't mention the damages to his yacht, I can't imagine he made
he back to port without a few thousand dollars in broken parts.
Why is it the MEN always do these foolish things and not the women?
Are we just naturally born with better common sense?
I plan to nominate him as a Darwin award runner up! To get
the actual award, you have to kill yourself (in a brainless way...)
- Day 28 and all is clear, sunny and wonderfully beautiful
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 10:11:14 EDT
86 degrees with slight winds and it's feeling very summery around here.
It's now day 38 of hurricane season and we haven't had any threats or hints yet
of hurricanes, or himmacanes or even purr-icanes as my cat so eloquently put it.
I suppose that is good news, or we are in for a wild time this fall!
I'm fully prepared for a storm with the exception of gas, food and
drink. I haven't seen any deals on canned goods lately, to stock up on
any. I only but about a gallon of gas for my generator at a time in off season,
as I don't want the gas to get too old and gummy. Of course, if I think (har har
har) I can buy a lot more gas, and just toss it in my heap of a jeep tank once a
month, if the generator hasn't used it up. Duh... My brain must be getting
slower with age, a very sad thing. I want a fast brain (can I upgrade for a
fee?)
My crystal ball predicts that if you buy my book "Hurricanes &
Hangovers" then we won't have any hurricanes at all this year! So buy the book and let's
test this theory! And YES, volume 2 is on the way (soon come!)
T'ings are not crowded, so it's a GREAT time to come on down and take
advantage of direct cheap air fares (to St Thomas) then take a scenic ferry ride
over to the BVI.
For instance, US AIrways has fly on Sundays, from Charlotte NC to St
Thomas for only $378 round trip. In August, certain dates are only $348.
From Philadelphia to St Thomas as low as $470 on certain dates. When
planning your vacation, it helps to work out the cheap air fare dates, then
select which days you are taking off work. By being flexible with your fly
dates, you can save a load of cash. From Phoenix, Arizona to St Thomas is
only $623 round trip on certain days. Cheap airfare sites can sometimes beat the
airlines and come in even cheaper for you.
Between searches, it helps if you DELETE cookies, close out your browser,
then start over. Sounds crazy eh? But some sites will tell you only 4
tickets left, then 30 minutes later when you check again, (say you aske dyour
boss what if I take these dates off and he says yes, so you come back to the
site to buy the ticket) and then they sometimes tell you a much
higher price. If you delete the cookies, close out the browser and start all
over, you often end back up with the same cheap flights. I happened to pick US
Airways because they let you choose flexible dates and click back and forth 3
days later or earlier and so on, until you find the cheapest round
trip ticket.
Always look for direct flights from your town (or nearby) to St
Thomas for the best deals. I flew into an airport recently, 90 miles from my
final destination because the ticket was $500 cheaper that where I wanted to go.
My friend said he spent $40 in gas to come fetch me (round trip, both
ways) and I was more than glad to reimburse him.
Another Bottle Found on the Sea Shore this
Morning!
Vidalia Onion Dip
1 cup mayo
1 cup Vidalia onions, fine dice
1 cup Swiss cheese, shredded
Mix together thoroughly, and bake at 350 degrees until golden brown on top.
Serve with crackers or pita chips.
From Debbie of Atlanta GA
Debbie, that recipe sounds heavenly! To make Pita Chips, take a
stack of pitas, and use knife or scissors to cut into 8 pie shaped slices, toss
on cookie sheet and bake in hot 425 F degree oven until crisp, about 10
minutes or so.
Foxys is having a BIG
celebration July 11th on Jost Van Dyke with a lot of
live music (by the way Jost rhymes with MOST, GHOST,
TOAST, GOATS etc.) ANyhow this is to celebrate his recent visit to see the Queen
of England who personally awarded him a Medal as a member of the order of the
British Empire in recognition of his exemplary contribution to tourism and
preservation of the BVI culture.
Rumor is he even wore SHOES to see the Queen. While I have seen a
picture of SOMEBODY'S feet shod in shoes, I am not convinved it it his feet. I
think a stand in was used for the picture.
Only three so far, I hope they are HOME and
self-quarantined! Folks here tend to go to the beach when they are sick
and wash away the malady, this surprisingly works for many ailments. Of course a
day at the beach feels WONDERFUL no matter what, so of course it's very healing.
PAWS FOR THE CAUSE... TODAY'S
QUOTES:
"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The
wisdom of cats is infinitely superior." -- Hippolyte Taine
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and
cats." -- Albert Schweitzer
"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any
harm to ask for what you want." -- Joseph Wood Krutch
Dear Miss Mermaid should go away more often!
My cats have been sweet loving creatures since I got home. Of course, I also
noted, their caretaker let them gobble up a month's worth of food in under two
weeks, I am sure they begged for it too. They can act so pitiful and humble when
they truly want something. (Like to be spoiled
rotten!)
Dear Miss Mermaid is back on island and has repossessed the laptop computer
from the kitties, who were merrily playing games and watching silly cat videos, learning
new tricks. They also seemed to have gained a lot of weight in my absence,
no doubt pestering their caretaker to overfeed them!
I was loudly greeted, and one cat sat down and talked nearly an hour
straight, telling me everything they did searching for me. My bed was full
of cats and purring and it felt wonderful to be back in my lair.
Even today, as I type, I have a cat at my feet and one on the desk and one
sleeping close by. I feel so flattered!
As for the weather, well yesterday was gloomy and rainy, but today, while
overcast, promises to be sunny later on. The temperature at sea level, seems to
be stuck at 84 degrees. The Sahara
dust is still lingering. No storms on the horizon. We do have a tropical
wave to the west and to the east, but nothing much to report on either one
as a threat to us.
************
I wish Richard Reid was never born. He is the idiot who tried to fly
with a bomb in his shoe over 8 years ago. Since then, anyone who flies, must
have their shoes removed and inspected for possible bombs. The floors are
filthy and parading around barefoot on the crappy carpet, made me wonder
what diseases, parasites or fungi I might pick up. Indeed, I was ill
for much of my trip, sad to say and even now, still feel terribly weak.
Flying as a mermaid is a terrible hardship, I was constantly singled
out for intensive searching. Those security guards sure do like to pat me down,
and it's very frustrating and humiliating. I can't imagine what I do wrong to
trigger this every time I fly!
Yes, I was searched and briefly accused of carrying a bomb into a US
Embassy in Barbados 29 years ago, but was found immediately innocent. I was
allowed in the Embassy without being searched because I was considered an
honored guest at the time and was expected and on a special list. I had arrived
at the appointed time, after shopping around town and was carrying several bags.
I was to have lunch with some dignitaries. I was admitted, and no one
searched me or checked my bags. I had just sat down in the office of my friend,
pleased that I had found the place on my own after walking all over town.
Unknown to me, shortly after I entered, the Embassy received a
bomb threat, so suddenly a platoon of armed Marines appeared, began ripping
up my shopping bags and contents, plus thoroughly dissecting my purse
and contents, as well as intensively searching my body. Lunch was
canceled and I was escorted out of the Embassy, in spite of my innocence. Later,
my friends apologized profusely and explained it was all a matter of security. I
laughed it off at the time. But I wonder if that terrible incident is noted
somewhere, in spite of my guiltlessness.
Before this trip I read the latest TSA rules but each airport
seems to interpret them differently. I was yelled at, for not
knowing the latest and greatest rules and regs of that particular airport. I
tried to smile and shake it off.
I rented a car for a few days, when my friend's car broke down, I was
just trying to help out. I had NO idea the nationally franchised car rental
agency would give me a car with out-of-date paper tags. I was pulled over by two
cop cars, with loud sirens and numerous blue lights, guns drawn and quite
honestly, it freaked me out! I had NO idea what I had done wrong. The
cop screamed in my face "DO YOU KNOW WHY I PULLED YOU OVER?" and I was terrified
speechless. He yelled at me to produce my license and registration. I
produced the license, but the car rental papers were tossed in the back seat and
I couldn't reach them. Finally he let me out of the car to retrieve them and
then he told me to park the car and tell the rental company to come get
it. They put away their guns and drove off, leaving a shaken mermaid
behind with no cell phone to call the rental car agency.
Do you know how HARD it is to find a pay phone these days? I
ended up booking a motel room around the corner, just so I could make phone
calls and remain off the roads. It took the car agency over 9 hours to sort out
the problem and get me into a car that had legal tags at 1:30am. They failed to
understand why I felt so inconvenienced.
Well, I had friends to stay with for free, so booking a pricey motel
that happened to be in the neighborhood of where I was pulled over, was not in
my agenda, nor was the terrifying way the cops treated me. While the car rental
agency has no control over the rude cops, they do have control over their cars
and it seems to me, they shouldn't be renting out cars with old tags. In my
case, paper tags that had a date written in large ink, clearly stating the tags
had expired a month ago.
Since I had tossed my meager luggage in the backseat and not the trunk,
I never thought to notice the tags. I only had 2 outfits with me, as I was
hoping to catch some bargain sales on clothes and return home with a full
suitcase.
This was just one of the craziest trips I have ever taken. I did manage
to sneak in some fun, do a tad bit of shopping and see old friends and attend
for a few days, an annual private event, that I helped start, back in the dark
ages. It is still held every year, in the mountains by the river, by
invitation only, and the once weekend only event has expanded to a
week long affair of rustic camping, partying, swimming, hiking, cooking out, and
general cavorting. Once a day someone has to make the ten mile trip to fetch
more ice to keep the coolers of food happy. At night, weather permitting, a bon
fire and fireworks are set off.
One year, ages ago, I stayed up late, yacking with a friend by the
river side, away from the sleeping campers. We returned to the campsite where we
were sharing a tent, when we felt a lump in the bedding. It was a 200 or
500 pack of fire crackers (I forget which, but it was ALOT!) and it was
about 2 or 3am. All the other campers were sleeping soundly or snoring
loudly. Everyone was under the impression that all fireworks had been used up
evening. This was before anyone had produced babies and children, so it was an
all adult party with a few pets thrown in the mix.
My friend and I, feeling very foolish and quite naughty, tossed
the fire crackers into the dying embers of the fire, then hid back inside our
tent. Suddenly the flame shot up about 30-40 feet in the air and
the hundreds of firecrackers went off in loud rapid
succession. We laughed ourselves silly as naked campers exited their
tents in great haste, running around in circles, unsure what to do, one had the
presence of mind to fetch a bucket of water from the river, while others ran for
cover in the forest. When the guy with the bucket of water returned, the
firecrackers were already exhausted.
The next morning, we pretended to have slept through the entire noisy
event and acted like our friends were crazy to make up such a story.
***************
It's a miracle I made it back home this week but , I did manage to
sneak back into the BVI (shhhhhhhhhh) with my coveted Yellow
Grits and Vidalia
Onions. Vidalia onions are the sweetest onions you will ever find, they are
not hot nor sharp. They are soft and shaped like a mashed globe. Indeed, they
are the best raw onion to be had. They can only be grown in the special soil and
methods in and around Vidalia Georgia and are protected under numerous
laws against would be forgers.
Every year their entire production is sold out, you can place orders for
2010 onions, but you are unlikely to get any 2009 Vidalia onions except at some
of the super markets who previously contracted to buy them. Even so, the
further you live from Vidalia, the harder they are to obtain.
All clear in the islands, still no sign of dat Mermaid! No
hurricanes, himmacanes or purr-icanes on the horizon or the fur-izon.
84 degrees and *cough-cough-cough* dat Sahara
dust still bothering us though the sunsets are spectacular!
Dat Mermaid been missing for a week now, we need her back, if you spot her,
send her home to her kitties!
A couple of tropical
waves are rolling along, but no threat to us yet.
Don't forget to buy Dear Miss Mermaid's Book (proceeds feed the
kitty!) Rumor is Dear Miss Mermaid ran off to go work somewhere, but I
don't think so, why would she leave us wittle cute kitties behind?
Two tropical
waves rolling off Africa, something to watch and keep us entertained. 84 degrees. Winds
are nice around 10mph.
Today's Quote:
"Of all God's creatures there is
only one that cannot be made the slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If
man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would
deteriorate the cat."
Mark Twain
Since Dear Miss Mermaid left, I've had to get
a job as a cocktail lounge singer, to pay for my tuna melts I charged up at the
restaurant.Send that mermaid back to me! Work is for humans and
mermaids...
Warm & Furry Regards,
Paws for the Cause
- Day 30 of hurricane season
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:04:27 EDT
Dear Miss Mermaid is still MIA, so it's left up to the paws
for the cause, to write a report wiff our wittle paws. It's great weather
for hunting rats and mice, though that may not be much help for you two legged
folks who tend to hunt inside buildings and bring your bounty home wrapped up
neatly...
It's 84 degrees with no storms and no purr-icanes on the
fur-rizon. Today the Soggy
Dollar webcam shows it as a purr-fect day to be at the beach or on the
water.
If you see dat mermaid, send her home with some kibble for
me! All this typing wears me out!
- Sun Daze
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:31:15 EDT
Meow-velous weather. Great for hunting rodents. No purr-icanes on the
fur-izon. (Bet you would never guess a cat's wittle paws wrote
this!)
Time for one of my 17 naps today. Later, folks!
Ps-Send dat mermaid home, I miss her butler services.
"Cats are the ultimate narcissists. You can tell this
because of all the time they spend on personal grooming. Dogs aren't like
this. A dog's idea of personal grooming is to roll on a dead fish." --
James Gorman
Paws for the cause... Dear Miss Mermaid can't be found, so me the
cat, has to write today's report again wiff my wittle paws.
The thing on the wall reads 84 degrees, the Sahara dust is thick! *cough*
cough* cough*.
I was out scrounging for fresh tuna or fresh mouse and found a few bottles
on the sea shore, with notes inside:
Howdy Miss Mermaid, Spending a week above Brewers Bay, and have
experienced Sahara Sands before, but this is much worse. Can barely see
Jost. Please give your local input in todays update on the hurricane page.
Thanks. Tom Va USA
Maybe the anchors are dragging and Jost is dragging out to sea... so it's hard to see right
now. I guess we better get some tug boats and tow dat island back where it
belongs.
Next message:
Subject: Sirens in the islands?
Dear Miss Mermaid,
Our son called this afternoon a little after 1 PM
and said the sirens were going off. He could hear them at his place on Luck
Hill. Do you know what that was about? It was the first time in his 5 years down
there he has experienced that.
Thanks for your reports and for making us
feel closer to what's going on in paradise!
Kindest Regards, Muzette
from Atlanta
Dear Muzette,
I love your name! Can I have it? When
the old mermaid comes home, I tell her I renamed myself. That will teach her to
run off...
OK, those pesky sirens were set off to try to find
the mermaid. We are hoping she heard them and is able to home in on them and
find her way back. After all, it's been three days since my last belly rub, I don't know if I
can continue to live like this!
It was a good time to test the sirens too.
When you hear the sirens, you are supposed to tune into the local ZROD radio
station at 103.7 FM for further instructions. Could be the mermaid is missing,
could be a tsunami is on the way, could be a hurricane alert, could be they are
just testing the sirens to see if they work.
Go to ReservationsBVI.com and
scroll down to R and then Radio
and you will see two links. One for radio stations you can pick up in the
BVI and another link for radio stations you can listen to on the internet.
Check out the view from the Anegada Web
Cam! I check the webcams all day looking for dat mermaid. If you see her, tell her
come home and rub my belly and bring tuna too!
THANKS!
Dat mermaid has gone on walk about (or swim about) and left us cats to
cover for her. You could say we are Paws for the cause!
Since the other mouse catchers are snoozing, it's left for me to report
the weather.
The good news is there are no purr-icanes on the fur-izon. Sun is out, sky
is blue and all is well. Dat t'ing on the wall says 84 F.
82 degrees at 645am with tradewinds and clear skies, the blue sky is much
larger than the small patches of cloud cover. So this is all grand. While there
are several tropical
waves, none are affecting us at this time.
I've injured my arm, and typing is really painful. My reports may be super
short for a few days. Two days ago, I woke up in extreme pain and it keeps
getting worse. No idea what happened to it. Maybe mermaids belong back in
the sea.
I wish I could have been there!
Foxy
Honored at the House of Lords in London Platinum News Online - Tortola,British Virgin
Islands This dinner was attended by Foxy's wife and three children
together with a small group of his friends from the BVI and around the
world. ...
In the photo with the article above, Foxys feet are NOT shown. I
wonder if this is because he is characteristically barefoot! He is donning
new clothes, no doubt anyone going to see the Queen would don a new
outfit! From the first time I met Foxy, I had no doubt that one day he
would meet the powers to be and now he's met the Queen of
England!
Before Foxy ran off to England, I stopped by to see him. (Yes, he
is barefoot in this photo. ) I said, "Foxy, I've only known you about 29
years, and I am embarrassed to say, I don't have a single picture of you!"
So now I do.
That's me standing next to him, (but we all know real
mermaids can't be photographed!)
- Day 24 of hurricane season in the Virgin Islands
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:55:23 EDT
A tropical waves runs from the Virgin Islands to Venezuela, it's not really
affecting us much at this time except for some choppy seas. Behind it is another
wave southeast of us. I guess storm season is slowly waking up. The tradewinds
are out in full force and it's 84 degrees at sea level and about 10 degrees
cooler in the mountains.
Another boater perished in the BVI Tuesday night. This is especially
sad as a $10 safety
engine kill switch lanyard might have prevented this accident. It's
on a curly lanyard like an old telephone cord, and you plug it into the kill
switch of the outboard and the other end you can clip around your wrist or to
your belt loop on your boat shorts. Should you fall overboard, or move too
far from the tiller, the lanyard yanks off the engine, the kill switch
pops in and the engine dies instantly, all this in a nanosecond. In this case it
says the victim "moved to another part of the boat" sounds like he left go
of the tiller and the engine spun to the side, making the boat go in circles. As
soon as he stepped away, the engine would have died (if he had the lanyard
attached). All boaters should own this useful safety equipment, but sadly,
many don't.
HiHo
windsurfing event in Totola celebrates 25th anniversary BYM News (press release) -
Gibraltar,Spain Along the way it covers and stops at
Anegada, Virgin Gorda, Peter Island, Norman Island, Jost Van Dyke
and Little Thatch, and features world class sailing
...
- Day 24 of hurricane season in the Virgin Islands
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:53:18 EDT
A tropical waves runs from the Virgin Islands to Venezuela, it's not really
affecting us much at this time except for some choppy seas. Behind it is another
wave southeast of us. I guess storm season is slowly waking up. The tradewinds
are out in full force and it's 84 degrees at sea level and about 10 degrees
cooler in the mountains.
Another boater perished in the BVI Tuesday night. This is especially
sad as a $10 safety
engine kill switch lanyard might have prevented this accident. It's
on a curly lanyard like an old telephone cord, and you plug it into the kill
switch of the outboard and the other end you can clip around your wrist or to
your belt loop on your boat shorts. Should you fall overboard, or move too
far from the tiller, the lanyard yanks off the engine, the kill switch
pops in and the engine dies instantly, all this in a nanosecond. In this case it
says the victim "moved to another part of the boat" sounds like he left go
of the tiller and the engine spun to the side, making the boat go in circles. As
soon as he stepped away, the engine would have died (if he had the lanyard
attached). All boaters should own this useful safety equipment, but sadly,
many don't.
HiHo
windsurfing event in Totola celebrates 25th anniversary BYM News (press release) -
Gibraltar,Spain Along the way it covers and stops at
Anegada, Virgin Gorda, Peter Island, Norman Island, Jost Van Dyke
and Little Thatch, and features world class sailing
...
Blue skies, brisk tradewinds, 84 degrees, 2 days past summer solstice, and
the weather is just typical gorgeous Caribbean weather, the type dreams and
vacations are made of. Waters are clear, boats are out and it's just a fine day
to be alive, all around.
Day 23 of the hurricane season, and so far we are getting off without a
licking.
*************
Heartfelt Prayers to those Lost at Sea and the families left behind
wondering what secrets the sea has swallowed.
Discovery deepens mystery about fate of crew, two French sailing
enthusiasts.
Yacht L'Actuel's headsail was partly furled and torn and the main was
still up and reefed. There were lines trailing in the water and the satellite
phone and safety gear was all still on board. Inside, items had shifted to one
side, suggesting a possible capsize.
Complicating the search was the fact that L'Actuel did not carry a
satellite rescue beacon as required by law.
This is also known as EPIRB (Emergency
Position Indicating Radio Beacon). Even if they had one onboard, it
had to be activated to send out a signal. Many will turn themselves on if
tossed upside down, or submerged in water.
Sailing
harnesses from $29 can save a life, if you remember to tie or
tether yourself to the boat. When I bought my hurricane ravaged boat,
it came with six safety harnesses and tethers. At some point in the past,
someone had obviously outfitted the boat for serious offshore cruising.
While I didn't always wear my harness or tether to the boat, there were
many times, especially when alone on board, I certainly did. The thought
of being accidentally knocked overboard and watching my boat sail away without
me, was more than a tad frightening to contemplate.
I remember one weekend, another lone sailing lady and I found ourselves
stuck in Jost Van Dyke, after a long weekend of carefree partying. She had a 28
foot boat and I a 30 footer. The weather had turned dreadful and we both needed
to be back on Tortola for work. I decided to wait out the stormy conditions and
convinced my friend to wait another day too. The next day, the stormy conditions
had somewhat subsided but the seas were terribly rough. We left port,
bright and early, at the same time in our boats, thinking we would sail in
tandem, but we quickly ended up far apart, barely able to make out the other
one, even with binoculars.
Every time I felt scared (like every 2 minutes...) I would look at
her boat in the distance and think how fearless she was and how wimpy I
was. Tortola appeared so elusive, the more I pounded around the seas, the
less it seemed to be getting any closer.
I had chose to motor-sail and she had turned her engine off. I wore a
harness and tethered myself to the steering pedestal and she did likewise, only
she had a tiller, and cleated a line to a spare cleat and back to her harness.
We had discussed our safety methods over coffee in my cockpit that
morning. I wanted to wait another day, she was ready to tackle the sail,
claiming she'd been in much worse. Well, I have too, but that didn't make the
trip seem any more inviting. I've been plucked out of the Pacific ocean,
clinging to the dismasted wreckage of an overturned catamaran. It's certainly
nothing I ever want to repeat.
What would have normally been a 60-90 minute sail, tuned into about
three hours or more of slogging and pounding. Imagine riding a
roller coaster to nowhere, while buckets of cold sea water are thrown in
your face every few seconds. We finally made it to Sopers Hole, both of us
drenched to the bone, our cockpits repeatedly awash in salty seas, both of us
bouncing around, high on adrenalin.
Any landing you can walk away from, is a safe landing... My
fearless pilot friend used to quote this all the time, when things got hairy.
We furiously waved at each other, as we anchored up near the Sand spit,
about 30 minutes apart in arrival times. We were both glad to be
back alive. I showered below then went topside to hang up my salt infused
clothing, just as she was doing the same thing. While the clothing is now long
gone, I still have the heavy duty storm jacket I wore that day. It still
comes in handy for storms and hurricanes, even on land.
I often think angels follow me around and keep me out of trouble most
days. For this I am eternally grateful.
Dark-thirty and dry. Didn't get a drop of rain all day! Gorgeous day
planned for tomorrow, according to my crystal ball.
For those of you that were following the missing yacht, I mentioned the
other day, "L'Actuel" it has been FOUND, but without the crew. A new
mystery...
First storm of the season is named Andres and it's in the Pacific headed
for Mexico and absolutely no threat to us at all. Good news for us, bad news for
them.
Today is picture postcard perfect! Fantadstic weather, nothing bad on
the horizon, we might even make it a whole month with nothing happening (or
being named) in the Atlantic or the Caribbean seas.
Now wouldn't that be nice! Air fares are pretty reasonable to fly in
to St Thomas then hop on a ferry over here
(well you can sit down, you don't have to hop up and down) and
vacation in the BVI while it's not crowded at all. Plenty of restaurants
open and the BVI
beaches are always open, every day, no matter what.
The seas are so clear right now it's a great time to go snorkeling with CaptainRoyBVI.com.
Tales
of St. John & the Caribbean: The Queen's Panties | St. John
Life By gerald Let me
start with the day before the Queen came to Roadtown, Tortola.
There were four of us. We were called “Water Rats.” There were two police
officers that were assigned to the waterfront area. One of the officers
called out to us ...
82 degrees and loads of blue sky and less clouds at 930am. Nothing untoward
on the horizon, which is so clear that St John stands out as an emerald isle
against the baby boy blue sky and deep navy waters in the Sir Francis Drake
Channel. We are darn lucky so far!
What a lovely day for a Sunday and for Father's Day! Happy father's
day to all of you males with offspring! (And especially those of
twins!)
No doom and gloom yet. Just lazy days in the BVI and cheap airfares
for those willing to make the trek down to our peace in paradise!
****************************
Someone in Puerto Ricom invited me up and mentioned to me that Puerto
Ricans on holiday tended to have loud parties and I might not like it. Well, we
get our fair share of Puerto Rican boaters on holiday in the BVI, so I am not
totally clueless to their loud partying ways. Indeed, I've been known to join in
on the merry making!
Puerto Ricans tend to come over to the BVI in groups of dozens of
boats, often overloaded with people, booze, food, children and water
toys. The smart flotilla formation is so they can help
each other out if someone breaks down or runs out of fuel (or rum) along the
way. On the horizon, they very often appear to be lined up perfectly, about ten
feet apart at identical speed, with large white wakes following them, hence our
nickname for them: "the Puerto Rican Navy" as it looks like an invasion on the
horizon.
I remember one holiday weekend being upstairs at the old West End clearance
building, and having to wait outside on the balcony. I said "Here comes the
Puerto Rican Navy!" and suddenly everyone was out on the balcony,
including the immigration and custom officials as we all watched more and more
boats approach in an ever widening line of vessels across the
horizon.
One week I sailed over to Cane Garden Bay alone on my sailboat and anchored
in front of Quito's
Gazebo, before he built his dock. I only drew 4.5 feet, so I could
anchor in shallow water and typically not have close neighbors.
But then the PR Navy showed up and set up about 20-30 feet away, anchoring
stern towards the beach, placing anchors fore and aft. Then they began rafting
up other PR boats, no doubt their friends and relatives. They had maybe a dozen
or more boats rafted up together, all power boats with aft cockpits for
entertaining or fishing offshore.
My outboard was recently prone to overheating because the water line was
clogged for the water-cooled exhaust. I hauled the outboard aboard the sailboat
and discovered I had nothing to clean the tiny outlet with. (It was later
fixed under a shade tree at Jost, another story, another day). I
mounted it off the stern rail of my sailboat and figured rowing my mail-order
rubber dinghy wouldn't be a problem, since I was so close to shore anyhow.
(My dinghy had arrived months ago, in two heavy boxes at the Post
Office and I assembled it on the beach, another tale in itself!)
Ah, but the PR men are a noble lot and they were not about to let a lone
female row ashore under her own steam. So soon as I set out to go ashore, a PR
dinghy was dispatched from one of the few boats that had brought one with them.
The men insisted they tow me ashore and absolutely refused the idea that I could
do it on my own, or that they would allow such a thing.
I thanked them profusely, and they heartily put my dinghy on the beach as
was the custom then, before the dock. They told me to wave when I was ready to
come back out and they would come get me. I thanked them again, knowing I
wouldn't bother them, though it indeed was a kind gesture.
In the background, I could see the women on the PR powerboats, firing up
grills and digging around coolers, while others lounged about drinking. Music
blared from one of the boats, and people happily climbed from boat to boat and
enthusiastically greeted each other, all seemingly talking at once in rapid
Spanish. The abundant children were carousing around, the water and beach,
shrieking in glee, as children from anywhere, often do around water.
I walked to the main road and deposited my small bag of garbage from the
boat. I checked out the then, very meager, food store and discovered I was
having crackers and peanut butter for dinner or else face dining out alone. I
checked another shop, and found a beautiful
sarong and decided I'd rather don that than dine out alone. I bought
the sarong, and decided the Peanut Butter on crackers, for dinner would do
just fine.
I figured I would go home to my boat, shower, change, eat my crackers and
peanut butter, and maybe come back later, to dance on shore, to the lively
sounds of Quito's
Band.
For good measure I had dug my anchor into the sandy beach, so that high
tide wouldn't send my boat tender out to sea without me. I placed my shopping in
the dinghy, then gathered up my anchor as I heard this loud shrill whistle and
rapid male Spanish near me.
Suddenly a Puerto Rican man was grabbing my deflatable and telling me to
get in, he would push me out and his brother would tow me home to my sailboat. I
was a tad embarrassed at all the fuss, the go-fast dinghy was zipping towards me
with a young grinning male in it, and he grabbed my painter, (the bow rope on a
dinghy) cleated it off his stern and began towing me to my sailboat. When we got
there, I tossed my packages into the cockpit, and tied off my rubber boat. I
stood up while grabbing the rail, and began to thank my benefactor in Spanish
and English.
My peanut butter jar, rolled out of my slim shopping bag and he looked at
it momentarily, then asked me if I would like to come for a drink and dinner and
I said something stupid like "that's OK" and he was pretty insistent, that I at
least come over for a drink, me being alone and all, it must be no fun at all on
my boat, as if he was taking pity on me and couldn't understand my brief
protest.
Well, why not, I knew at least twenty words of Spanish, that should cover
about, um a 2 minutes of conversation... A cold drink sounded good,
as my refrigerator wasn't installed yet, so I had nothing cold on board. It
seemed a waste of money to buy bags of ice for one person, so I drank room
temperature water onboard and ate simply.
We roared over to the armada and clamored aboard the first boat, which was
in turn rafted up to about 15 more by now. I was introduced to a bevy of people
and peppered with questions as to why a lone female was sailing around oh her
own and so on. An icy cold drink was pressed into my hand and before I
could say much at all, a heaping plate of food was passed my way.
While many chatted on in Spanish, several were kind enough to converse in
English. This boat ran out of rum, and we climbed over 4 more boats to get
more rum. Someone about 5 boats away was insistent we come down there for
birthday cake, so we hopped from speed boat to trawler to cabin cruiser to
powerboat and had birthday cake with mile high icing and a zillion calories.
There seemed to be people traversing back and forth up and down the entire
fleet. The music was blaring, and the people got louder as sunset quickly
turned into the dark of night, our twilight being so brief in the islands.
I was like a celebrity, as people kept explaining to others that I was a
lone sailor from the sailboat anchored about 20-30 feet away. Everyone
pointed and repeated my boat name over and over, since it was emblazoned in
large letters down the side of the boat. Women asked me again and again if I was
truly alone and wondered how I ended up in such a lonely situation. "Don't you
miss your family?" was often asked over and over. Puerto Ricans tend to bring a
lot of family and friends on their trips. I was totally confused as I met aunts,
uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, nannies, sons, daughters, grandparents,
neighbors and coworkers.
It was probably long past midnight when someone finally deposited me home
on my boat and I promptly fell fast asleep. At daybreak, I was up in my
cockpit, drinking coffee from my stove top espresso
pot. (I was super fond of this pot, as it made a mug of coffee in under 90
seconds on my gas stove.)
Varoom!
The go-fast dinghy arrived alongside my boat with a compelling invitation
for breakfast. For the next three days and nights I dined and partied
with the Puerto Rican fleet in Cane Garden Bay as I strained to learn more
Spanish. When the PR Navy finally pulled out, they had left me with numerous
hugs, kisses and well wishes plus a hearty plate of food wrapped in tin foil. As
they pulled out of the harbor, they seemed to all wave frenetically at me,
as if they were leaving a loved one to battle the war, as I stood alone in
my cockpit, waving back until finally they were past the harbor.
I sat back down. Alone again. Just me and my boats. The deafening
silence seemed eerily
Last night we had a mini-hurricane around sunset. It whipped up
dark and breezy, real fast and just poured down rain ferociously like
somebody draining that big old bathtub in the sky.
Daybreak looked a little gloomy, but it quickly tunred to bright blue skies
and characteristic tradewinds. I can see some gray clouds that will move by and
scatter some very brief showers around.
Technology, grrrrrrr......... Windows finally figured out how to
disable my Dictionary and Thesaurus for good. It's a CD program I bought and
I've been using ever since my first laptop that came with Windows 3
something. My memory and hard disk was so tiny at that time, that
you had to have the CD in the tray just to use it. Then as years went on, I
was able to copy the CD straight to the hard drive and use it on the later
laptops and newer versions of Windows. This of course made me tremendously
happy. But recently, windows updated my computer and found away to
completely disable my program, no matter what I do. I don't see this as
technology advancing, instead I see it as Windows STOLE my dictionary and
thesaurus! Grrrrrrrrr! Since my internet is flaky, I need the
standalone versions of dictionary and thesaurus. I feel so LOST these days
without my program.
Dive
BVI Wreck Week August 2009 - ScubaBoard By VGdiver Dive BVI is hosting their first Wreck
Week event, August 9-15 2009! They've got a great schedule set up with nightly
parties, fantastic diving and.
Hope all is well in sunny Tortola. I know you are far away from
Nova Scotia, but if you (through your contacts in the yachting world) have heard
anything of the yacht, 'Actuel' mentioned in this link, please let the Coastguard know. If
possible, please relay.
Picture perfect day in the BVI. I know I owe you some glamorous
pictures, my battery thingy on the camera is cantankerous, but I am fixing it
today *fingers crossed*. Tiny white caps can be seen in the Sir Francis
Drake Channel and winds are blustery at 10-16mph. Big fluffy white clouds
against a backdrop of powder blue skies greet the day and visibility is
surprisingly good today.
Life in deh ilons...
For all you geeks who speak techno language, I've rewritten the
glossary for when you be in da ilons, so you aren't clueless about how we
speak.
Hard Drive The road to Smugglers Cove Beach is a long hard
drive.
Floppy Drive When your tire mash up, it sound
like floppy-floppy-floppy until you fix it.
Jump Drive When da jeep don't start up, you roll down the hill,
pop the clutch and it jump drive.
CD Drive When you go to the strip club at night, that's a seedy
drive.
Removable Drive That's when you moved to a new place but your
jeep takes you home to the wrong place, then you do a removable drive
Keyboard I can play Caribbean Soul on the keyboard.
USB I asked the tourist; "You is be from the USA?
Backups That's when you put the jeep in reverse.
BETA Software I took the under-wires out of my bikini bra, now I
got better soft wear.
Database Put the lime in the rum and coconut,
dhat a base for a good drink.
Debugger I divorced de bugger years ago.
E-commerce At da funeral, he come in hearse with flowers.
GIF At Christmas I buy you gift.
ICON I can write definitions all day for ya.
Leaderboard When she surf, she lead her board out to the waves.
Netiquette When the bugs bite you at night, you need a mosquito
net-a-kit over your bed.
Network Making dem fish nets is net work.
Newsgroup The coconut telegraph is the best newsgroup.
OCR Oh! Sea are ruff today!
QWERTY After a few rums, you sound qwerty.
RAM Da he-sheep.
Screenshot Dat rat rip my window screen now da screen
shot.
Safe Mode When ya make love with protection, that is safe mode.
DVD When ya make love without protection, you get de VD.
Telecommunications. Now that's a fancy word for dat ilon gossip.
URL I tell me ex "you are hell to get along with".
Web Ring You're pregnant girlfriend's father wants to see dat
wed-ring.
Web Site That's the place where you gonna tie da knot.
I have a huge favor to ask any readers who bought my book "Hurricanes
& Hangovers" if you would be willing to post a Review of the book on Amazon.
The more good reviews, the better chance Amazon will actually help promote my
book. Even if you didn't buy the book from Amazon, if you have
ever bought anything from Amazon, in the past, they will allow you to post this
review. A big THANK YOU to anyone that cares to do this.
907am and the current done mash up (no power, no elec-tricky).
My batt-tree will die soon, maybe I will get one before the next hurricane
or himmacane. Hoping da current come back before I fire up the
generator. Ha!
A brilliant day with bright blue skies and white puffy clouds with a
few gray ones thrown in. We had our early morning heavy dew (light
rain). Might get some more vertical moisture, but only for a
quickie, as the outdoor cats are indoors, even though the front door
is propped wide open. The fat lazy one scowled at me, when the current
mash up, because the fan he was laying under went off. The two brothers,
both slim, trim and fit, were out all night doing heaven knows what and
look positively exhausted today, collapsed a few feet apart in matching
chairs. I recently sewed up some new covers for the chair cushions and
that signaled the cats that this was done especially for their comfort and
personal enjoyment. They've staked them out as "theirs" and it's the
new favored napping spot. They are particular too, the black one gets the
right chair and the tabby gets the left one and no switching about.
Like the old saying goes: Dogs have owners, Cats have servants.
Hey! Good news! 919am and da current done come
back. Oh goody cause my gas can is still up the hill in the heap of a
jeep. (I'm feeling lazy, sitting here with coffee and eyes
propped open with toothpicks). By the way for those that wrote
asking about my generator setup,
I put together a list of what you need and where to buy it; portable power for under $650.
I try to remember to save my email throughout the writing so it
doesn't get eaten by the cyber monsters. I reinstalled AOL and that seemed
to eliminate the jumbys (Caribbean ghosts
& spirits).
82 degrees, moderate winds, perfect for sailing, diving, watersports.
Captain Roy took a private group
out on snorkel adventures today and the water is PERFECT for that, very
clear today, can probably see see the bottom down to 30-40 feet.
I was just going to sign off, but first a large bird crashed
into the window screen and seemingly knocked himself out, in the garden.
The cats have sprung to life and one is clinging to the inside of the
screen looking for that bird. A flutter of feathers, and the bird rights
himself and flies out of the garden. All 3 cats return to their snoozing
spots.
OK, life can't get any stranger can it? About a minute later,
the rooster comes inside and is sitting on top of the sofa seatback
cushion! I didn't seem him fly in, just heard a noise, looked up and
there is the rooster sitting on the sofa. I'm laughing, because the cats
are merely watching him with bored interest. This rooster, that has
adopted us, stalks the yard all day for tidbits, so I toss him
something now and then. Although the cats avidly hunt, they look at the
rooster as a pet and let him live here in peace.
Go figure.
Today's POEM:
EYE OPENER
A rooster cracks open the dawn like an egg,
and Drops the sun neatly into the bowl of morning. Swirl in the
susurrous sing-song of Bananaquits Queueing for their daybreak sugar
fix. Sip gingerly, and let the tropic ambrosia Soothe away the
remnants of last night’s excess. The questions of the day simplify
themselves With insistent island logic.
By John Newsom April
2009
I pirated that from Reef
Madness (a St John VI blog)
MORE pictures coming soon, I've had technical difficulties.
- Day 16 of hurricane season (and still nuttin happenin!)
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:24:51 EDT
Here I am! Finally! Still on Tortola! My email program crashed
and burned and I've been fighting with it all day and finally I won and it works
now. Whoa. I thought all this technology was supposed to save us time, not cost
us more time!
The morning started off with a 98 second shower, but then by noon, skies
were gray and cloudy with frequent brief rain showers, one lasting 12
minutes. The tradewinds are brisk and temperature is 82. It's a lazy
day.
Festival in coming up on Tortola somewhere around July 25-August 10th (I
THINK!). I've been begging the tourist board for more info, but so far no
reply from them. There was an article
in the newspaper June 11th saying they were just now getting organized and
might have some updates for us eventually.
No storms on the horizon, my kitties are not fattening up, but they are
ensconced in various locations throughout the house, working on their 17 naps
per day.
What they need is a year round web page, detailing the secret festival.
It's hard to promote an event when the promoters wait until the last minute to
organize it.
But that is life in the islands, nothing in a hurry!
If you are looking for some fun reading, check out The
Greatest Sea Stories Ever Told and sit back and relax for some harrowing
adventure!
I am still LOST on Facebook.com, I need some serious techno help!
Beautiful blue skies, deep blue waters and breezy tradewinds have made this
exquisite. Sure we have some pale gray clouds hovering
about the wouthwest, oops the southsest, um, southwest!
(I'm tongue tied today and it's showing up in my typing!) I guess
to be politically correct, I am "communicatively challenged" today.
Anyhow...
We might get spit upon by a brief passing shower, such as the one that hit
us earlier this morning, with great fury that lasted all of 2 minutes and 52
seconds.
No storms in the distance, looks like day 15 of hurricane season on Tortola
is uneventful!
Boats are out and about enjoying the breezy tradewinds at 14-17mph, I wish
I were one of them. I am tired of staying put in one place, my tail itches to go
back to traveling. My crystal ball predicts it too, so travel must
definitely be in my future.
I am techno challenged, so it wasn't as easy as I thought, except Twitter, which tweets along just fine. So you can
add Dear Miss Mermaid to any of these now and follow me
there. My twitter tweets (twick or tweat?) often show
short updates for BVI information, often with links to a page I've updated
with info and I post there when I post here, so if you are tweetering on
twitter, it will notify you when my update is posted here.
- Sun Daze Amaze, Day 14 of Hurricane Seaon (and stil nuttin' happenin')
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:35:11 EDT
Ocean temperatures. There is the BVI right on the edge of the hot
water!That is Puerto Rico to the west of the BVI and below is of course, South
America. Today started off beautiful, then it's turned a tad overcast. We
had a nice but brief cooling rain last evening, but nothing much today.
Temperature has soared to 84 degrees, but with the trade winds wafting by, we
are pretty cool.
FOUND IN A BOTTLE ON THE SEASHORE
Dear Miss Mermaid, first off, let me thank you
for your informative and entertaining weather blogs...
My wife and I are heading your way all the way
from Cave Creek, Arizona for 10 days of sailing.. We had a wonderful
time in the BVI in 1997 with another couple, and the four of us decided
that if the Eagles can have a Reunion
Tour...why not for old(er) farts like us?
Please go out and buy a new generator (the kind
that prevents hurricanes), remain limber, and ask your cats if they
wouldn't mind eating light for the next week or two....as this will
probably be our last visit to your neck of the woods...
Regards, J.C.
Thank you for your flattering email! *blush*
By all means come sail a reunion tour, the anchorages and beaches aren't
crowded and the winds are brisk, so you should have a great time. I'll
have a word with the big power upstairs, and see if they can keep all hurricanes
and himmacanes away from us during your vacation. I'll alert you if I get sore
or the cats start overfeeding!
And if not, then well, we have the BEST hurricane parties around! (By
the way it's considered Good Luck to buy my book *tee hee* and it makes a GREAT
souvenir (one size fits all!) *giggle* so buy a dozen (I'm not pushy am
I?)
ANOTHER BOTTLE WASHED UP JUST AS I FINISHED READING THE FIRST ONE:
Hello!
My husband and I are coming to BVI next week and I stumbled across your
wonderful blog. I'd love to buy your book but can only find it on amazon. It won't get
here in time if I order it now and I'm wondering if it's available anywhere on
Tortola?
Thanks!
S.R.
THANK you for such a nice email! Yes, my book is available on Tortola
and Jost Van Dyke, in these locations: (Ask for the zip lock
baggy, if it's not already encased in one) I provide custom ziplocks,
so the sailors can get them back to the boat nice and dry!
Serendipity Book Shop, Main Street, Road Town,
Tortola
Today is a public holiday in the BVI. It's the Queen of
England's birthday.
I was informed of this matter, when I called to mention the internet had
been down for 12 hours. The operator informed me, that afterall, since it
was a holiday, it might not get fixed. (OK, so what's your excuse on
the non-holidays?)
She also informed me, it was too EARLY to call a technician. (I guess they
need their quiet time in the mornings.)
So I guess it's time for me to do my weather reports the old fashioned
way.
First I study my crystal ball, then I consult with the cats, finally I go
outside and gauge the sky, the humidity, the winds, the sun and my various
injured body parts.
Soooooooooooo, in Tortola today, we can expect mostly sunny skies, with
occasional short mini showers and typical tradewinds around 15mph. No storms on
the horozion. (The cats bulk up on food before bad weather and today they
were happy with a modest breakfast and didn't eat triple amounts like before a
storm.)
None of my past injuries ache, so no tropical waves or depressions are
imminent. Sea conditions appear perfect for boating and diving today, so I guess
all is well!
Today is drop dead gorgeous in the BVI. Yesterday I was at the north
shore of Tortola, sans camera, and was amazed at how flat calm it was. You
could have shot up to Anegada and made the only ripple on the sea. No
storms on the horizon. Yet.
Very breezy today +15mph, and 82 degrees, so it's feeling nice and cool
with the tradewinds kicking in again.
Skies are BLUE again! A beautiful Caribbean summery day. Which
our LONGEST day will be in about 9 days! Summer solstice is on the 21st.
Speaking of 21, Father's day is around the corner on June 21st.
Shop at my
CafePress store today and get FREE shipping in the USA. Use promo
code "GO4FATHER".
Tourist
Board Debuts Taxi Guide Book at Training Workshop Platinum News Online - Tortola,British Virgin
Islands Guide books are available for the islands of Tortola,
Anegada, Virgin Gorda and Jost Van Dyke. The training workshop
concludes tomorrow, Friday June 12. ...
YIKES!!!
BVI
Has First Confirmed Case of H1N1 Virus Platinum News Online - Tortola,British Virgin
Islands Locally, the BVI Health Services Authority has
confirmed its first case of the virus today and is encouraging the
residents of the Territory to be proactive ...
DOUBLE YIKES!
First
Swine Flu Patient Being Monitored; Officials Say No Need to
... Platinum News Online -
Tortola,British Virgin Islands Dancia Penn-Sallah has confirmed
that the BVI has confirmed its first case of Influenza A H1N1 –
commonly called Swine Flu, which was first reported by BVI...
Cool!
Talkin'
Tourism: Tales from the BVI and “fish condos” along our
... By Talkin' Tourism
Talkin Tourism is back from the BVI with tall tales and
great stories about ten days in paradise. Listen as host Gary Guertin
shares some of the adventures shared by Tortola Lola and “Radioman” during
their stay. ...
Come see what Dear Miss Mermaid sees under the
seas!
Dive
Into Tortola's Tranquil Undersea Wonders PR Newswire (press release) - New
York,NY,USA TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands, June 11
/PRNewswire/ -- An underwater wonderland of huge boulders, sponge covered
canyons and soft coral gardens awaits ...
This is SCARY about the world running out of
fish! A new movie...
The sun arose in the BVI with brisk cooling breezes and overcast skies. The
temperature has actually dropped 2 degrees since day break. Most unusual.
Current radar suggests that we
will have passing clouds and scattered showers today. My showering cat already
came home in the wee hours with his freshly showered fur, he wanted me to brush
backwards for him, giving him a punk look while he air-dried.
His brother came home with a pierced ear! Good grief, will he come
home with a tattoo next? He was sitting on my
desk, admiring my breakfast, when I noticed I could see daylight through a tiny
hole in his pointy ear. It's just the perfect size for an earring.
Tranquil marine conditions will prevail for the next week or so. Now we
just need some sunshine and we are good to go!
TRAVEL TIPS:
The internet abounds with cheap airfare websites, promising you the best
deals. One scenario I've seen happen to me and others, is that you find your
ticket and after checking 1-2-3 days before and after, you find that if you go
on this date and come back on that date, your ticket is $395 instead of
$910. You've made a note of the dates, and flights and so on. As you may
have noticed, most airfare pages won't save correctly, so you have to paste and
copy or simply copy by brain to text or paper.
Now you make calls and arrangements, check for other things, like where to
stay or who with and who else is going. Then you decide to buy the tickets and
now the website claims they're are all sold but for only $520, you can now have
the same ticket and itinerary.
Maybe you can find the elusive $395 ticket on another site, maybe not. Very
frustrating and by now you've probably spent a few hours sorting out your trip,
only to find out you aren't going anywhere after all.
Well, it's time to learn how to clean out your browsers cache completely,
delete your cookies, clean up your tracks, delete your internet history and
delete your temporary internet files. Now close out your internet explorer all
together, after deleting everything (cookies and temporary files). Restart the
explorer, go back to the site that first offered you the $395 ticket and it pops
back up again, right at the top. BUY IT!
Some airfare sites, are sneaky, they record your cheap ticket and the fact
you didn't buy it on impulse. So the next time you try to buy it, they want you
to think it is no longer available and force you into a higher ticket price.
This is why you want to delete the cookies. To erase your tracks.
Also, do NOT sign into a website for cheap airfare, even if you are a
member. It's better to search anonymously, delete your cookies and search again,
if you need to. Try to be flexible about your dates, as you can often save a lot
this way. Check to make sure you aren't traveling too close to a high period. A
self employed friend of mine booked his ticket by picking dates arbitrarily,
being self employed, he could have been more flexible. Because he was using the
calendar provided on the airfare website, he didn't realize he was traveling
Easter week. Easter changes every year and so does the popularity of tickets. He
ended up with a high cost ticket, yet if he had chosen the week before or the
week after, his airfare would have been about half or better.
Check for alternate airports. I was trying to get to the New Hampshire
coast. Most people would fly into Boston. I flew into Manchester NH, a much
smaller airport, that ironically had better flight connections and a much
cheaper fare. Different airports have different landing fees, so it pays to
check around.
Another time, I was able to save about $500 on a ticket, because I was
landing in an airport 90 miles from my final destination. After a few
phone calls, I was able to find a willing friend to pick me up 90 miles away and
another to return me 10 days later. That's $250 savings each way, over my
preferred airport, surely I can pony up some gas money and dinner for their
efforts and we all have fun.
A much larger airport, 150 miles away, was not able to offer any
substantial savings, the ticket to there or to the preferred airport were about
the same. Something I can't explain. It's my belief the airlines have always
made buying cheap tickets a difficult task.
Whenever possible try to plan a month ahead, as there are sometimes 30 day
advance purchase tickets, 21 day advance, 14 day and 7 day etc.
When shopping for tickets under 14 days advance, you will have to search
long and hard to find a deal, unless your chosen route is half empty. I
don't think there is anyway to know how many tickets are left on a flight,
without first buying the ticket. But I know that I once bought a ticket to
Hawaii, about 8 months in advance, as it seemed like a super cheap bargain and I
had to be there on business anyhow, but wanted to spend extra time there to
vacation. The connections were good with only one stop and no plane changes. A
few weeks before my trip, my new boyfriend wanted to join me. We made a few
phone calls (this was pre-internet) and discovered a 21 day advance ticket
purchase for the same price I had paid 8 months earlier. Two more friends heard
of our bargain, checked their schedules and also bought tickets to join us.
As it turned out, the airplane was no where near full and we and other
passengers were able to move around and have more room.
Think off-season. The Caribbean and BVI are in off-season until about mid
December. Cheap tickets can be found to come on down and enjoy some peace in
paradise. The
snowbirds have made our winter season more popular than our summer season. Enjoy
our beaches with less crowds, take advantage of villa and hotel discounts.
Think about a chartered yacht trip. Many are privately owned, and can make
instant decisions on whether they want to offer you a deal for a summer trip in
the Caribbean.
BVI
Poised to Bring Home the Gold from Regional Culinary ... Platinum News Online - Tortola,British Virgin
Islands The BVI National Culinary Team leaves the BVI on
Friday June 12th to take part in the annual Taste of the Caribbean competition
at the Caribe Hilton in ...
VI
Festivals and Fairs Committee Prepares for 2009 BVI... Platinum News Online -
Tortola,British Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands Festivals and
Fairs Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. Colin Scatliffe, has begun
preparations for the 2009 BVI Emancipation ...
WOW~ A fantastic story well worth
reading!
Couple's
sailing dream is wrecked by a whale Dorset Echo - UK ... from Sutton Poyntz,
Weymouth, were living the dream of an around-the-world trip when the drama
occurred in rough seas near the British Virgin Islands.
...
I will be in the BVI tomorrow. Am interested in knowing what
the weather is up to there. A friend is telling me rainy &
warm. Do you have amore specific forecast for the next 2
weeks? All the best, & thanks in advance, Fran
You're in luck! I checked my crystal ball today and we have
NO hurricanes or himmacanes planned for the next two weeks.
Sure, it might rain, but VERY unlikely that it will rain for more than 5
minutes at a time. Temperatures will range from 75-82, depending on
whether you are in the mountains or at the seashore.
It's a perfect time to be in the BVI and today the weird fog
left. Whew!
It was quite the lightning show throughout the night with a subtle bass
sounds, of distant grumbling, rumbling, mumbling from distant thunder,
punctuated by light and heavy rain squalls.
A weak tropical wave located near 71 west
longitude early this morning will continue to move away from the local area.
Surface high pressure across the tropical Atlantic will maintain gentle to
moderate trade wind flow across the local area. Mid to upper level ridge will
remain across the northeast Caribbean at least through the end of the
week.
We still have this thick fog on the horizon. Rarely ever seen this
before, this year seems to have many unique weather features! I'm only
half ready for a hurricane, so should we really get one, I'm in trouble already.
If I get completely ready (and I hope to soon) then we won't have a
hurricane.
My friend in Florida says "Buy a generator! It prevents
hurricanes!" He claims that ever since he bought his generator, he hasn't
had one hurricane since.
I recently learned how to repair my own generator, and I sure was tickled
with myself. I just
have a 1kw Kipor generator (which I just checked and it's selling
for only $549, not bad for the peace of mind it brings) that weight
about 30 pounds and more or less is the size of a portable sewing machine and
sounds about like a very busy sewing machine. I can set the generator 20 feet
from the TV and still here the TV at a normal volume. But I do have a 100 foot
cord so I have loads of options.
If you buy a little generator, buy one or two heavy duty 100 feet
electrical cords. This means you can run a cord to wherever you need or want
power. I then add a six way electrical strip to the end of the cord and
then plug in my computer, fan and light etc. At night, in the dark of a power
outage, I often plug in the TV, light and optional DVD player and watch
movies under the fan to the whir of the generator. I've also run it to the
microwave to make or heat up dinner.
I've been told it would probably run the refrigerator, but I've never
tried. Most of our outages are 1-4 hours, so I just let the fridge live on
its on, as I rarely have meats inside and veggies and cheeses can take the
temperature changes more easily than meats. Usually if you don't open the
freezer at all, it's good for 24 hours, especially if it's full. Full freezers
whether just a part of your fridge or a stand alone freezer, always run better
when full. As you empty it out of food, add ice or ice trays or jugs of drinking
water.
At those times when I do have a spare jug of frozen water in the freezer, I
will move it to the fridge when the power goes out. Anything touchy, like milk,
I will move over next to the frozen jug. On the other hand, if you can refrain
from opening the fridge at all, it's good for a few hours, but after a few
hours, it's worth it to transfer any ice from the freezer to the fridge and thus
try to keep your cold stuff cold a bit longer. I always have a big square bucket
of premade ice sitting around my freezer for drinks and company. Of course
this can melt into one big giant chunk, and at that point, you need an ice pick
or to just dump it and start a new batch, when power returns.
We've had about 5 power outages in the last week. I wonder if they do this
to boost generator sales! Problem is, they don't seem to sell small
quiet generators around here. I know because I tried to buy one and finally
had this Kipor
generator mailed to my USVI PO Box, address, from
Amazon, then I transferred it over here. It's paid for itself ten times
over, in comfort. Plus it will run my entire office, so I have no excuse not to
work, when the power dies.
My laptop battery was lost in shipping last fall, and I still haven't got
around to buying another one. I guess this year, I have to seriously reconsider
that again.
The other tropical wave has hit us! We have that fog back again, low
level clouds almost touching the water. NO winds and it's raining on and off,
preparing us for hurricane season.
I went to see how the fog looked aboard the new web cam on
Sophisticated Lady and it looks like she hauled herself out into a boat
yard! Well, tis the season, some of those mean old insurance companies
insist you haul you boat or be un-insured. I never spent a dime on insurance for
my boat. I had storm damages too, but by the time you figured the deductible,
the hassle of the claims and the cost of the insurance, my damages were actually
cheaper to pay then if I had insurance to cover them. So I was lucky! Each
person must figure their own risk.
If you choose not to insure, try to sock away your insurance
premiums into so savings accounts or investments (ha ha ha). At least then, you
have something put away for a rainy day aka the day after the hurricane (or
himmacane!)
Well, it's also time to start stockpiling canned foods,
batteries, candles, rum, gas and all that fun stuff, so when the BIG ONE comes
to scare us, you won't have much to do.
84 degrees on a quiet Monday. Last night I could hear the tropical wave
march right past us. The winds whipped up and seas were choppy and a bit of rain
briefly fell. Then by morning, all was beautiful again. Well sort of.
There is this thick fog laying about, and we don't get fog, but we have it
now. Very eerie.
My friend was out late last night and he said the fog was so thick, he
could barely see to drive. Very odd stuff this fog.
I was watching the fool moon party at Trellis Bay via the webcam on S/V Sophisticated
Lady. So I thought I would make a post and others could watch the
party too. I could see the fireball lit up brightly and people traversing the
beach. Before I cold post, POOF, the internet crashed and it never came
back up again. I called about it, got the usual run around. Today it
is working again, intermittently, I will try to get this out pronto!
I finished up my work and went to bed,woke up, couldn't sleep, turned on
the idiot box and there was the Roseanne
show, playing a marathon. So I giggled my way through the night, as much
of it was hilarious. I didn't have a TV for 20+ years, so I never saw the
show when it was first run. If you need a good giggle, they deliver
plenty.
It must have been a great full moon party at both ends of the island as
things are super quiet on my end of the island. Another new restaurant packed up
bags and closed for good. Kind of sad. The employees were the last to know. I
know the feeling, it's happened to me before.
Well, the good news is there are cheap flights all over creation coming
down here. Bargains abound!
Beautiful clear day
mostly. Full moon tonight and fool moon parties at both ends of the island
of Tortola. For more info click here.
Perfect sailing weather, 82 degrees, winds around 15mph, smallish sea
swells. Front end of the tropical wave is now approaching, sending seemingly dry
clouds overhead, we could get a splash of rain here and there today, but nothing
much to speak about.
No storms are expected just yet, so hold on tight!
Tales
of St. John & the Caribbean: Book People | St. John Life By gerald Reason being is because in
those days, which were the 50s and 60s, not many yachtsmen would venture across
to Jost Van Dyke. I for one used to call white folk “Book People,” for
that's the only place I used to see them, ...
Another wonderful day in paradise, though most of the morning we were
without power. The BVI elec-tricky seems to be having problems again, as my little
generator gets a workout pretty often now. I don't care if people make fun
of it *giggle* it's so wittle and cute, but it does the job and best of all it's
QUIET.
82 degrees at 140pm, I am late writing today. Oh well, life is slow
sometimes! Nothing on the horizon to bother us yet, but great day
for sailing and I can see hundreds of boats in the Sir Francis Drake channel
today. What with May being a record breaking gloomy sky month, many boat owners
have a new appreciation for fair weather and the delights of sailing.
TOMORROW is the full moon with parties at both ends of the
island, plus during the day from Noon to 6pm is a Flea Market in Carrot Bay at
Cruzins. Brings stuff to sell!
Two tropical waves east of us in the BVI (already!) but nothing much
to fret about at this time. 82 degrees at sea level, winds are slight and from
the east at 7-10mph, enough for gentle sailing. The skies are partly cloudy with
the sun fighting for dominance.
Several new webcam's have popped up recently, and I've added these to the
link at :
If you find anymore webcam's, let me know! You can now see the beach at
Soggy Dollar Bar in White Bay, Jost Van Dyke, plus bar and beach cams
at Norman Island and even a webcam from a sailing yacht! I'm working to add
an uneventful cam from Camanoe as well.
Winds are expected to be 15-20 knots today with scattered showers and seas
of 3-5 feet. You can generally expect about the same through Sunday.
There is a tropical wave west of us that seems to be no threat at this
time.
Checking weather while sailing, try your VHF radio, you can monitor
NOAA on WX 5 (out of Culebra) and 6 (out of St. Croix) on your sailing yacht VHF
radio. The broadcasts alternate in both Spanish & English.
On FM radio, local BVI radio station 90.9 gives local weather several
times a day, along with local news and music.
2009 Tropical Cyclone Names aka Hurricane Names (I've made my own
notes in parenthesis to more clearly reflect the season's
greetings...)
Ana (Ana Banana, with a sweet name like that,
who can take it seriously? Bill
(Bad Boy Bill!) Claudette
claw-DET (Clawed-it!) Danny
(Damn-it Danny) Erika
ERR-ree-ka (Where Err We Go with
Err-ree-ka?) Fred (ferocious
Freddy?) Grace (race from Grace
before disgrace) Henri ahn-REE
(On We go again with
Ahn-REE!) Ida
(Ida know where she blows...) Joaquin
(What? No pronunciation? You gotta be
Joke-In) Kate (A late date with fate,
here comes Kate) Larry (sounds awfully
tame, Hairy Larry keep me merry? Mindy
(Windy Mindy!) Nicholas
NIK-o-las (Hey! You aren't spose to be here til
December!) Odette
o-DET (Oh Dat T'ing
O-DET...) Peter (Teeter Peter
Beater) Rose (aw now that's just too
cute, Rose Blows?) Sam (Who names a
himmacane Sam? Sam the Ram or Sam Wham?) Teresa
te-REE-as (you sure about that pronunciation?
WHAT?they named a hurricane after a Saint? tsk
tsk tsk, will we all live in poverty afterwards?) Victor
VIC-ter (Which vector is
Victor? Wanda (I wonda where Wanda will
wanda...now this is a name we can have fun with!)
NOAA supplied the pronunciation (I'm innocent! I swear to Dog I
am not dyslexic!)
(One thing they FORGOT to mention, was to stock up on Rum for the
hurricane or himmacane!)
No
Environmental Issues at Scrub Island Resort, Opening Set for
... Platinum News Online -
Tortola,British Virgin Islands Speaking to BVI Platinum News
during a visit to the Scrub Island Resort Marina and Spa which is some 80
percent completed, Collier explained that the ...
Rainy days are here again on Tortola in the BVI, at least we've had a rainy
morning, overcast, the kind of day where you just want to curl up in bed with a
kitty and snooze. It's 82 degrees at sea level, much cooler in the mountain
areas.
The low pressure about 425 miles north north-east of the Azores continues
to produce gale force winds. This is not a threat to us, at least not now, and
should commit suicide over cooler waters.
Radar shows more rains on the way, but seas are nice, and sailing is good
if you don't mind a fresh water shower now and then!
BVI
MTB Club - One Tuff Mudda Platinum News
Online - Tortola,British Virgin Islands The Corsairs Bar - One Tuff
Mudda Race will start at 10am at Corsairs Bar in Great Harbour, Jost Van
Dyke. The Ferry will leave West End at 9am and return
...
Financial Support for Local Musicians Around the
Corner Platinum News Online -
Tortola,British Virgin Islands Financial support for local musicians
here in the BVI is well underway despite some setbacks, according to
Education and Culture Minister Hon. Andrew Fahie. ...
Police Recruits Return from Training; BVI Recruit Tops
Class Platinum News Online -
Tortola,British Virgin Islands Some 11 police recruits returned to
BVI following six months of training at the Regional Police Training
Centre in Seawell, Barbados. ...
BVI Elec-tricky and the internet came back up, so out to cyberworld, I
shall trust my luck! Right when I sent this hours ago, the internet
hiccupped and went into a coma. The email seemed to vanish. It didn't
post and it didn't auto save in my email filing. So I was miffed. I hate
it when I write things and lose them. Usually I can rewrite it from memory, more
or less, but usually am too tired to do so. Writing can be exhausting at
times. Besides writing here, I write and post all over the
internet. I'm compiling all the links at DearMissMermaid.com so you can
find them if you want to. Yesterday I wrote a restaurant review and
right when I posted it POOF, another internet hiccup and coma. I thought I had a
saved a copy and well, if I did, I lost it somehow. *sigh* But
today, after signing off and signing back on to my email account, it magically
appeared as "saved to be sent later". Oh my goodness, I was ever so happy.
An area of low pressure 325 miles north north east of the Azores islands is
producing gale force winds! No threat to us at this time, but our sky is
alternating between rain, clouds and sunshine at 82 degrees.
Well, before I got this out we had a mini hurricane! Winds and heavy
rains, but now the sun is fighting to peek through the clouds again.
Ah well the current done mash up, figures, I was about to go shower and
wash my hair and go to town for an appointment. YIKES! Hate to go
dirty... Nobody likes a dirty mermaid...
Well, should I wait it out or just go fire up the baby generator?
My soon-to-die laptop battery will determine that. Now I am mad at myself for
not showering sooner. I don't know if my baby generator will run the water pump.
Pumps tend to draw a lot of current and I am not even sure if my pump has a
plug. Grrrrrrr........
Oh well, if it rains again, I can shower outside!
I better get this out before the internet mash up too!
4.6
quake hits north of Virgin Islands; no damage eTaiwan News - Taiwan ...
magnitude of 4.6 and the epicenter was located about 80 miles (130
kilometers) northeast of Tortola, the capital of the British Virgin
Islands. ...
Art and
Soul - St. John Artist and Sailor Les Anderson All At Sea - Saint Thomas,US Virgin Islands,U.S. Virgin
Islands Les helped build the first Tamarind Bar on Jost Van
Dyke that, back then, had an honor system. “Whenever we got started with
t-shirts, Les did the art for ...
It's Whit Monday and a Public holiday in the islands. Yippee! It's 81
degrees, and my crystal ball predicts and entire day of alluring weather, just
like being the Caribbean!
We love our holidays here and any excuse to party. The sun is up and out so
folks are going to be out in the sunshine and several parties are being held at
various beaches. Boats are already traversing the waters, marine
conditions are near perfect though the sailors are hollering for a bit more wind
out there. Winds of 6mph just isn't enough to push most boats. Though my beloved
sailboat had this tall rig model, as Catalina, the manufacturer called it, and
it would sail on the slightest breeze. Indeed I sailed under reef many
times because the rig was so tall, it could easily overpower the boat when winds
hit above 15mph.
Since I often either taught sailing or had newbies chartering on board, I
saw no reason to terrify them much by putting the rail in the water. One lady
tried to knock me in the water though. She was well endowed and had on a teeny
bikini, I had asked her to take the helm and keep us pointed in the wind while I
raised the sails. She had lived aboard and sailed for 2 years with her
ex-boyfriend, so I foolishly assumed she might know how to steer for 5 minutes
while I hoisted main and jib. (I never did get around to putting roller
furling on my boat. )
Well, we are leaving the harbor, already past the final marker, as
others are coming into the harbor and men from another boat, passing us closely,
were flirting with her, as her itsy bitsy teeny bikini top was
a few sizes too small for her upper body and it looked like it could
bust open at any moment. (Think of two homegrown watermelons covered with
a dainty cocktail napkin each...) These weren't implants, but the real
t'ing mon.
She decided to dance, wiggle and jiggle her various body parts for their
delight, while they oohed and aahed and made odd comments, one I shall not
forget was "Oh my gosh, she's got enough showing to make a hungry baby
cry!"
Meanwhile, she forgot all about steering, basking in the attention,
and turned loose of the wheel just as the main sail was already up and the
jib halfway and suddenly the wind grabs the main sail and the boat heals over,
then leaps forward sailing and I was suddenly knocked about and left
scrambling for the lifelines, praying I wouldn't fall overboard.
I looked aft at the wheel which was spinning around while my helms lady
with her back to the wheel was doing her dance to entertain the other boat, the
other 2 ladies in the cockpit were doing likewise in their binkins. I had
to drop the jib and run to the cockpit and grab the wheel and trim the main. The
captain of the boat with the men on board flirting, really got a great laugh out
of all our antics. We must have looked hopelessly clueless, (if not well
endowed.)
I couldn't yell or scream, after all my weekend passengers were paying my
charter fee, and included with that is the unspoken rule to forever be nice to
the passengers, no matter what they do to you. We sailed awhile with just
the main up, and then once again, I put a different lady at the helm and I
raised the jib, and off we went merrily on our way.
We spent the night anchored near Foxy's on Jost
Van Dyke, which always has a bevy of men, ready to entertain ladies on the
loose. Around midnight, we made it back to the boat. One lady slept in the
forepeak, another in the aft bunk and the watermelon lady collapsed on the
midship's bunk on the starboard side, while I cooled out in the roomy cockpit.
Normally, I would pull out the midship's bunk, another 6 inches and that gave
one much needed extra room for slumbering. But my passenger had
seemingly passed out cold and waking her up to pull out the bunk seemed
fruitless. When I made it up earlier in the day with fresh sheets, I had
showed the ladies how it pulled out, then I pushed it back in, as it
made for easier passage through the boat.
Hours later, sunrise woke me immediately in the cockpit and I had the urge
to visit the throne, known as the head on a ship and for you landlubbers, the
toilet or water closet. I stepped down the companionway and there blocking my
path to the throne was one of her watermelons. I froze in place staring at this
incredible sight. I'm sure my eyes were big as saucers. I had never seen
anything like this at all before or since in my short life. She was sound
asleep on her back, wearing a tank top night dress, but she was slightly leaning
towards the boat's center. One of her watermelons had fallen OUT of her tank
top, rolled off the bunk and was, well um, how to say it, but just dangling
there naked, blocking my path to the head. Ouch! Doesn't that
hurt?How can she sleep like THAT?
I thought of my hilarious childhood etiquette
guidebooks by Sesyle Joslin my mother bought me one Christmas.It has such
useful things in it such as "What do you do, dear, when the lady you
are forcing to walk the gangplank drops her handkerchief?" or "What do you say,
dear, when you bump into a crocodile on a crowded city street?"
I thought of the famous Miss
Manner's books, who seems to cover most every embarrassing occasion one
could come upon. And I could not come up with a proper way to deal with this
gracefully at all. Or maybe it was just too early in the morning for this, all
together.
Do I attempt to step over the naked watermelon and journey on to the
head? What if I accidentally bumped it and woke her up? My legs are
kind of short and I wasn't sure I could step over this, um, naked appendage
neatly. Do I attempt to pick it up and try to tuck it back in her
tank top and back on the bunk? What if it fell out again? What
if she woke up while I struggled with her naked watermelon in my
hands? How would THAT look? What if it was too heavy for me to lift
I thought comically and willed myself not to laugh outloud at the absurdity of
the whole situation. The other two ladies continued to sleep soundly, so I
was all alone with my dilema.
Meanwhile my body is reminding me that a visit to the head is
imperative. I looked back outside and many boats were anchored nearby and
several people were awake sitting in their cockpits, so I couldn't just go use
an emergency bucket in the cockpit without attracting unwanted attention.
I looked down below again at the offending watermelon blocking my path. I
had the absurd thought that it would make a hilarious, if not downright
hysterical picture, but couldn't bring myself to snap one. I must admit, I
stared in awe, longer than I should have, trying to figure out how it was she
could sleep so soundly with this, um, body part, hanging out of her shirt and
hanging off the bunk, hovering about an inch above the sole of the boat
and about 2 inches from the galley cabinet on the port side.
This was the only narrow part of the boat, the passage between the bunk and
the galley cabinet and this was one mega watermelon. (No, Dolly
Parton wasn't aboard my boat, and besides, this lady had her beat
by several bra sizes!)
Should I clamor over the galley counter, then into the booth seating, crawl
across the saloon table then lower myself to the sole and
then walk into the head? That would certainly bypass the
gargantuan watermelon, but might make a lot of noise. And if my passengers wake
up, how do I explain that I am crawling on all fours across the saloon
table?
My muscles strained and reminded me to make a decision SOON, or else!
I climbed back up to the cockpit, then down into the dinghy and willed my tiny
little outboard engine to race ashore to an obscure place, far from the closed
bars and seaside homes, away from the curious eyes of those already awake on
their boats and sitting topside, watching me clear across the harbor in search
of privacy. There under cover of a proliferate sea grape tree I
frantically dug a small hole in the sand and well, um relieved myself primitive
style. I kicked sand back over my contribution to fertilizing the sea grapes
(Yep, the cat's have taught me SOMETHING about using the great outdoors!)
I stood up and quite honestly, I don't think I've ever felt quite so
relieved in all my life. I boarded my dinghy and lazily drove back to the boat
and quietly boarded and sat in the cockpit, folding my sheet up silently, while
the ladies below slept another half hour. Under cover of dark sunglasses, I
couldn't help but occasionally sneak a peek at the naked watermelon which
continued to just, well, um dangle there.
Finally the lady in the forepeak climbs out of her bunk and sleepily
into the head which was next to her bunk. She locks the bifold teak door
and does her business then exits and stands there staring at the naked
watermelon blocking her path to the cockpit. At the top of her lungs she says
"OH MY GAWD! Look at THAT!" and points at it, while looking at me in the
cockpit. I glance over and pretend to look VERY surprised, then turn my head
politely away, smothering the urge to giggle out loud.
The watermelon lady wakes up, and absent mindedly tucks her watermelon back
into her tank top, sits up and says "Look at WHAT?" her bloodshot
eyes staring at the other lady, then back at me again, a ready grin on her face
cause she wants to see THAT.
The lady in the aft bunk chimes in with the same question and now everyone
is up and awake. The forepeak lady, her face now a beet red, mumbles something
about a big fish jumping and points towards me and the cockpit. I turn and gaze
at the ocean, and nod my head knowingly, holding my arms out wide, to mock a big
fish size, as if I've just witnessed a large jumping fish too.
My ribs are aching as I do my very best not to just burst out laughing.
It's time for me to make the coffee and play the gracious host during breakfast
and I try to focus on that rather than laugh myself silly, which is what I
really wanted to do, but how to explain THAT?
Oh well, all's well, ends well, just another memorable weekend
charter aboard my boat.
~~~~~~~(\_~~~~~~~~~~
Popeye’s Fried Chicken is Back By: BVI Platinum News After a six months absence,
persons can now purchase their fried chicken from Popeye’s Snackette once again
as the popular restaurant is back to... Full
Story
Department of
agriculture cultivates perennial fruit trees SKNVibes.com - Basseterre,St. Kitts and Nevis Roadtown,
Tortola - The Department of Agriculture continues to take steps towards
greater food-sufficiency and sustainability. On May 26 staff members from
...
(By the way Road Town is TWO words, not
one)
British
Virgin Islands promotes beekeeping(No, not
bookkeeping...) MSN Money -
USA SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The British Virgin Islands is
launching a beekeeping program to stimulate the economy and attract
entrepreneurs. ...
Dry and stable conditions today, bright blue sky, perfect marine
conditions. It's a great day to be out on the water or at the beach.
Purr my cat; it's PURR-FECT weather!
The rest of the week is expected to be really nice too with just the odd
typical short shower here and there. Enough to rinse the dust off your
boat. ~~~(\_~~~
No cases of swine flu here (yet) but since we are a crossroads for
travelers from all over the world, you just never know. I've been in hiding for
a few days as I had a monster fever that wouldn't go away. Had to wrap my head
in icy cold towels and pray for relief. I would get up and after an hour or so
would be so exhausted, I had to lay down again and snooze. The fever made
me loopy. I dropped my thermometer and broke it, so I lost track of how
bad it was. My housemate kept saying I should go see the doctor, but most
things go away in a few days anyhow. Yesterday, they woke me up to see if I was
alive! Said I hadn't moved in 2 days, was laying in exact same
position. Actually, I had been up and down a bunch, fetching icy cold
water for my head rag. I guess I just kept collapsing on the bed in the
exact same position.
I feel 100% better now, just very weak, but the fever is all gone.
Whew! Any crash landing you can walk away from, is a good
one. I am still growing new skin on my knees, from my last crash
landing, I never knew it took so long to grow new skin! Fish scales would
be easier...but mermaids lose their tail temporarily, once they get too far from
the water.
Now the mosquitos are out in full force but now and then the fogger trucks
show up and stink up the place. I've looked all over my yard for water catchment
and can't find any, so not sure why we are having a problem with them.
I ran into a lady wearing this Bugband wristband mosquito repellent
and she said it worked perfectly, she had not been bitten once since buying
it and the band lasts about 120 hours. Being that she flies down here almost
every month (what a life!) she knows what she is talking about. You can
seal it up between uses, to make the life of it last longer. What a cool
invention! Works on pets and babies too.
Well, I am going to crawl out into the sunshine and just lay there and
smile at the sky!
Blue sky and sunshine, simply astounding! Loads of people will be out
and about in the BVI today, sunshine has been such a rare commodity this past
month. No one can remember a month this gloomy ever before.
Of course my internet is on the fritz again, so no telling when or if I get
this out today. I have work to do, so that is why it is hanging up on me again.
So far the internet this morning moves at the pace of a well fed donkey
looking for a place to nap.
Well so much for early morning reports......
Internet was down all day, just came back in my area. It's already 6pm
here
I've already burned the toaster up today. Put in two frozen corn tortillas
to crsipen them for lunch. I do this all the time without any trouble. I
even cleaned out the toaster before I heated the tortillas. I did tap the
toaster with my hand a few times, while it was upside down over
the sink to get out old crumbs and such. Maybe I kncoked something out
of place. I tapped lightlyt was all. I plug it in, pop in two corn
tortillas and maybe five to ten seconds later, it's shooting up 2 foot
flames! Good grief. I guess the toaster isn't all metal. Even
stranger, as it melted part of the top. Needless to say, it ruined my tortillas
and stunk up the place and sent the kitties scurrying outdoors.
I tried to smother it with a towel, but it had been decorated and the glue
that held the glitter (it was a New Year's gift with glitter and stuff
glued on it) well it seemed to catch on fire, so I gave up on that,
put the towel out and I did manage to yank the cord out of the wall
socket, and move the offending toaster and it's flames, to the top of
the metal washing machine, so it wouldn't catch the counter on fire, but it
burned a few more minutes while I watched it in horror.
First the refrigerator cord caught on fire a while back, well actually it's
done that twice now. We finally moved the fridge to a place where we don't have
run an extra cord. I paid a bloody fortune for that appliance cord extension,
big heavy duty thing, that is just money out the window after a few months and
it sets on fire. Then the microwave caught fire one day when they flipped
the power back on after a lengthy outage and now the toaster.
Last weekend my upstairs neighbor had no power while I had plenty. I ran
them my 100 foot cord and six plug strip so they could have some lights and fans
while waiting on BVI Elec-tricky to come figure it out, as it was, seven of us
armed with flashlights and tools couldn't get it going again.
I offered up my generator too, but since my cord came in handy, they didn't
need it.
But a friend called that night and wanted to rent the generator and cords,
for his party in a remote location, the next day, to run the DJ
system. I don't normally rent out my generator, but what the heck. So I banged
out some basic instructions and printed them out, numbered the sequence for
starting the generator, plastered my name and phone number on it then had him
sign a paper he would return it running fine or buy it outright for X dollars.
Didn't charge him rent, since it was his birthday. When he came over I showed
him all the bells and whistles and lights and had him fire it up, so he would be
familiar with the starting and stopping sequence. Begged him not to let anyone
work on it, if it fouled up, to call me right away, I would come running. I
couldn't make it to the party, due to prior engagements.
He returned all in good working order minus the gas. Said it purred so
silently folks kept asking him what was powering the music. He said the DJ
wanted to buy it but didn't have the funds, so funny. I don't want to sell it.
It's so cute and handy. Of course since I repaired it, BVI elec-tricky seems to
be behaving a heck of a lot better.
Weather should be wonderful for a few brief days! Everyone is out and
about in the sunshine. Yippee!
Thunder and lightning! OH MY! Long rumbling, grumbling,
mumbling, thunder.
Dark skies, with severely reduced visibility.
- Fried Day and the phone and internet are both fried!
From: DearMissMermaid at aol.com
Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 12:26:08 EDT
Tropical depression one arrives a week early! No threat to us though.
Whew! TD one is now
near Halifax Scotia and expected to dissipate in the cooler waters.
What worries me is that we have warmer waters here.
Ooops. Internet is down again. (Nothing new there!)
Interesting that Honduras got the earthquake and not us. Just Tuesday, we
noted how the low tide was super low. No one could recall ever seeing it
so low! We began talking about earthquakes and tsunamis. Many people
around here are afraid of tsunamis. So a few dashed from the conversation and
headed for the hills.
The reclaimed land around Tortola would probably liquefy and that's where
many of the government buildings are built. Wouldn't that be hilarious, if
a tsunami wiped out our over sized government.
The sun is fighting mightily today to play peek a boo! Winds are
slight and temps have soared to 84 degrees. SUMMER IS HERE already!
Whenever the internet decides to make a cameo appearance, I will try to sip
this out to cyber world! Um, slip not sip! Good grief.
This fever making me crazy mon! I dropped and broke my thermometer,
so now I can't fret over my temperature. Oh well. I'm going back to bed with an
icy cold washcloth.
*********
Got up from my nap, made some chicken
cup of soup, used double strength and man that stuff was really tasty and
made me feel 10 times better. Well sort of, I can breath now, but I am dead
tired.
No hurricanes here, but off of North Carolina is a disturbance that could
briefly do something before losing strength in colder waters. Hurricane season
doesn't officially start until next Monday. Yikes!
Warm and humid here. I have a fever anyhow, so it doesn't matter to
me *giggle*. I guess I picked up a bug, and in May of all things!
Still overcast today and I just find the weather for the month of May
totally flabbergasting. We've had about a half day of pure sunshine in May and
rest of time this weird overcast.
We must be beating all the odds here. May has almost been entirely overcast
the entire month! We could get a bad reputation from this. I met some new
friends who have only lived here since October. At the end of April, they
watched as the snow birds all packed up and left. Then the weather turned
totally gloomy! They thought, well, no wonder a bunch of folks
left the end of April!
Incredibly, we can expect more cloudy days this week with occasional
quick deluges from the heavens above. Despite the mosquito foggers, the
mosquitos are finding spots to breed in. They like pockets of rain
water. If you left a bowl outside full of fresh water, within 24 hours,
mosquitos would breed in it. So if you leave your pets, a water bowl outsides,
it is imperative that you change out the water at least once daily, to prevent
mosquitos from setting up housekeeping and baby mosquito nurseries in
them.
I've been writing here about 10 years, and nothing like this has ever
happened in May. The rains have mostly ceased back to occasional drool
from the sky, nothing much at all, but just this incredible cloud cover that
seems to plague us daily lately.
I couldn't post on Sunday (no internet) and today, Monday, I've had scant
internet coverage, and can't seem to post either. Grrrrrrr... Ooops, it's
now Tuesday and I better hurry up and post before the internet crashes again.
I get frustrated when I report the internet is down, the operator often
demands to know my name, password and so on. It's not me that it is me that is
messed up, it's their system! I don't why they bother with passwords, if
you're supposed to give it out to every operator that asks for it. Sheesh.
The internet will work fine for a few minutes, then POOF, it slowly dies,
pages load super slow and then not at all and then sudden death. When I bring up
the Windows Task manager on Windows XP, it shows my internet connection has
flat-lined. Oh well. Life in paradise!
Saturday I did finally make it to Foxy's Wooden Boat Regatta and it was
great fun. Got to see a few fabulous wooden
yachts (a dying breed!) and of course Foxy
himself, was in full form, cutting up, telling jokes, smiling for endless camera
poses. Whoever said Lady
Di was the most photographed woman in the world, never met Foxy. I believe
he is the most photographed person in the world.
In the hour or so we sat and chatted mid-morning, I think his picture
was snapped 40+ times and this was before lunch!
His newest grand baby, barely walking, was in his birthday suit,
frolicking in the ocean's edge, totally unafraid of the ocean, as he rolled
around with the shore side waves and giggled under his mother's watchful eye.
What a life for a baby.
Jost Van Dyke still boasts a casual seaside venue, with public hammocks and
tire swings hanging from the trees. It had been awhile since I had been there,
and I was greeted with many hugs and inquiries as to my where abouts and my
boat.
Ah, the boat. I miss my boat! The residents of Jost Van Dyke watched
me for years, hang out in their harbor, reading how-to refit
boat books and rebuilding my boat. It was an unusual t'ing for a single
female to do in her past time, so I met and made, many curious friends and
resident of Jost Van Dyke. Ah, those were the GOOD old days!
Amazon has informed me if I sell 73 more books
before May 31st, I will earn a 7% bonus! WOW! So if 73 folks out
there in cyber world haven't read my book yet *tee hee hee* it's fun
reading and makes a great gift. I am working on 3 more books, but can't give you
a publish date yet. But, soon come, mon!
The steel hulled committee boat for the Wooden Boat
Regatta.
Fickle weather! Gone to the regatta at Foxys. If
you are at the Music Festival in Cane Garden Bay, my book is on sale
at Myetts gift shop which is named "Olivias Corner Store".
For you Americans, it's Memorial Day Weekend, ENJOY!
Peek a boo sunshine and scattered clouds. Summer is on the way with 82
degrees at 8am. Since all the rains, the mosquitos are on the loose. There
are some wonderful alternative
mosquito repellents available on the market now including bath soap and
moisturizing lotions. Theweekend should be BEAUTIFUL for the regatta at Foxys on
jost van Dyke and for the Music Fest at Cane Garden Bay. Me thinks we should
have more music more often in the islands. Of course Foxys has lined up loads of
music for the weekend events on Jost Van Dyke (Goats van Dyke? Jost van
Yikes?)
The islands are emerald green, so we be even more beautiful and charming
now.
Nearly a million dollars to design a police station?
WOW!
How about signing a contract to build a better fence at the
prison where the prisoners keep cutting it repeatedly in broad daylight and
escaping... I still
want to know, how do you "quietly" cut a fence designed to hold prisoners
inside. Seems like it would have been a noisy affair, to hacksaw that thing big
enough to slip right through it, at one in the afternoon.
Organizers Promise to Pull Off the Biggest Music Festival
Ever Platinum News Online -
Tortola,British Virgin Islands “It brings in a lot of resources to the
BVI and it is needed in these economic times…we are also seeing flights
pouring in already.” Blyden pointed out that ...
This
Date in History « Washington Kaleidoscope By Kilroy May 20, 1759: William Thornton was born
at Jost van Dyke, West Indies. The British-born American architect,
inventor, and public official, is best known as the creator of the
original design for the Capitol at Washington,
...
Thursday already and it's a tad humid and not much winds, still overcast
and bluish gray outside. Temps have soared to 82 degrees at sea level, waters
are warm for swimming. Winds are slight at 5-10 knots and we are going to need
more than that to push these wooden boats around this weekend at Foxys Wooden
Boat Regatta. Scattered showers are moving across the area, so you could have
the sky briefly drool upon you today, at some point. We should get
stronger winds this weekend in time for the regatta and just the usual passing
showers to slobber on you now and then.
For those of you going to Jost Van Dyke this weekend, my book "Hurricanes
& Hangovers" will be on sale at Jost
Van Dyke Scuba in Great Harbor, just down the beach from Foxys. As a Wooden
Boat Regatta Special, it's on sale for ONLY $15 this weekend
only! So I hope you will take this opportunity to save yourself a few
dollars and get some great laughs (and help support a struggling Mermaid!).
I just love the quintessential island ambiance
of the
Cloudy and overcast and humid. Temps from 72-81. Might be cloudy all
week again with a bright weekend!
Finally caught a picture of the wall on Zion Hill Road. It's very
hard to photograph without getting killed. Trucks come around the hairpin blind
curve without honking and take over your lane. Stopping to take a picture, is
risking your life, as there is no where to pull over. But somehow I
snapped this picture on the fly and it came out pretty good, must see the full
size to really appreciate.
I'm dashing off to town in the overcast, to do things I don't want to do,
but have to be done. Life ain't purdy all the time, but I love the beautiful
drive to town, in spite of the fact they added five more speed bumps to my
drive, which adds 10-15 more minutes to my drive and gobbles more gas. Oh well.
Maybe I will get some fresh pictures today!
Address
by Hon. Andrew Fahie - International Museum Day Platinum News Online - Tortola,British Virgin
Islands You can also step back in time, as far back as 1780 at the
Lower Estate Sugar Works museum located at John's Hole, Tortola. Our
administrative history is ...
Well, I blew it! Wrote a LONG story about funny boat names and the
weather and POOF it vanished. Where I know knot. I feel like crying. It's just
like the ship that ran aground. She was ship out of luck.
Well, Ship
happens! Let's get this ship together...and go to Foxys Wooden Boat
Regatta this weekend! Also coming up is the Cane Garden Bay Music
Fest. Most of the hotels and guest houses are booked
solid! I know because friends of mine were frantically calling
around looking for rooms. Well, THAT's a good thing to hear. We need
to be busy for a change.
Hello? Government? Maybe we should let MORE musicians in year
round, since they are such a draw for tourism.
Anyhow, it's cloudy again today, like the past two Mondays. We can expect
more rains and more clouds, oh boy! Won't that be fun. 81 degrees as usual.
Then there is the possibility we could have a hurricane BEFORE hurricane
season even starts!
Max send me this info, and like a good pirate I am going to reproduce
it here since the jumby mon ate my email already....
May what? Oh, the 18th and guess
what? A nasty system has crossed Jamaica, eastern Cuba and Haiti
dumping excessive rains with some winds of notice but ... some suggest, me to,
that this little undefined system is going to make a turn to the northwest
and head to the Gulf with some recognizable characteristic such as cyclone
like counterclockwise rotation within the next 48 hours! Grrr (This
is a very good time for Ham operators to check systems and ensure network
operations)
Rather then try to recreate the written word, below is
the Blog of Dr. Jeff Master's, Weatherunderground.com . May 18, 2009.
Let this serve as a BIG HEADS UP for the
Turks, Bahamas, and Florida ... Grrr There is no doubt in my mind that all of you have
prepared for this years gurricane season and have done all there is to do?
Yea Right!!!!!!! Remember, and you will hear it often from me, it
doesn't have to be a gurricane to kill you! Be safe out there and always
keep an eye to weather. Max
Last Updated: 4:49 PM GMT on May 17, 2009
— Last Comment: 6:35 AM GMT on May 18, 2009
Gathering extratropical storm set to drench
Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas
Posted by: JeffMasters,
3:11 PM GMT on May 17, 2009
A concentrated area of heavy thunderstorms
has developed near Jamaica and eastern Cuba, in association with a mid- to
upper-level trough of low pressure. The latest 00Z and 06Z runs of the
GFS, UKMET, NOGAPS, and ECMWF global dynamical computer models continue to
forecast that this disturbance will develop into an extratropical low by
Tuesday. The low should bring heavy rain and possible flooding problems to
Cuba, Florida, and the Bahamas this week as it lifts northwestward over
Florida. Up to eight inches of rain may fall over Florida by Friday
(Figure 2), thanks also to a cold front expected to move over the state
over the next two days. At present, it appears wind shear will be too high
to allow the extratropical storm developing over Cuba to transition into a
subtropical or tropical storm. However, if the center emerges into the
northern Gulf of Mexico late this week, wind shear may be low enough to
allow a transition to a subtropical storm (10% chance).
Figure
1. Latest IR satellite image of the Atlantic, showing the gathering
extratropical storm near the eastern tip of Cuba, and the cut-off low
spinning in the mid-Atlantic.
Figure
2. Forecast precipitation amount between 8am EDT Sunday 5/17/09 and
8am EDT Friday 5/22/09. Image credit: NOAA/HPC.
There has been little change to the
large upper-level cold low spinning in the mid-Atlantic a few hundred
miles east of Bermuda. The low may spin in place long enough over the next
week to develop a warm core and be classified as a subtropical storm. It
is unlikely that a subtropical storm forming that far out in the Atlantic
this early in the year would pose a threat to any land areas, with the
possible exception of Bermuda.
Climatology of
early-season Atlantic tropical cyclones Tropical
storms are uncommon in the Atlantic before June 1, with only 26 named
storms on record between 1851 - 2008. Five of these have made it to
hurricane strength, and only one--Hurricane Able of 1951--made it to major hurricane
status. Last year's Tropical Storm Arthur may be the deadliest May tropical
cyclone on record. Though only a 40 mph tropical storm at landfall, Arthur
killed five people in Belize and caused $78 million in damage. Three
early-season storms have brought hurricane-force winds to land. The March 1908 hurricaneswept through the northern Lesser Antilles Islands as a
Category 1 or 2 hurricane, destroying at least 24 boats and causing damage
to buildings on St. Bartholomew. Hurricane Able of 1951 brought sustained winds of 90 - 95 mph to the northern
Bahama Islands, but caused little damage. Hurricane 2 of May 1908 hit North Carolina's Outer Banks
as a Category 1 hurricane, but also caused little
damage.
The sun is out, the sun is out!
Sure there are patchy clouds around, but nothing dark and malefic yet.
Yesterday, the morning was gorgeous, bright and sunshiny. But by afternoon, when
I stopped in at Nanny Cay to see a friend, a cool wind blew past, then the
heavens opened up and the skies poured down barrels of fresh rain water. At the
time, I was thrilled, as it cooled me right down. I had become super
overheated at the Labour Department and was still simmering.
My crystal ball predicts an astonishing weekend with abundant sunshine and
only occasional rains. Monday may thrust us back into rainy cloudy days. In the
meantime, get out in the sunshine and get your Vitamin D and metabolism pumping.
It's a great weekend for the outdoors and here in the islands, we love being
outdoors as mush as possible.
I showed up at the Labour Department, Friday, with my paperwork
filled out identical to last year's paperwork. I have to renew my slave permit
card. Ooops, I mean my work permit card. The clerk determined I had
done it all wrong, so she gave me triplicate copies to hand fill out again,
without benefit of carbon paper. I thought carbon paper went by the wayside when
copiers came along. (Copiers have been out 50 years now, since 1959.
Someone should tell Labour about these *new* inventions!)
Labour has computers, but they use them to create work, not save time and
motion. Hence my papers have to be handfilled out in triplicate all over again.
I also had to submit my passport picture. The clerk stapled it, right
through the nose, onto the paperwork. Later they will take a picture of me
with their own camera. I have no idea, why I have to buy pics, submit them, then
later when my paperwork is ready, Labour uses their own camera to take another
picture and charge me $75 for it to be laminated on a slave permit wallet
sized card. Ooops! Excuse me! I meant a work permit
card! (Is that because the one with the big staple through my nose is no
longer useful?)
The air conditioning is still broke in Labour. It's been that was for
years. The windows don't open. No wonder there was a crowd of people in the
parking lot, hovering around the doors, rapidly speaking Spanish. I wondered if
I was the only English speaking person in the office that day. I checked
their chaotic schedule, that shows what they do on which days, that they are
open 6 hours and 15 minutes. No, it wasn't Spanish day, just that I never
heard any English spoken while I filled out my forms, except from the clerk, who
spoke fluent English.
There is NO place to fill out paperwork (that would be way too convenient).
So I was using my old leather portfolio, propped up on a chair arm, twisted
sideways in my seat while trying to fill out these papers. I guess I should have
brought my clipboard with me. It was so murderously hot, that big globs of sweat
dripped from my forehead, all over my papers. I had left my purse locked up in
my car, just bringing in the portfolio of papers I thought I needed. I had
nothing to mop up with, but my hand. I was sure there were a few errant cocktail
napkins stashed in my purse, but my car was a half mile or more away. There is
never parking at Labour. I think that lot is full 24 hours a day. Many cars were
parked in the aisles, blocking in other cars. The only open spots were marked
"reserved for government officials". Why are the reserved for government
officials parking spots always empty? They should have to fight for
parking, just like us riffraff.
Finally I stood in line to turn my new papers back in again. The
clerk explained to the lady in front of me what she had to do. The lady
looked bewildered and stood there saying nothing, so a man jumped up
and briskly interpreted the conversation into Spanish. Finally it was
my turn again. The clerk looked at my papers with wet splotches on them,
and asked them if I got them wet in the rain (it was still bone dry
outside). I said "No, that is my sweat, I am just burning up!" She replied
by telling me how she thought she had the flu because the clerk who worked at
her desk the last few days had stayed home with the flu and she probably got it
from the germs on the desk. I looked around at the 80 or so people milling about
inside and out and wondered if we would all have the flu next week.
I left and found the public restroom, which had no soap, but I scrubbed my
hands, arms, elbows anyhow, and rinsed the sweat off my face. As I walked back
to my car, about 6 blocks away, which ironically was blocking half of a
parking lot entrance, I chanted over and over "I shall not get the flu, I shall
not get the flu, I shall not get the flu." A few miles out of town, when I
stopped at Nanny Cay, they had soap, so I scrubbed up all over again, wishing
and washing away any and all germs. I think I've already had the flu twice
in the last year, surely I can't get round three!
Friday morning, I jumped up at 730am, running around like a lightning,
trying to get a long list of things done before I headed for town at 9am to have
breakfast with a departing friend. I was sleepy and yawning, making my espresso
extra strong. I was frantically searching for papers that didn't seem to
exist. This lead to me spreading out files all over creation, wondering why I
thought I was so well organized when I couldn't lay my hands on a piece of paper
I had last seen in October. I must have been half asleep, as the papers turned
up, right where they were supposed to be, but I had passed over them twice.
*sigh*
Yawning again, thinking, WOW, I am really VERY tired, I noticed my wall
clock in the office said it was 630, yet I had been up nearly an hour all ready.
I went back to my bedroom, where the little travel clock still said 730. I guess
that t'ing mash up.
My mind must be going.
Where I don't know.
Last night I kept waking up and consulting my 730 clock. I am trying to
figure out how long I sleep at night. Apparently, I always sleep until 730.
Matter of fact, when I moved into my apartment, it came with 3 hideously
ugly wall clocks. None of them worked. The batteries had long since corroded
inside of them, and new batteries did nothing to coax them back to life. I threw
them in the garbage, after taking pictures of them, in case the landlord ever
asked what happened to his collection of ugly broken clocks. I am sure each one
sold for at least $10 at some point in their life.
Recently another friend of mine was in a car wreck and ended up with
this rental car. It's a tiny little thing, so small that our elbows were bumping
until I managed to put my arm behind her seat, a bit awkward, but it kept our
elbows from smashing together as she drove. I joked with her about the anemic
toy car and wondered why this thing was even allowed on the island.
We went to lunch, then she drove me home. I live up on a small gradual
hill. It can't be that bad of hill, many of my boating friends walk up the hill
from the anchorage below. This little anemic toy car couldn't make it up the
hill. It bogged down, coughed, sputtered and refused. My friend and I burst
out laughing. She had to reverse down the hill, backup another quarter mile,
floor the accelerator and then attempt to fly up the hill.
The little anemic car slowed down and chugged up the hill, choking, gasping
and lurching, while a couple on mountain bicycles peddled right
past us, up the small incline, giving us strange looks. I asked my friend how on
earth she made it home, being that she lives way up on Ridge Road. She replied
that she often had to reverse and then get a running start, and sometimes had to
do this 2-3 times before she could get home.
Life in the islands.
Bats in the bathtub! Just what I wanted to find at oh dark thirty
this morning. A bat in my bath. Did he arrive on his own, or was he placed there
by a certain four legged housemate of mine? I'm going to go find my camera
and snap his pic before the funeral.
Lifeless Bat in the shower!
YUCK!
(Don't worry, I plan to clean and sterilize the shower
before I use it today!)
Bat? What bat?
I'm just *innocently* watching my cartoons on
TV!
A few weeks ago, a lady told me she was washing her dishes when she noticed
a dead bat was in her wash water! She left home, drove to work, and
was frantically making a phone call to somebody, instructing them to go to
her house and remove the bat from the sink for her. I could hear the other
person laughing hysterically over the phone.
Two other people tell me they stepped outside recently at night and were
hit in the head by low flying bats. Good grief. What next?
There is a tropical wave moving
east to west, south of us and another one rolling off Africa, about midways in
the Atlantic. 
and 
. (He narrated and Ray Ellis painted these
magnificent paintings of sailing and coastlines.) He seemed touched
that I knew something about him other than the evening news. 
Summer camps and the
children are out on the waters, learning all manner of skills from sailing to
surfing to Scuba diving. What a life!
PLUS
EQUALS a "Ting & a Swing"
So buy the book and let's
test this theory! And YES, volume 2 is on the way (soon come!)
Thanks for the
wonderful link! 
If you see her, tell her
come home and rub my belly and bring tuna too!
THANKS!
