Travel with Dale & Margaret

This morning Geoff’s alarm went off first with a “quack, quack, quack” (just like my real ducks at home!) and we were all up in a couple minutes.  At 5:25 am we had walked over the bumpy sidewalks to the hotel lobby area where our taxi driver from yesterday was patiently waiting.  He had arrived at 5:00 am and seemed a bit upset that we were “late”.  After loading the bags we drove the hilly drive to the airport getting some history and local color on the way.  Once again, the taxi drivers didn’t disappoint us as ambassadors of Tortola!

It was dark when we left but light when we got to the airport about 15 minutes later and a beautiful day it was.  We checked in at the Platinum desk (the kids are starting to get used to being “special” I think) and headed for some coffee while on the lookout for some Caribbean hot sauce to take home as gifts.  Nothing doing…no gift shops with hot sauce were open yet.

After a quick bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee we got in the security line only to realize that we needed to stand in a fairly long line to pay $20 each airport departure fee to get out of the BVI’s.  That done we went through security, sat in the staging area for a few minutes and then walked out on the tarmac to board our turbo-prop ride to San Juan.

The flight was uneventful and we headed for the immigration lines and were not disappointed.  That means there WAS a long line.  Getting through that we all wanted to head to the Admiral’s Club.  My training program was working!  We got coffee, a hot breakfast, plugged in our laptops and got to work on blogs, picture transfers, texting girlfriends (Wes, not me!), calling the wife (that’s me!) and relaxing for a few minutes before packing up and heading to Gate 9 and our awaiting 757.

I had managed to get all of us into aisle 11 although I had sacrificed my aisle seat in the process.  This meant we had to pass stuff over and around the poor aisle seat guy the rest of the flight…extra food, laptops, you name it.  They were actually good sports about it!

Their job for the Admirals Club and the flight was to write their first (and probably last) blog entry for our Sailingwiththekids blog and I’m happy to say that before we landed they had all accomplished their task!  So check it out following this entry.  Wes’ girlfriend met us at baggage check (that’s pretty good service!) so I gave him his hug there and said goodbye.

Jenny, Geoff and I, after getting tired waiting for the Connection bus grabbed a cart and walked halfway around the airport to the Southwest terminal.  There we separated as I checked my bag while they reorganized their bags to put in the gifts they had picked up in San Juan.  We met up briefly at Gate 3 just before my flight started boarding, and said goodbye for the last time this vacation.  They thanked me for putting it together and making it happen.  I can’t wait to read (and do minor proofing edits) on their blog entries.  Make sure you read them!

I arrived into Oakland on time and then got on the connecting flight home which proceeded to sit on the ground for about 15 minutes.  It arrived about 30 minutes late and Margaret and I got home around 9:00 pm.  It was great to see her after such a long time and, as usual, she made a great dinner for me while we watched “The Apprentice”.  The puppy was very happy to see me, the cat sort of nonchalant about the whole thing.  We determined that ten days was too long to be apart!

I am excited to be home yet very happy to have had this great experience spending uninterrupted time with my kids for the first time in many years.  An experience that I will remember forever.

Thanks for stick with me on this trip and I promise that some incredible pictures will be following as soon as Geoff uploads his pics to my MobileMe account.  I see that he was already uploading some to Facebook last night after midnight.

Ciao for now!

I got up about 6:15 am this morning, grabbed some very dry granola (we are officially out of milk), cleaned up the boat a bit and sat down to write this blog entry.  We cleaned up the boat a bit more and headed back around 7:30 am, figuring we’d drive by Peter Island resort and check it out, maybe go for a swim and then head across the channel to Tortola.

The wind came up as we rounded the point, Wes turned the boat into the wind and Geoff and I worked on raising the main and deploying the roller-furled jib.  Moving along at 7 knots plus we saw another cat that was a bit longer than ours and decided to make a “race” with it.  I started filming the ride back (at Geoff’s request!) and Jenn and I continued to clean up the cabin, including mopping up the Caribbean hot sauce that broke all over the floor…glass bottle and all.  Yuck.

As we reached Road Town harbor we turned into the wind, dropped the main, furled the jib and motored between the marker bouys until we got to the Mooring/Sunsail harbor.  There are still probably 200 boats in the harbor…just think if all those boats had been out in the channel.  It would be like the LA freeways and moorings would be in VERY short supply in the anchorages.  We were very lucky to have such a slow week with reasonably good weather.  We called Sunsail’s base on Channel 12 on the VHF radio, they answered and sent out a captain to assist us getting to the main dock.  Once docked their housekeeping person came out and asked us questions as she filled out a questionnaire, told us how to handle the linens and what condition the boat must be left in and we went into action.  All the Sunsail people were very nice, insightful and even funny.  Geoff especially liked talking to them.  I returned the rented cell phone, iPod jacks, fins, masks/snorkels, got the deposit back at Sunsail and took our three bags of trash to the dumpster while the kids continued the cleanup.

All our bags are now off the boat and we’re ready to get a taxi to go to Lambert Bay Resort.  I’ll add more when we get there.

While the vacation was great and there’s always one part of you that wants to keep it going I have to say that I’m very excited to get home and see Margaret and the puppy as well as the kitty cat!  I should be home tomorrow around 8 pm.

As you can see, like my MacBook battery, my D’s are all charged up again and ready to go to work!  Today started out beautiful and just got better as the day went on.  Once again the official sunrise was blocked by the hills of the island and the wind gusted a bit just as the sun emerged bringing with it some warmth…but not too much.  The humidity from yesterday has all but disappeared…I guess the low has passed by us leaving more typical weather for this time of year.  Everyone slept well last night and we are all anxious for our deep water dive and navigation class.  OK, mostly the deep water wreck dive…not so much the navigation class.

Geoff, Wes and I took a run into the beach to use their “facilities” but found them locked.  Looks like Cooper has a lock (so to speak) on open air island restrooms.  Jenny cooked some oatmeal topped with cut bananas and a touch of nutmeg, Geoff made the coffee and I washed the dishes.  I also checked the water level in the last water tank and found it had about 6 inches left…that’s not very much.  We are going to attempt to fill three gallon water bottles we have to make do with washing dishes for a couple meals.  We will take showers on shore tonight and probably just eek by.  It would have been perfect had Sunsail filled the middle small tank (there are two large and one small).

Yes, it’s a very nice day in paradise, so nice in fact that I took a few pictures before we headed in on our water run.  It turns out that there is no place to get water so that was a bust.

In terms of depleted desirables we bought some drinking water last night at the bar and should be OK in that department.  The remaining milk got all curdly which was discovered when I put it in my coffee today.  Pretty much all we have left is enough eggs for breakfast tomorrow.  It must be time to go home!

Our scuba ride arrived at a few minutes before 9:30 and prior the kids were all up front reading on the trampoline.  Oswaldo brought along another diver who is staying on Jost and a new assistance named Vivian.  She just arrived for a one year stay as an apprentice from Boston (previously from Puerto Rico) and was quite helpful.

Our first stop was Salt Island where the wreck of the Rhone is located.  The Rhone is a steamship used to carry mail, passengers and other cargo.  About 1870 she was anchored off Peter Island when a hurricane started to form.  All of the ships in the area headed to protected areas on Tortola but she had some problems getting her anchor up.  By the time she did the winds had come up and she was hit by a big wave that caused her steam boiler to explode.  This broke her in two pieces, one that fell to the sea floor somewhat intact on the port side, the other broke up into many pieces which now makes up a large debris field.  We will be diving 70 feet down to the intact bow piece.

After a briefing on deep dives, seeing from the decompression tables that at this depth we can only stay down 30 minutes without a decompression stop on the way up, we put on our gear and fell over the side.  We descended to the bottom together at 70 feet.  From there we went a short distance to the wreck.  It was a pretty large ship and parts of it are very intact.  Many types of fish call this their home and they were very friendly, somwhat impervious to our presence.  After we all got our buoyancy set we set about our exploration, following Oswaldo around.  As he had described, he took us to an open section of the bow where we could enter the inside of the ship and swim around inside of it.  I ended up going in first and, after going down a passage I came face to face with a barracuda the size of ‘Cuda from Cooper Bay.  I just stayed still until he lost interest and wandered to another part of “his” ship.  The others followed on the tour.  I actually circled back and went through part of it again.

We then looked around other parts of the wreck and enjoyed the fish inhabitants.  They were very friendly as the pictures will attest when I get them up.  Our 30 minutes went fast and we did our ascent, stopping at 15 feet for 8 minutes as a precaution.  I was getting light in the buoyancy department so Oswaldo got a weight from the emergency tank that is suspended from the boat for deep dives and put it into a pocket on my Bouyancy Compensator (BC).    After getting on the boat Oswaldo reviewed things a bit and then we drove to Dead Man’s Chest Island which is just north of Peter Island…a short “drive” from Salt Island.

This is just across from the beach called Dead Man Bay on Peter Island where Blackbeard the pirate dumped off 15 of his mutinous crew with only a barrel of rum.  And, now, so goes the song that ends, “Yo Ho Ho and a barrel of rum!”.

The plan was to go to the floor at 40 feet and then each of us practice some basic maneuvers such as going out 10 kick cycles and back.  Going out at a heading and making a rectangle 10 kicks on each side that will bring us back to the starting point. Same with triangle.  We all did well.  The final maneuver was to…well, we still don’t really know what it was.  He made a rectangle shape (at least that’s what I saw), so I thought we were going to make a rectangle shape and end up where we started.  Well, we may have done that but to us it ended up looking like a sightseeing tour of the area and lost track of where we were.   At one point when we were in open water he looked at each of us as if to say, “get us back to the boat”.  We all shrugged our shoulders a bit and he ended up taking us back.  Maybe the lesson was, “pay attention to everything around you so you can find your way back”?  Truth is, if you don’t have an instructor you pay a lot more attention to where you are and how to get back to your anchor line.  I know from my previous dive experience which started when I was about 16.

A wet ride back to the Bight, filling out of paperwork and signing credit card statements (I had negotiated the price down a bit for this advanced course) and Oswaldo was off on an even wetter ride back to JVD.  We went for a short swim and got ready to go into the beach for a night at Pirates.

There are no showers on Normal Island so just sat in some lounge chairs on the beach, took some pictures, plugged in our laptops (to find out that there was no internet…it was down and they didn’t know why) and started reading our books.  And, getting island drinks, Pirates Punch, Bushwackers, etc.  There were three young kids (girl about 5, boy 6 and boy 8?) from the boat moored right next to ours that were from Norway.  They were white haired, tan and very independent, bringing up crab traps on the dock, motoring around in their dinghy the rest of the afternoon.  We figure out that they had sailed their boat (with their parents of course who were at the other end of the beach) from Norway!  Cool.  Another family from Norway had a chartered boat anchored (not moored) next to us and we had a near miss with their boat later that night as the wind shifted wildly.

We played a lifesize Jenga game (1 ft 2×4’s stack in alternate directions, 3 on each level…you pull one board out each turn).  I lost as they fell on my toe and I bumped my head on a box on the wall.  No worse for the wear!  Then Geoff and Jenn played a giant Connect 4 game just before we were seated for dinner about 6:30.  We had made friends with one of the waitresses, Jesse, the day before but we didn’t get her table.  She came over and took our picture and we took a picture of her with the kids.  All the people at Pirates were very nice…like family and we were sad to leave them at the end of the night.

A guy showed up on the Pirate boat (they use it to take all the employees back and forth from Tortolla every day and night!) who was the entertainment for the night (sorry, we didn’t get the name).  He played backing music recordings and played guitar and sang to it.  Sounds lame but he was really, really talented.  Geoff and Wes were both mesmerized by it and immediately went over to watch.  He did all types of music including an incredible rendition of a Hendrix song.  After watching them watch him he came over to them and asked “which one of you plays guitat?  I can tell by the look in your eyes that you play”!  People started to dance and before you knew it Jenny was dancing sequentially with Wes, Geoff and me.  Not so much Geoff but Wes and I were good sports and had a good time of it.

Getting back to dinner we ordered the tuna steak, BBQ ribs, pork and chicken roti and a couple salads.  All were very good with the tuna being the weakest performer.  Of course, we did a bit of sharing.  Overall, highly recommended.  After dinner we danced a bit more, picked up our computers and camera gear and went back to the boat on the dinghy, dumped the gear and headed over to Willy T’s (Geoff’s idea).  I decided to go with them to say that I’d been there to Arthur and Bea (my dentist who had just been there – previous blog entry).  It was as boring as you can get and we just did a drive-by and went back to the boat after driving around a bit.  Wes and Geoff climbed up onto the mainsail that is stored in a sailcover and held up by a lazy jack system of lines that connect up the mast.  It made a nice bed and, in fact, both of them ended up sleeping up there all night!  But not before the three of them decided to go for a hike up the hill.  There are some trails that are documented in some maps at the restaurant.  These were used by the pirates to hide their treasure and are popular treks with tourists.  Usually in the day time.  But they did it at night until they ran into some fairly large crabs on the road.  Don’t know any more than that since I wasn’t there.  All I know is that I went to bed and they were all on the boat when I got up.

After our guitarist stopped playing, the DJ took over again, singing over the songs like last night until it mercifully ended at 10:30.  Peace and quiet, the milky way in all it’s glory as the boat swung around 360 degrees in the constantly swirling wind.  Fortunately, we had no near misses with the Norway contingent but if we had Geoff and Wes were close at hand sleeping outside on the mainsail!

Today we all were up about 6 am. Last night it was a bit stuffy in the boat so Jenn and Geoff decided to sleep out on the trampoline (the rubberized fabric that is stretched between the two front hulls and is about 8 ft x 8 ft).  However, in the middle of the night, the wind kicked up so (I surmised this morning when I woke up) Jenn went inside to her room and Geoff, not wanting to give up on the adventure of sleeping on deck, setup a makeshift bed on the back settee bench.  While Geoff was out front Wes and I were awoken to a loud clicking noise.  After investigating to see where it was coming from we discovered that it was the port bilge pump that is located under the floor.  I guess it had gone bad.  I turned off the electric breaker to it and it is now stopped for good (or until we bring it back to the charter company!). Let’s hope that we don’t have any big leaks!  They would come out and fix it but Geoff says we’re OK.

The wind was cycling between 5 and 10 knots in the morning and the clouds were pretty with the sun coming up.  Nothing dramatic as the hill on Cooper blocked the official sunrise.

The kids found out that I got internet access last night and wanted to head to shore to get their fix (first this week!).  I can only assume that, after they heard about the stock market going up a couple hundred points they wanted to go in and do some stock trading.  Not!  I’m sure they need to catch up on their Facebook activities.  They’ve been trying to train me a bit on it but I’m afraid it is futile.  But, they have convinced me that I really need to get with it so I’ll give it a try.

After Geoff made the coffee they were all off and came back about an hour later after I had set the waypoints for Norman Island (no big deal…it’s only 7.5 nautical miles) and, of course, started writing this blog entry.  The skies are getting grayer, the wind has died down a bit and it looks like the low pressure area has finally reached us.  Thankfully, the 6 foot seas have not.

We navigate downwind with all our sails up and wing on wing for much of the time, cleared Salt Island, then the beautiful anchorages on Peter Island and headed for Norman, dropping the main and furling the jib just as we were passing the point at about 9:00 am.  We motored into the beautiful natural (make that REALLY natural) Bight Harbor and decided to take the mooring closest to the dinghy dock and Pirate Bight Bar.  Writing this at 10:21 pm I can tell you why this mooring was available but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Oswaldo showed up with the Jost Van Dyke Dive boat right on time at 9:30 am and we were ready for him.  We passed our dive gear onto the boat, jumped on board and we proceeded to get a briefing on today’s dive activities.  This included three separate tank dives, each to complete a portion of the PADI Advanced Diving program.  It is sort of like getting Boy Scout merit badges.  The subjects we picked were Multi-Depth Dive, Bouyancy and Fish Identification.  Tomorrow will be Deep Dive (on the wreck of the Rhone) and Underwater Navigation.  The orientation was well done and we were off for the dives to a location just outside The Bight called Pelican Island and the Indians.  Geoff and I had dove here on the last day of our previous trip to the BVIs.

The first dive was to be at three different depths starting at 60 feet, then going to 40 feet, then 30 followed by a three minute stop at 15 feet.  Other than me having problem clearing my ears (you have to hold your nose and equalize the pressure in your ears every 10 feet or so), the dive went off without a hitch and the scenery was great.

After our mandatory 45 minute surface interval (to help rid your body of nitrogen) we moved the boat to another nearby reef at an area called The Caves, got on our gear and leaned over backwards off the side into the water.  This time we went to the bottom in about 30 feet and Oswaldo worked with each of us to teach us better techniques for making sure we are neutrally buoyant by getting us to do exercises with him.  Then, we had to do a number of other exercises including kicking with three different kinds of kicks, all while staying at the same depth, swimming under a rope that was close to the ground (like scuba limbo) and  sort of standing on your head by sticking a finger in the sand and rotating on it.  Easier said than done.

The third and final dive of the day was done on a point at the far side of Norman Island.  Once again, after our 45 minutes on the surface we donned our gear, plopped into the water and followed Oswaldo down to a beautiful reef about 30-40 feet down.  This dive was to do some fish identification.  He had coached us a bit but he carried a white slate that he would use to tell us what fish and other sea creatures we found.  It was amazing how many we found.  Without boring you more than I already am, there were probably 30 plus things we saw including two 5 plus foot black tipped sharks (up pretty close!), big rays, red snappers, dog fish, huge French Angel fish and even a large sea turtle that was just taking his time eating sea grass oblivious to us (the turtle was oblivious, not the grass — although I bet the grass didn’t care too much about us either!).

One thing we learned is how to blend in with the fish so they behave naturally and don’t swim away.  This worked great and gave us new appreciation for all the life going on in the reefs.  Jenny wouldn’t let me bring the underwater camera so I don’t have any proof of the shark and turtle sightings but trust me…we saw them!

I didn’t have any problem with my ears on the last two dives and Colin, the owner of JVD Dive told me on the phone that if it happens again I should go all the way to the surface, take my mask off, blow my nose and then go down on the anchor line very slowly, being careful to clear my ears often.  That should take care of it.  All of our ears are a bit plugged after doing the three dives and they pop a little once in a while.  Pretty normal.

When we returned to our boat we immediately got in the dinghy and went to the bar on shore.  I plugged in my computer and found free wireless internet!  So, I went about doing my stock trading stuff that I was pretty behind on…especially on a week where the market is up over 200 points.  Jenny brought me an island drink of some sort and then she, Geoff and Wes started reading their dive and other books in beach chairs located just a few feet from the water’s edge.  Jenny also talked for quite some time with a nice French man (who was there with his French family and friends) who also spoke Spanish and that’s what they spoke!

When I finished my stocks, email and talking to Margaret on Skype (the rented cell phone ran out of minutes and I haven’t been able to recharge the minutes yet) I talked to the French guy, took some pictures and just hung out with the kids.  Nice time.

Then, back to the boat for a swim, swim step shower, picture taking of the boys doing flips off the back of the boat and Wes and Geoff cooking vegetable Roti’s for dinner.  They were fantastic!  All nice and grilled on the charcoal BBQ.  I’m a lucky guy to get such good cooking every night on the boat AND fantastic cooking every night at home as well.  After dinner I started reading the dive stuff again and made a quick trip onto shore with Wes to pay our tab and pick up a couple bottles of water.  There was a reggae band playing loudly and that’s why we were able to pick up the closest mooring.  It was LOUD even on our boat.  But, I’m happy to say that at 10:30 pm it suddenly stopped, right after they played a never ending song about Party, Party, get crazy, Party, Party all night long, Party…

The kids headed over to a floating pirate ship bar called Willy T’s which is quite famous in these waters but came back after only 15 minutes basically saying that it wasn’t their crowd….meaning a bunch of old people like me!  We’re all pooped so we’re going to bed to read and write blogs.  Except for Geoff who went to the shore bar to charge his computer and use the internet.  Luckily, I am getting a good signal from my “suite”.

Two more dives tomorrow followed by our last night on the boat spent again here at Norman Island before heading back to Road Town on Saturday morning.  It is going far too fast all the sudden — although I must say I miss my wife and can’t wait to re-live this adventure with her!

Good night and thanks for the comments some of you have been sending!

Hi,

I just posted several blog entries.  It seems that the text is coming in too small but it’s too late to do anything about it.  Hope it looks OK on your computer.

Since I haven’t had an internet connection to goof around with and put pictures into the  articles, I’m just going to put two Picture Galleries up called BVI Catchup 1 and BVI Catchup 2.  I have not edited these pictures and there may not appear to be any “rhyme or reason” for them but at least we have some pictures posted!

Lots more to come when Geoff and I get a chance.  I took all these pictures.  I’m sure that Geoff has some incredible ones but I haven’t seen them yet.  Here are the links.

BVI Catchup 1 Picture Gallery: http://gallery.me.com/travelwithdmcontent/100734

BVI Catchup 2 Picture Gallery: http://gallery.me.com/travelwithdmcontent/100744