I feel like I am a bit all over the map the last week..

• The boat is in maintenance (always puts me akimbo).
• I am drowning still in pictures to edit, websites to catch up etc from the boat shows
• I have still not gotten too straightening up the inside of the boat and putting away all the things we bag etc over the summer..never mind putting away all the dry goods we bought in Puerto Rico away where they belong instead of just stuffed.
• Still fighting mouth problems and just coming to the end of a course of antibiotics
• Still drowning in paperwork and red tape and playing catch up on the yearly paperwork here for the boat and business after being away all summer.

I think as always, I am getting eager to go on charter. Once we start those in a couple weeks, not only will money be coming in instead of just going out, but life becomes much simpler, as we make the week circle around the islands and get in the spirit of our guests enjoying their charter vacation (and no maintenance being done!)

The other thing I wonder about sometimes, is perhaps I will soon be getting too old for Promenade, and to have such a large boat, maybe I need to find someone with a smaller power boat or catamaran that wants to trade and have a boat that takes lots of people! That is just a flight of fancy though, boats are not exactly selling nowadays, and if they are, the price is hardly worth it it seems.

But I did have an opportunity to do some fun things this weekend, which unfortunately included hitting the stores of St Thomas on the Saturday before Thanksgiving..

I put up some of these pictures on my twitter feed already, but they fit into the story line of us going down to Charlotte Amalie for the weekend..

As we left we could see the charter boats at Village Cay getting ready to go out on charter…

and I did have my tripod out at night taking pictures at the dock…

We went for one of my favorite late afternoon MOTORS. With the wind, flat seas, sunset views where I could sit on the front deck with my camera..

First passed Pockwood Pond where I was looking at it thinking how much larger the smoking garbage pile looked and how terrible it was for anyone to live by that area..

We passed a perfect sailing boat coming up channel for me to take pictures…

And this is little old me, sitting in my happy spot at sunset..I think Bazza cheated though and put on a wide angle instead of a slenderizing one!

Here are just a few sunset shots of the stages while we were going down the channel…

The next day after our epic shopping trip and the disappointment of finding out the “many boxes” for us at our mailing place was 2 when we are waiting for 12, we did manage to get in the water though.

Sure miss the diving when we are up north! I have not even had my underwater camera put together yet, that is actually how much running to keep up I am doing…

Bazza found a couple cannon balls this weekend. This is what they look like when they first come up…

and this is what they look like when you clean them up…Then he has to coat them with something otherwise since they were in salt water for so many years, they dissolve..

Some assorted other bits and pieces, you can see another cannon ball in this picture..

A nice old pair of ornate scissors here that just crumbled when we started to clean them..

I found some really lovely old pottery pieces this time. Including a little teapot lid or sugar bowl lid..Very nice!

And an old beer bottle as well as a mallet. I told myself I was not bringing up any more bottles, and indeed, I have been leaving many, but something came over me with these..

Driving around we took pictures of Blackbeard’s Revenge..One of the many it seems now, ships offering pirate excursions to the ton of cruise ship passengers in Charlotte Amalie. I won’t bore you with ALL the pictures…:)

The next evening was an equally as pretty a sunset…I spent about three hours in the water and arose just in time to snap a picture of my dive gear on the back deck. Being anchored in that exact spot made me think of last year at this time when all my cousin’s were onboard and we were anchored exactly there as well…:)

The next day we had a bit of a treat though! We had lunch with Conor and his girlfriend. Conor worked for us on Promenade when we did fully crewed charters. Now he is living on St John, catching lobsters to sell in the street (really!) and hopes to be captaining day power boats from Nauti Nymph and others from Tortola up to the BVI. Something he is good at, he has such good boat sense..

He says that he had a try out, tandem with another boat and he had to go to Willy T’s and White Bay on Jost, about the easiest places for him to know his way too!

Conor loves living on land and having a social life and girlfriend…go figure! I now have an inside channel to get fresh lobsters on charter from him, although I told him I would not pay tourist prices!!!

I will have to post this on my boat blog, as so many of our guests want to know what our crew are doing once they leave…

The other big happening yesterday was taking pictures of the two large mega yachts, Rising Sun and Fountainhead..

Rising Sun is 453′ long. It hardly looked smaller then the cruise ships in and it certainly looked a lot cleaner then the cruise ships did. I understand it has a crew of 50. Yes, I said that correctly.  That is what the bartender told me and we all know that bartenders know everything! On line it only says it has a crew of 30. Owned by Larry Ellison, it only carries 12 guests.

Good Bye Rising Sun…

How would you like to clean the windows on Rising Sun? Not me, no thank you! in the middle that IS a crew member on a window cleaning platform squeegeeing away!

By contrast, Feadship Fountainhead is a mere baby at 88 metres (270? feet)..Although, this boat is brand new, just having been launched in May of this year.

It has interesting dark tenders that Bazza said looked like they went very fast. I understand this yacht cost like $200 million to build and the speculation is rampant on who owns it, including to one I heard about Mexican owners..which would suggest something nowadays!

By contrast, here we were out at anchor…looking a little less pricier I would say!

If you are feeling like you want to charter any of these yachts, I will be happy to help you!! Not my usual market for my yacht charter brokerage, although Chad may change that I think!

I feel sorry for so many who opened up businesses at the height of the recession, including Yacht Haven. The high end stores have had a hard time there, and their ambitious many restaurants, including this one in the round, have been  reduced to about one that is usually open…

And just for the juxtaposition against all this incredible wealth, we motored back up to our mooring in Road Harbour last night, only to watch this morning the Philipino’s who live at CSY dock out snorkeling looking for conch to eat!

We also found out on the way up that we blew an oring on the water maker, which means we had two tanks, yep, 750 gallons, of very salty water!!!!!!