Hypnautic = H E A L T H Y!!

Hahah, Sasha and I have begun to notice how nicely my cooking is sticking to our bones. Oops. So we're on a bit of a diet these days. We tried my standby Cereal diet, but that left us hungry (and usually hungry = cranky). We abandoned that idea, ohh, about three days in. Instead we've decided to put the whole boat on a diet :) A few weeks ago a top piece of the cooler blew overboard and we were unable to recover it. So we got a new cooler-- one that is a little longer. Because of the added space there we were able to free up space in the refrigerators and pack them up with more greens and salad makings (yeah!). These are our baby steps away from rice and other starches and towards more fresh foods every day! Oh yeah, and I'm moving towards using whole wheat in my baking rather than just white flour-- so far we've done proper boiled bagels (just for sasha), and pizza dough!

Daze off!

Current Location: Road Harbor, Tortola
Lat/Lon: 18°25.5' N 64°36.9' W
Air Temp: 82°F Sea Temp: 80°F
Weather: Clear

So we have a few days off and don't want to pay to sit at the dock but didn't feel like going to some pristine, secluded, virgin anchorage. So we decided to sit in the middle of Road Harbor and watch the world go by:


We have a couple of friends who live on an old wooden ketch in the harbor when they are not running a private charter boat. They had been working for a big charter company when we met them and they gave us a lot of good advice as we were starting in the industry (mostly: "don't work here"). Rafted up to their boat is a beautiful black wooden schooner When and If, which used to be General Patton's yacht. She is very YAR:


Just outside the jetty are a couple of cruise ships. Wow these things are big. They were testing their anchor earlier this morning. They carry 12 cord of anchor chain, at least 1000 feet of rode. Each shackle must be a foot or two long.


Across the harbor is that big charter company I mentioned earlier. They just built a brand-new reception area with several restaurants, a spa, expanded hotel, etc. The place is empty. Looks like most of their fleet is sitting at the dock, rafted up several boats deep:


Many of these boats have been abandoned by their owners and the banks are simply storing them for lack of anything else to do with them. If you are looking to buy a boat, this summer might be the time!

My new favorite appliance

So I broke down and got a proper internet solution for the yacht. My idea to use a cell phone tethered wirelessly via Bluetooth to provide internet to one of our laptops was ingenious but also slow and cumbersome to use.

Today, I purchased a Kyocera KR2 Mobile Router, which is a wireless router that takes a PCMCIA cellular network card! Plus, look at all the blinkylights! This brilliant device creates a WiFi hotspot anywhere it can pick up an cellular connection from CCT Boatphone (which completely covers the BVI) and all the computers onboard can share this always-on connection without tying up our telephone line. Better still, the EVDO connection is about 10x faster, which (among other things) means more blog posts for you!

Another benefit of this system is the ethernet-enabled hard drive which contains backups of all of our music and photos from our trips that is now available from any computer on the network!

Scrub Island Silt

In these photos, you can see the distinctly lighter, silt-laden water surrounding Scrub Island as we sail from the Dogs to Beef Island. In the top photo, looking NW, Scrub Island is in the background. The second photo is looking East back towards Virgin Gorda. The silt was most likely stirred up by the recent swell and appeared to completely surround Scrub Island for a radius of 1 to 1.5 NM to the South and East. The last photo is the wonderful bumper sticker I bought at Flukes at Trellis Bay.

We are currently anchored in Bluff Bay, south of Beef Island, near Hans Creek. The creek is a highly valuable ecological marine fishery and mangrove habitat for a multitude of marine, avian, and land-based species and is one of the most beautiful unspoiled areas in the BVI. It too has been slated for development into a 200 room hotel with megayacht marina and golf course. Please help stop this madness!!

Delightful DeLonghi

Yes, the appliance on the left is one of my favorite items on the yacht. It seems demeaning to call it an appliance, as it is so much more.... as vital as the anchor, as useful as the sails, almost as magnificent as the yacht herself.... The Espresso Machine!

Turtle Nom!

Yes, I know it has been a LONG time since the last blog post. We have been VERY busy with charters and improvements to the boat. More on that later. Today, I want to share a couple of very special photos. We were anchored in Rendezvous Bay on the south side of St. John for shelter from the 30+ knot winds and 10 foot swells last week. While I was snorkeling and checking the anchor, I saw the most amazing sight, a huge green turtle with two remoras chilling on his back. The turtle was busy NOMming on some (aptly named) Turtle Grass and didn't mind me hanging out with him for a good 15 minutes!

Leo & Deb visit!

This took a little while. BUT... Leo and Deb made some last minute plans and spent a week with us for Deb's Birthday!! We were pumped they had time to come see everything we've been working on. On yeah, and to just hang out and get to know each other better (aka kick our butts in dominoes). We started the week in Village Cay getting some work done, but then took off North because Leo had never made it up to Anegada and we were all hungry for some LOBSTER!! The week was a blast and we're so sad that the books are full because that means no more visits until.... JULY?? wow.

Dan Birthday Cruise II

What is there to look forward to now? That was what Sasha and I have been asking ourselves the past two days. After such an amazing visit with the NYC crew we're feeling a little lost. Our paradise is slightly less complete. In the past few days we celebrated our second annual "Dan's birthday cruise". From William climbing the mast to the Hippie Lounge II, and of course just sailing around the islands and morning watersports the days past quickly. We miss all of our friends!!! Thanks for a great few days!

Matt Bouis does SCUBA

Coming up in a few weeks I will have 6 people wanting to do a resort course together. Matt agreed to be my first student. Seeing as how we are in 9 feet of clear water with a sandy bottom he trusted me :) We talked through the skills which he executed amazingly down under. Hand signals were almost a second language to him by the time we were done. Sasha was in the water as well just to keep the cameras rolling and be an extra set of "hands". We were ecstatic to have an excuse to do some instructional diving! This next week we will get our fill. We have 2 guests doing there 4 open water dives with us on a universal referral. We'll keep you posted on that one!

Grass is always greener

So, we were in port the other day and sitting in a slip next to a huge megayacht. Of course the grass is always greener on the other side and I found myself thinking about how nice it would be to work on a larger boat. I watched the team of 5 cleaning the upper deck and bow... it's just Sasha and I over here. Then, I looked over and the captain and first mate were at their third floor patio railing looking over (down) at Hypnautic. I actually heard the captain say to his mate "Man, some days I wish I worked on a small sail boat like that one, you know just be able to sail around. But that job's A LOT of work." It made me smile and realize that the grass is always greener, no matter what size boat you're on :)