Thanksgiving in the Virgin Islands

Our third evening of turkey left-overs and the end is near. Despite a crowd of twelve - we really had enough food for a small army. It was a lovely evening here.

I am a little behind in blogging so will post more on the pictoral side than my regular diatribe.

We had a fun little break in Miami over Columbus Day weekend in October (there are a lot of holidays in this place...) where we visited the Miami Zoo, a huge water park and some other parts of this crazy city. Mark and I even managed to get together with our suppliers and went to the Broadcrown warehouse (our generator supplier) which was a worthwhile visit.

Max met a parrot named...Charlotte. Yes, hilarious.

In late October, my parents visited for two weeks after their Panama Canal cruise. We had a great visit which included beach visits, dinner parties with friends, visits to school Halloween concerts and yacht club events. This was their second visit (Dad's third) since we have lived here so they have got to know a few of our friends and have discovered a few favourites such as Magen's Bay, Iggie's at Bolongo and Cafe Amalie downtown (which I think they visited at least three times for lunch!) As usual - most of the photos involve us eating.

Last week the boys were off school for "Thanksgiving Break" which was a week off school allowing those families who desire to celebrate the season with families elsewhere - the time to get away. Of course, these school breaks present some challenges for Mark and I when things are still pretty busy at our business. However - we still managed to squeeze in some fun!

The week before the Thanksgiving break, our friends Christian, Beverley and their daughter Helena were visiting the BVIs at Bitter End Yacht Club from Nova Scotia. While we had hoped to visit as a family - it was just a bit too busy to disappear from work that week. On the Friday, Mark rented a 26ft power cat with Julian and they powered over there in about two hours. After lunch, some sailing and a quick catch up - they said goodbye to our old friends from Vancouver and Victoria days and got the boat back to Red Hook before the 5:00 deadline.




Julian was invited to join a sailing clinic with a couple of the older children at STYC and he had two days of instructional Opti sailing. We followed up the clinic with his very first regatta in St. John where he raced with seven other boys and girls in Johnson Bay near Coral Bay. This little regatta was designed for the novice racer - "green fleet". Despite being the youngest in the group, Julian sailed nine races and did a great job figuring out starts and mark roundings. It was another proud parent moment.

Max accompanied me on the trip and managed to stay quite entertained launching fenders off the committee boat, chatting up a storm and eating his body weight in chips. Max was frequently heard yelling out "That's my "bwa-ther" Ju-ween" or "Tack!".

And I actually wonder how everyone on St. Thomas knows Max???

Import Supply is busy. We are keeping fingers crossed it stays like this over our "slower season" but so far we have a growing list of repairs and machines to maintain. What is also exciting is we are introducing renewable energy products to our customers in the hopes this sector will also take off and "shine" - so to speak.

And to add to our already hectic schedule of business, children, sailing and other activities we seem to be volunteering for - we are moving into a new house next weekend. This three bedroom place has a ideal location in Frenchman's Bay - about 2 minutes from Antilles School and 15 minutes closer to town. We'll be here until we make a decision on what to do regarding real estate which we have been monitoring - closely.

Other exciting upcoming events includes our trip to the west coast. We are looking forward to our first trip back to Victoria and Vancouver in almost two years. I may not recognize Vancouver. Mark and the boys arrive the 20th of December and I'll arrive shortly after on the 23rd. Max has literally not worn longer pants since he left Vancouver as he quite simply refuses. It will be a fun visit for all of us and we look forward to seeing our family and friends - even if we do freeze!

Sunday at Coral World

A quieter weekend for us as we get over colds. We managed, however, to make the trek to Coral World where we have a family membership (our mini-version of the Vancouver Aquarium). Julian fed the stingrays, Max led the way deciding what to see and when, and we all enjoyed a quiet visit with relatively few other visitors.

Coral World is a great spot - with a few shows including the shark feeding show, the sting ray feeding show, and even a sea lion show where they come out to do a few tricks inside the fish tank display area (I still can't really get over this show where we are all crowded on one side of the room behind a "rope" watching mostly trained teenage sea lions do tricks...)

A few pictures of today's outing.

The boys have been in school for over a month and we are back to a routine of getting them to school by 7:30 and then off to work. We have become accustomed to getting to bed earlier during the week and getting up with the sun. The days are already starting to get shorter. Having said that, there is only a difference of about one hour of extra daylight during the summer months at this lattitude. It gets dark just after 6:30 right now and the sun rises about 5:45.

Life at Import Supply remains steady with a constant stream of machines to service, repair or assess. The ongoing challenge is managing both the workload and our team when the demands and priorities are constantly changing. We are currently servicing over 400 machines every month on the three islands so it does feel like a juggling act some days. We are in the midst of getting our website finalized and have been running a few hurricane ads over the past few months. Interestingly enough, despite our communications efforts, we do have to remind ourselves that business on the island is still very much word-of-mouth. Being out in the community and meeting with people still seems to get better results.

Friday night we did something we frequently used to do in Vancouver. Order take-away sushi. And while this won't seem like anything too exciting for our Vancouver friends, it is truly a treat these days at $9 for a california roll. And at the rate that Julian and Max eat sushi - you can appreciate that we don't do this too frequently.

We are off to Miami this coming weekend which is not only Canadian Thanksgiving but Columbus Day. We are fitting in some appointments with some planned visits to the Miami Metro Zoo, the Science Museum and a waterpark. I am already mentally preparing myself for driving on busy freeways on the RIGHT hand side of the road. We are looking forward to our mini getaway and the boys are extremely excited about everything from the airplane to staying in a hotel!

We hope this update finds everyone healthy and doing well. Keep in touch - we love to hear from you.

Architecture

We drove around today armed with a camera with the objective of taking a few pictures of things that we see every day. There is, in fact, some pretty gingerbread architecture in the main town. Mark and I frequently comment how the colours look so lovely but fitting in this environment but would translate poorly in a Vancouver neighbourhood. I could only imagine the comments from neighbours if we painted a house a coral green or pinky-orange shade in Point Grey!

Here are a few images of town.





The white building below is the building that houses the Office of the Governor of the USVI.

Back to School

Julian and Max were back to school last week and not a moment too soon. After nearly three months of summer vacation, a little structure and a regular schedule have been enthusiastically welcomed by both our boys (and their parents). Max has joined Julian at Antilles School and has started PreK. Julian started Grade Two and is officially in Lower School now moving up from the Early Learning Centre. I can't get over how much Julian has grown this summer - and not just his hairThe school has adopted a uniform this year - polo style school shirts and khaki shorts, pants or skirts (for the girls only!). And while their was mixed reaction to the uniform announcement, I must admit that it makes things simple and straightforward.

Update - At long last

At last I have made time to pick up the laptop and write a short update. (The laptop has some sort of problem which we cannot seem to get fixed here. There are times when it just will not turn on..... As you can see it is on now).

We are house sitting for some friends who are up in New York and the Canadian Maritime provinces till early December. They have been very kind (and trusting!) and have allowed us the use of their fabulous home, just up the street from the house we rented for over a year, near the village of Red Hook on St Thomas' eastern end. So far we are doing well, no broken dishes etc to report!

The boys are both in sailing camp at the yacht club - which is very near where we live. Julian is turning out to be a great little Optimist dingy sailor. Max is just beginning, but from experiences on our IC24 I am pretty sure he will be catch on quickly. Max, who turns 4 next month, has given up any form of nap in order to be in sailing camp. Evidently he is pretty active at camp as once this week he fell asleep at the dinner table. As I write this he enjoying a long Sunday afternoon nap to catch up....

This is the busy season for the business. Extra busy this year as we parted ways with our General Manager. We have hired a temp to work with a couple of projects, which is helping. Apart from a slightly higher work load for Charlotte and myself, not having a manager has allowed us to immerse ourselves in all aspects of the business. This has highlighted a few things that we need to do to create efficiencies and serve our clients better. How is the business going? Despite a softer global economy, we have added a few new service contracts and repair side of the business continues to boom.

And what of the effects of the global economy? We know that there are less cruise ship visits planned for next year and that the number of actual passengers is also down. "On Island", as the locals say, there is now doubt that the economy has slowed. Housing sales are way off, rents have come down. Some of the tourist oriented stores are having a hard time or have closed "in town". In keeping with Darwinism the weakest stores are the ones that have gone. Housing prices which had become stratospheric are apparently starting to come down according a few realtors we know. The good news in all this for us is that those businesses, households and government offices etc that already have generators continue to need them serviced and repaired.

The weaker economy afforded us an opportunity to book a long weekend using a nearly affordable "locals" rate at the Bitter End Yacht Club on Virgin Gorda in the BVIs. (BEYC is a sailing and water sports oriented resort). We had visited Bitter End years ago when we chartered a sailing boat with another couple, but had never stayed.

It was a really enjoyable adventure. To get there we took a ferry from Red Hook to the Western end of Tortola in the BVIs. Then we took a taxi (driven by a wonderful man, Mr. Forbes, who shared with us his life story and historical points of interest on the island) to the Eastern end of Tortola. Then we took a launch over to the resort. We left the house in STT about 7:15 am in the morning and arrived at BEYC by about 11:30 am.

Bitter End is an all inclusive - you can use the fleet of boats: Hobies, Lasers, Optis, Rhodes 19s, Hunter 216s, IC24s, kayaks etc. Day trips to places like the "Baths" of Virgin Gorda, a spectacular bay filled with giant boulders from some long forgotten Ice Age are also included. About the only things not included are sailing the BEYC Express 37 (sorry Trev Salmon & Tom Hawker) and "adult beverages". There are at least 2 dining rooms and food can be ordered a la carte or for those wanting to get back out on the water, there is a buffet. It must be said that the food and service were really wonderful. It did seem to us as thought the resort must not be fully booked, which was nice as we were never waiting to access the boats, or find a seat in restaurant etc.

After checking in we stopped right away for lunch. The boys really enjoyed the trip over, but were hungry and really wanted to get into the pool. We sat down to wait for our lunch, but due to an ordering snafu (literally the only service issue we had during our stay) we had a bit of a wait, so the boys enjoyed a session of jumping off the dock right in front of the restaurant.
This proved to be well timed as they were soon joined by another family with 3 similarly aged children from Colorado. For the rest of the weekend our boys and Liza, Ethan and Devon were inseparable.

Accommodation is in a series of free standing, two unit buildings.
We had a unit right at the end which afforded us a wonderful view of the forest canopy and a view out towards Necker Island, owned of course, by Sir Richard Branson.
Each unit has a wrap around deck and a great hammock. Max liked it so much that he fell asleep there Saturday afternoon.

That afternoon I sailed in a "regatta" in Hobie Waves. Not the fastest catamarans, but certainly fun in the 15 knot trade winds.

Saturday we took the boys for a sail on a larger Hobie. We sailed around to the bay where the more upmarket Biras Creek Resort is located, and then back around Gorda Sound between Virgin Gorda and Prickly Pear Island.

The boys were so exhausted from Friday's fun that they both fell asleep on the trampoline that more or less forms the deck of the Hobie Getaway.

We had a slower paced afternoon, even finding time for Max and myself to have a nap!

Sunday was breezier, and the laser "regatta" was cancelled do to a forecast weather system. I had a great morning on a Hobie Wave, then we packed up, said our good-byes and at 2pm took a launch to Gun Creek on Virgin Gorda.

We took a taxi to Spanish Town, the main settlement on Virgin Gorda. (The island has a population of 3000). The drive across Virgin Gorda was very interesting, wonderful scenery and spectacular beaches and reefs. From Spanish Town we took a ferry to Red Hook. On the way back the tropical wave did hit, and the heavens opened up in a torrential rain shower. Thankfully we were going East so any squalls associated with the wave had little effect on our little ferry. Once at Red Hook, via Cruz Bay, St John for Customs and Border Protection we hopped in our truck and arrived home in time for dinner. We all slept very well that night.

Hopefully one of us will find time to update the blog more frequently.

April's absence of showers

No rain in many weeks. The one cistern is bone dry and our second one has a very visible bottom. The pool could also do with a top-up but in the list of water priorities - the pool is a little lower on the totem pole. I have become Charlotte the Water Police ensuring there are no wasteful water infractions.

And you know things are getting desperate when I actually have to take our dirty laundry to do at the office which is fortunately equipped with a good kitchen and laundry area.

The frustrating and almost comical part is - all the other parts of the island HAVE had rain - and a lot of it. Meanwhile, in the east end of the island - we are gasping for our last drop as the rain clouds pass us by - laughing.

The forecast for the weekend is rain - so we'll see if it actually makes its way over to these eastern parts. How a mere few miles on an island can make a huge difference.

So here it is April. The boys have only two months of school remaining and are off at the end of May. It's a very long summer holiday - but we seem to keep busy.

March was another steady month with work and activities. The International Rolex Regatta was at the end of March - and Mark raced (without me) on the IC-24 we are babysitting for a couple of years. This three-day regatta is a big event on the island - and there are some pretty impressive pieces of fibreglass tied up at the docks and racing. Mark's fleet is a competitive fleet - and despite his new crew - he managed some impressive finishes. But no Rolex watch.

I have been doing a little freelance writing work - and have had some pieces published in a sailing magazine here as well as some work writing for a mega yacht guide. It's fun work and I've been trying to drum up even more work.

The boys are growing and thriving. Max is becoming much more articulate and is at the age where he copies almost everything his older brother says. Everything is about garbage trucks and cars - with the occasional "bad guy" thrown in. Max likes to take his brother down to our front yard to find "co-nu-nuts" and then shakes them listening for "juice". Pool time and visits to the beach are still high on his list of favourite things to do.

Julian is busy with school - math homework and spelling every night which he has been accomplishing with growing confidence. Between soccer, sailing and swimming - he has been keeping busy with still plenty of time for play dates and outings. Julian has become a board game champion - and plays a game called Connect Four - with such expertise that Mark and I have a very tough time beating him. Not much competitiveness in this family.

April is also what we like to call the start of Hurricane Preparedness season - and we are working on marketing and customer outreach to increase business. Mark has also found an additional niche area and is completing customer permits required for commercial generators. Every business on the island is complaining that sales are down and that no one is spending - so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the year unfolds.

April means Easter and Carnival - so there are many festivities on the island. Will have more to report soon.

a new generation of pirates...