First Tropical Storm - Isaac

When we discussed moving to the Virgin Islands a few years ago with friends or family, many asked if we got hurricanes here. Well, yes, and August and September are the two most high risk months. We would always reply with it sure beats a wild fire (which we were accustomed to in Nevada, Idaho and Colorado, all places I lived since 1989) or a tornado. Why you ask? You get several days notice the storm is coming. I grew up in NJ and we had the occasional hurricane come through, but all I can remember was heavy rain and winds, we were 70 miles from the ocean.

As we speak, I have had several days notice now. We first heard of this storm last Friday. Shannon had a trip booked to her native Canada, to Jasper to visit her parents, brothers and 101 year old grandmother at her parents horse back riding business in the national park there. We went to the Chili cook off last Sunday with some friends and Shannon had some anxiety about leaving Monday with the "notice" of a storm a coming. I told her not to worry, the dogs and I will be fine! She left Monday morning.

Tuesday night we get an email from the marina manager that they were closing the marina on Tuesday morning at 10 AM. You see, by this time, we were under a tropical storm watch.

So what does the marina closing mean? We have a boat at Compass Point Marina and one of the reasons we have a slip there is that it is in a hurricane hole and you don't have to move it. But that doesn't mean there is no prep to be done. What they do is move all the boats 6 feet off the docks. We then have hurricane lines that are attached to the pylons and then the pylons are roped criss cross creating a big web. Then they chain of the entrance to keep the Goony Boats out, there are many sailboats moored in the bay and by the looks of some, they aren't going to move on their own with a motor.

So off I go to the Marina at noon to meet a friend's boat manager to give me a hand since I didn't have my first mate, Shannon. Besides an annoying cough that developed that morning, we had it done in an hour.

Now back to the house, shower, change and off to the grocery store for some cold medicine (yes folks, I coming down with a head cold in the hottest part of Summer on the eve of a tropical storm). Of course I did get some other needed items, rum, beer, bread and a steak, yes my first steak since leaving the mainland back in April.

In the beer section, the entire middle row was pallets of water. Nope don't need that, have a reverse osmosis system. And the lines, well it was what I expected.

Groceries unpacked, now for a nice steak dinner because if we loose power for a while who knows when my next good meal will be. So here is my last supper, mind you, I am high on Sudafed now. Order a movie to rent on my IPad.

Restless night sleeping, keep waking up with all that I need to do the next day.

Wednesday morning, turn on the Weather Channel and they said that Isaac may turn into a hurricane, we have a hurricane watch, only 6%. Better get up and get going. Listened to the radio with my coffee and the local meteorologist is saying the storm will go south, top 35 MPH winds and heavy rains. Still, I better be safe than sorry?

Ok, checklist, generator and extension cords out, unlatch all the hurricane shutters so they can close easily. Bottle some more drinking water. Close up the apartment. Run to the gas station and get an extra 5 gallons of gas, remove the patio furniture and get the batteries out for the inverter (brought my RV solar panels down). I had my helper Bristol with me.

By noon I had it done. Lunch, leftover steak in tortilla with black beans grilled on the stove. Laundry, vacuum and dishes, hey I can't have a dirty house in a storm, right?

Around 3 PM, first band came through with winds at 20 MPH gusting to 27 MPH. Then Sun back out and then windy, cloudy, sun, shower.

The latest on the storm is it has weakened now with two centers. Most of the storm will be late tonight and in the morning.

All I can do I guess is take some Sudafed and a glass of red wine and maybe sleep better tonight. I will let you know how it turns out. One of our friends is having a Hurricane Party, but I don't think they would want me spreading my germs?

What To Do In St Thomas When You Are a Bored Local?

You do tourist things!

So a few Sundays ago, Shannon and I were bored, and decided to go on a local road trip to some tourist attractions.

We have never been to Mountain Top when it is open. When we were here in January 2010 we went up there to find the place had burned down! Well like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Mountain Top is open again.

A few myths about Mountain Top. First, the elevation according to the Mountain Top website is 2100 feet, all other sources say the elevation is 1480 feet. Second, Mountain Top is NOT the highest peak in St Thomas, that honor goes to Signal Mountain at 1486 feet. Believe it or not, Signal Mountain and Mountain Top are taller than the highest point in 8 states!

Mountain Top is a large gift shop with a large bar serving up banana daiquiris and a observation deck. To be honest here, we always have friends looking to shop for trinkets to take home and the selection to has not been great.  In the future, we are just going to take them here as the selection was huge!  The banana daiquiris were tasty, but really not worth $9 (the cost of a bottle of banana rum at any grocery store). The views, well how can you complain about this?

It was very slow as it was near closing and no cruise ships in town, so we had the deck to ourselves. We even got a chance to meet the owner and his son. Nice men, the owner is an immigrant from Israel and has been living in St Thomas for 20+ years. His son said he about had a heart attack with the rebuild, but life is good again now they are open.

On to our next stop. Drake's Seat.

We driven by this place, but have never stopped here. So with cooler in had of cold beer we stopped to take in the views of the world famous, Megan's Bay. Then I noticed why they call it Drake's Seat, there is a bench on the other side of the parking area. We took a seat in Drake's Seat and had a beer. The view was great, but even more fun was people watching with the cars going by, they really don't notice you, so made for some good laughs.

Here is a tid bit of history about this spot:

It is named Drake’s Seat after the British privateer Sir Francis Drake, who was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I. He used just this spot to spy on enemy ships of the Spanish Fleet passing through Drake’s Passage, where the Atlantic Ocean joins the Caribbean Sea. In 1568 while delivering the victims in his ship a Spanish fleet took him by surprise. He was captured and eventually escaped only due to his outstanding ability to swim. From then on he devoted his life to working against the Spanish Empire who considered him a pirate and an outlaw. To England he was simply a sailor and a privateer.

What to do now?  We are hungry. Latitude 18 restaurant on the water in Red Hook for dinner as they are having Trinidad food!

Latitude 18 is a great outdoor restaurant, that sometimes has live music. The best part is being able to sit right on the water. To get here, go east out of Red Hook. About a half mile there is a yellow fruit/bar stand on the left, the road goes to the right, stay straight up the hill (this is the road to the Ritz Carlton). At the stop sign on the steep hill, make a left, then make your next left down a little hill and some speed bumps. The road then goes up a hill with one half finished. The road splits again, stay left and take the terribly bumpy road until the road ends, you are at Latitude 18!

We had for Trinidad food, some fried bread, potato like cakes with indian dipping sauces and a calla loo soup which was like creamed spinach. Pretty good stuff.

So it was a fun Sunday to be a tourist!

What To Do in the Virgin Islands - Jost Van Dyke, BVI Foxy's

What to do in the Virgin Islands when you cannot get your real estate broker license as there is no exam available thanks to the USVI government? Well you get on your boat and go over to Jost Van Dyke, BVI with just your wife on a Friday. You see Shannon starts a new job on Monday, so we have been trying to get in some trips with just the two of us to explore places that the rest of the "crowd" doesn't seem to want to go to.

We are used to going over to Jost Van Dyke with friends here and it is usually the same routine, drop off at the customs dock in Great Harbor and then off to White Bay and Soggy Dollar Bar.

On this trip we decided to dock up at a bar in Great Harbor called Foxy's (http://foxysbar.com/).  From the dock, Shannon walked down the white sand road to customs while I went and checked out the bar.

I got us two nice drinks that had the house rum, Foxy's Firewater. Shannon got back and we enjoyed two drinks while talking to our friendly bartender.

On our way to the gift shop, there was the owner of Foxy's, his name is Foxy and a legend in the area.

He was quite the character and looking good for being 73 years old, maybe the mystique of JVD? Regardless, he has a black lab that hangs out at the restaurant.

We asked him about the dog and if it was a Labrador. Foxy tells us this is no Lab, it is an Island Dog. What do you mean Foxy, this dog is definitely a Lab, he says, "nope Island Dog, do you want to know why?"
Of course I want to know and here was his response, there are 5 things that make this an Island Dog and not a lab:

1. He is black.
2. He lays around doing nothing all day.
3. He is always looking for a handout.
4. He doesn't know who his father is.
5. He doesn't know how many kids he has.

We got a kick out of that being Lab lovers!

He told us another joke, one that you would only understand if you lived on St Thomas.

What a nice way though to start your day off, and from now on when we go over to JVD on our boat, no more customs dock, it will be Foxy's dock for a drink to start the day!

The next place we were going to go to was Ivan's Stress Free Bar in White Bay. So we motored on over there and got up to shore where the bar was, problem, it looked like it was closed for the slow off season? There were no people around either, guess it would have been stress free? We decided to save that one when we can tell if they are open and headed over to Soggy Dollar Bar for some painkillers instead!  After another lovely afternoon, we decided since we have our local boaters card now, no reason to head back at 4 to go to US customs, so we stayed until 6PM. Wow, we pretty much had this place to ourselves execpt for a few sailboats that were anchoring there for the night. The place just cleared out at 4:30 PM.  Another note to self, stay here later! We just can't think of any real negatives when it comes to a day at JVD?

Up next: What to do in St Thomas when you are bored and a trip to the Rhone and Cooper Island, BVI.

St Thomas...You Can't Make This Up!

Which one is it? Liters or Gallons?

What To Do in the Virgin Islands - Norman Island, BVI

A couple of weeks ago we took the boat over to Norman Island, British Virgin Islands.

This island is off to the South East of St John. First you have to check into customs at Sopher's Hole on Tortola. Then it is about a 20 minute boat ride to Norman.

Our fist stop was to the Indians, a rock out cropping that has about 10-15 mooring balls. There is great snorkeling there.

Now off to Pirate's Bight, a great little restaurant on the north side of Norman Island. This place has a nice dock, with beach and covered dining area. They had great reggae music playing and service was good too.  They have a nice lunch menu with several items, Roti, mahi sandwich, burgers and I had the fish and chips which very good! They had clean bathrooms, and out back there was volleyball courts. Nice mellow place to go to!

Now it is off to the world famous Willy T's. This is an actual floating boat that is a bar and restaurant that is moored. You raft up to the boat or another boat that is rafted to the Willy T. We rafted up to a rental boat and the boat's captain who rented the boat from England was less than nice. She didn't have her boat properly tied up and when we rafted to her boat it caused some issues. Too bad she wasn't on island time?

Now depending on what type of crowd is on the boat, it can be almost like a frat party. It has loud music with a little dance floor and the bartenders prefer to serve the younger gals first, but you can always escape to the top where there are picnic tables and avoid the water ski shot area!

One of the traditions of the Willy T is to jump off the top back of the boat.



As always, time goes by fast and it was time to start heading back to St Thomas before dark. But not after first stopping off at Salt Pond on St John. Here we had happy hour cocktails and enjoyed floating around. What a great day trip!

Owning a Home in the Virgin Islands - Repairs - Cistern

As you may remember, we recently painted our pool and filled it from our cistern which needed to be drained as we had several cracks in the cistern and who knows how long ago it was cleaned and re-sealed. We were originally told we would be without water for about 10 days. In anticipation of having no water, we stocked up with buckets of water to make it through that time and luckily at our marina, we were able to rent showers for the time.

So the day came, water shut off and cistern was almost drained!

Once they have the cistern drained (ours is underneath our entire living and kitchen area and is about 26,000 gallons) they need to power wash it and drain out the remains. This process took about 2 days. At that point they fill in the cracks with quick drying cement. 24 hours to let that dry. Then the painting of the new sealer, Thermaseal. That takes about 2 days as they do two coats. Problem was, we had rain one night and had to postpone the 2nd coat as water leaked through our downspout plugs. Once all the coating is done you are to wait 7 days for it to cure and let the sealer leach out the minerals. Most of the cistern companies down here go ahead right away in fill it. Shannon checked out the manufacturer's website and once again, island mentality with just get it done. The real issue with filling it right away is you will have a salt like, smelly substance in the cistern.

After letting the sealer cure for a week, it was time to get back down there and replace the foot valve as the old one was dirty and whomever put it in the last time left at at the bottom of the cistern which would then suck up and the crap from the bottom. A little cutting with a hacksaw, some PVC glue and viola, new foot valve. One of the final steps to the cistern is to come back after cure time and spray salt water rinse and get that out of the bottom. Many companies don't do this either.

Now the time has come, after two weeks of no water, I was given the OK to order the water truck! We ordered 5250 gallons for $370. Because our cistern is so big, this filled it up about a foot or halfway up the picture above on the foot valve pipe. Regardless, to have running water again!!!!

So, now is the time we had been waiting for, getting the pump going again and have running water! Not so fast, as with everything here, nothing is easy! The pump would run but never shut off, which is bad as the pump will get hot and burn out! On the phone with a plumber, oh he can't come out for another 3 days. To hell with the plumber, it is time for "Water Pumps, this is Ken!" On the phone with Larry the Water Guy, we diagnose the problem (after many attempts and getting sprayed in the face) it is a bad pressure switch. Good news is we can still use the water, just have to unplug the pump until I can install a new pressure switch.

The next day off to Home Depot for a 20/40 PSI switch. Nope they don't carry them, even though most of the homes here have cisterns. Off to East End Lumber and purchase a new one for $19. Installed in less than an hour and no problems since! More good news, we are moving into our rainy season now and just had about an inch of new rain which translated into about 3 more inches in the cistern!

Here was the old switch!