It’s Friday so I must be headed home.
I know this is a poor quality photo of the NY skyline. It looks clearer to me, fwiw. The tallest building on the left is the new Freedom Tower standing guard over ground zero.
Tag: 365 project
Werking (from home).
Now that I’ve found panorama mode on the iPhone, I’m going to play around with it. I am not yet sure of the optimal settings to display panoramas on wordpress.com wrt image size and resolution, but I’ll have to experiment to see what my options are. Here is my view this Monday morning. Well, my everyday view, really. Here goes:
A sort of pet adoption.
We had a great night on the lake last night. And a beautiful sail home today. We got home this afternoon to find that 2 of our neighbor’s cats have decided they want to hang with us. All the perks of owning two cats, but none of hassle. One of the cats has been hanging out in our yard for the last week or two. Today he brought his buddy.
Spaaaaaaah-ed.
Today was spa day!!! An annual indulgence with girlfriends for the last 15 years or so. I’ve been staring at this one on the calendar with anticipation for a while.
How can you not relax at a place like this? The Lake Austin Spa Resort is a beautiful retreat, if only for that one or two days a year.
And I couldn’t resist trying a panorama shot:
Afterwards I joined monte at the marina to anchor overnight in our favorite cove.
A good day!
Tulip hexaptych.
I may have mentioned that I love tulips. 🙂 And, I’m always amazed at how much they continue to grow after I put them in a vase. I brought home a bunch of gorgeous light pink ones on Saturday. Then I proceeded to take a snapshot for the next six days to capture their growth day to day. Kinda cool.
A new find.
Whoa! I just discovered that my iphone camera app will take panoramas. Can you guess where I am for this momentous occasion?
Ripe for the picking.
Our friend, Doray, gave us a couple strawberry plants (thankyou!). One has a rosy red berry on it. We’ll pick it and eat it for dinner tonight. 🙂
Blood red moon.
I woke up in the wee hours this morning to experience the lunar eclipse. One day I may have a camera worthy of capturing such a moment, but I managed to get a few ok shots with my reliable Canon PowerShot D10. These are 5 shots, shown in order, as the Earth’s shadow passed left to right across the surface of the Moon. 
The circle of life.
Today we met Julie’s new dog, Blake. She’s a good doggie, and I know will bring much happiness into eachothers lives.
Today we also learned that another one of our canine friends, Kokopelli (aka “the Admiral”), left us for the big boat in the sky. Farewell, Koko, you were a great boat dog, and a good friend to Marty and Sue for many years. Sail on…. we’ll miss you.
I’ve missed my birdie.
First day back. Buried in email. My feet are sore from the decks. I have a plethora of bruises and scrapes. We have a pile of laundry to do. The fridge is empty. I still feel the sway of the waves. But I’m still smiling at all the laughs we had.
I miss my birdie, though, we’re going to pick him up tonight.
April 9 – Heading home.
Wednesday, April 9.
We all flew to San Juan together. Then headed to our respective destinations. What a great trip! Monte, you were an awesome Skipper. Susanne and Laura, you are TROOPERs! We’re so glad you could come along on this adventure.
This is our third charter with ProValor Charters, thanks Jim & Cecilia!
Thanks to Doray and Tom for Keeto-sitting.
And thanks, too, to Marty & Sue for teaching us the charter ropes on our past trips with them. We are looking forward to you joining the next trip with the crazy B-dockers.
I go to come back!
Our route…
So…. would I want to do the whole check-out-of-BVI, check-in-and-out-of-USVI, then check-back-in-to-BVI Customs & Immigration thing again? Not sure. St John was amazing, but it did burn some of our days planning where and when to check-in/out. I guess the take away is that it is best to be flexible….especially with the weather… and just roll with it.
April 8 – Our last night.
Tuesday, April 8.
This morning we dinghied over to shore to tour the shops and artists’ wares at Trellis Bay.
On the sail back to Fat Hog’s Bay today, Susanne was at the helm and Laura worked the lines by herself. They’ve both done really well with learning the ins and out of the boat, and they’re bonifide sailors now!
We got to the marina in time to finish up the closing paperwork on the charter. We’ll spend the night on the dock, since our flight leaves at 7:30 AM tomorrow. It’s a bittersweet day. Sad that it’s almost over. But ecstatic to use the showers at the marina!
We walked over to Red Rock for an amazing dinner. A perfect last supper for a fantastic trip. So many great memories and experiences. As always, I already can’t wait to come back.
April 7 – The Baths.
Monday, April 7.
This morning we are headed to Virgin Gorda to see the Baths – always an awesome sight no many how many times you’ve been before. The winds and waves were strong, but not too strong. We made it to the Baths with one tack.
When we arrived, the mooring field was already full, so we had to wait a bit for a ball to free up. One finally did, and when we tried to get the ball, we approached it from windward – a mistake in our haste to get the ball. We drifted too quickly after hooking the ball with the pole, so that we had to drop it and the pole in the water. I jumped in to retrieve the pole and we were able to hook it the second time, before the other circling boats did. Never a dull moment.
There was a yellow flag warning at the Baths, so the swim from the dinghy dock to the baths was a challenging one. Some of the sights from this trip to the Baths:
We all enjoyed a cheeseburger in Paradise at Poorman’s Bar at the foot of the hill. For extra points, we all had to execute a dinghy flop one more time for the ride back to the boat. No pics of that, though. 🙂
After the Baths, we headed for Trellis Bay on Tortola to spend the night. We hit the Loose Mongoose for happy hour ashore (and a quick update on the Final Four and Championship game).
Then headed back to the boat for our last dinner aboard, and we played Rummikub until we couldn’t keep our eyes open. Noone made it ashore to watch the NCAA Championship game.
April 6 – Staying put.
Sunday, April 6.
After the marathon day we had yesterday, we’re taking it easy today. We all dinghied over to Cistern Point and snorkeled for quite a while.
Between Cistern Point and our boat, a turtle was hanging out. He was one cool dude – he didn’t mind that we floated close by to watch him for quite a while. These are the best pictures I’ve gotten of a turtle of all my Caribbean trips. I like how the colors get clearer and more vibrant as he gets closer to the surface.
The guys are headed back to Jost again today. Tan-a-na’s crew leaves early tomorrow morning, so they are headed back to Tortola to spend the night at the marina. After lunch we shopped ashore and enjoyed people/boat watching all afternoon, before hitting happy hour again on Cooper.
For sunset, we dinghied out to the mouth of the bay, beyond the anchorage, to get an unobstructed view of the sun setting over Tortola.
Sheila365 