Roosters

(Originaly blogged on 'ilon May 24th) (Added photos after)

Location: Road Town, Tortola.
Sitting here at Conch Charters' dock with the constant sound of roosters heckling/cackling or whatever.

We arrived to BVI via San Juan yesterday event free which is allways a good thing. Left TPA at 7:45, arrived in San Juan at 10:40. Made some last minute phone calls while we could still reach a Verzion cell tower waiting for our "puddle jumper" to Tortola. Took off at 12 noon on a turbo-prop 1/3 full. Flew just 7ooo feet and had a steep landing at EIS at about 1.

Once we got to Conch Charters we headed to the Pub for some food followed by a run to Bobby's (provisioning) since we couldn't get on the boat until 4:30.

When we made our TICO (beverage) order we told them to deliver as late in the day as possible. They came at 11am and left since Conch wouldn't sign the delivery receipt.

When we got back from Bobbys we were able to get on the boat. Unpacking luggage and 10 days worth of food is no fun.


Good news is Russ from Conch Charters came by to check on us as he was heading out. He noticed we had food and asked if we wanted to go over the fridge system and how to charge it via the engines, ect. Even though I have chartered this same boat, its always good for a refresher. In any event, he decided to do the whole boat "checkout" since it would make it easier on him the next day having to checkout 4 other charter customers in the morning. It's good for us because its one thing out of the way for this morning. Now all we need to do is some final paperwork and a chart briefing.

Once we got settled in, and unpacked we chilled in the cockpit for a bit and crashed early because of a long day.

As soon as we can get cleared out we will be sailing to The Caves, a great snorkeling stop, then onto Norman Island for the night.

Since there is no Internet on Norman, we'll have to update at our lunch stop tomorrow at Cooper Island.


`Bryan

Kokomo down...

So....
We got to have our "boat briefing" (by Russs) a day early to help get us going early Thursday but it went well awry. Kokomo had a ripped Stack Pack (what the sail drops into and stores while NOT sailing) and was told Wed. night that they would either tape it up or stitch a few threads through it.
Well, apparently the powers that be did not want Kokomo going out with a half-assed fixed stack pack so they removed it to have it sewn right.

We took advantage of the down time to have the girls go into town and search out a direct iPod connector. I emailed Conch Charters a couple weeks back to see if Kokomo was updated with a new radio that maybe had a direct iPod/MP3 connection and was told it did NOT. Huh, it did. Anyhow, the girls successfully found a direct connection cable for a whopping $3.00. Home run!
Josh and I finished the "chart briefing" by 10am and officially could have left the dock for Norman just after. However, the stack pack wasn't ready until 1:30 and we finally got to pull off the dock at 2pm. So much for an early start.

$165 Tab @ N18.19.041 W064.37.166

(added photos)


Depart Road Town, Tortola: 2pm

Arrive The Bight, Norman Island: 2:55

Winds: 3 knots

Distance Traveled: 8.3 miles


With no wind we had to motor to Norman Island. We hit The Caves first to snorkel a bit and finally get in the water. Since it was late in the day the sun wasn't at the best position to snorkel, but it was a good short snorkel.




We grabbed a ball in The Bight with absolutely NO wind. This is Josh and Pam's first time on 'ilon and it's hard to explain how rare it is to have no wind at all. The water is glass.

We grab a ball and head to Pirates Beach Bar. Cindy and I skipped Pirates in '05 and haven't been since 2000. Since then it appears they have added a gift shop.
We quickly become friends with the bartender Neveah from South Africa. We soon realize she is also a Borat fan and end up exchanging one liners from the movie. She was great.

We leave Pirates and get a chuckle when we run into the mooring collector guy on the Pirates dinghy dock. He asks if we are on so and so boat and say no. We say we are on Kokomo and need to square up. He cant believe we came all the way from the back of the mooring field....it wasn't that far, especially with flat water.

We clean up on Kokomo and head to Willy-T (a floating pirate ship bar). We decide to eat at the Willy-T...the menu consists of fried anything . We eat, drink, dance (ok only I danced), did "shot-skis", drank, made friends, drank and then tabbed out. Whoa whoa whoa, apparently we broke something.....$165 later we head back to Kokomo via moon light and crash. $165 ouch.

~Bryan