Dollar Buses Fare Hike - St Maarten

Dollar-and-a-half buses just doesn't have the same ring to it... but, the fare hike is supposed to be ratified by the powers that be by November 1st (isn't that a holiday?) or the bus drivers will take action.

They don't mention what the rate increase will be, though we did hear one report that it was going up by 50 US cents. So, remember to take quarters with you as you know how they don't like to make change.

I think St Thomas's dollar buses (Safaris) went up to $2 a couple of years ago....

Well, the price of gasoline is over $4/gallon, so it is understandable... Simpson Bay all the way into Philipsburg for $1 was quite a deal!

I haven't heard anything about the French buses, such as Marigot to Philipsburg, which did cost $1.50.

So It Goes....

Palapa Marina, St. Maarten Dinghy Dock

The other day when we went to check mail at The Mailbox, and rent a DVD at Island Video (both at Palapa) we were surprised to see a little mountain of dirt piled up near where the marina docks their dinghies.

Wow, there is now water in the corner by The Soggy Dollar Bar! Maybe people won't raise their outboard legs anymore (one can always hope). It was getting to be quite a beach in there.

I'm tempted to claim this little island for our own and plant a little moose flag at the summit :)

Sorry, I keep forgetting to take my camera... maybe tomorrow when we take out the garbage.

Added SEAMANSHIP books to aStore

We just added a few SEAMANSHIP books to our Amazon store.

Let's see if this fancy widget works! We are having a slow internet day, hope your connection is faster...



Enjoy!

Thanks BLONDIE for the link

Blondie, author of the blog My View from 30,000 Feet, has placed us on her blog. Thank you, very much and we are glad you enjoy All About Boats.

My View from 30,000 feet is very interesting as Blondie is a flight attendant so she sees a lot of the world and shares her experiences with us.

Check it out!

Friday BOAT Cat Blogging : Jacob aboard Flame

Today's boat cat is Jacob who lives aboard the charter motor yacht FLAME.

Jacob is a fabulous charter cat. He really does the balance of entertainer, but not too-much-in -your-face charter host. His folks are very pleased with him and Flame's guests have adored him.

This morning, we asked Barbara and Wayne for a new photo and a bit about Jacob. Here is what they said:

Jacob is skinny in this picture cause he was still a kitten. He is still pretty slim but he has this funny droopy stomach that the vet says is very normal, just usual in older cats.

Jake is two years old. We got him at the St Thomas (USVI) humane society when he chose us for parents. I sat down in the cat enclosure and he climbed in my lap. I put him down to check out the other kittens and he climbed back on... my heart was won! He is not a lap cat for other people...

He likes to interrupt me when I am at the computer. When he was little he would lie on the computer keyboard and roll around listening to it beep! I had to stop that when somehow he managed to make my entire picture file go away. He loves to lie on the counter at the bottom of the steps going into the main salon so he can keep track of everyone. Me, he whacks as I go by so he can get attention. He is playful in the morning and the evening.. right now he is finding the charging cord for the phone a fun toy. He is also fond of hunting flies. I suppose the funniest thing about him is that he uses the toilet. We used the insert to train him and now he is down to the last ring with no litter in it. Last summer Wayne and I did a charter on Eliza (they had no crew and were in a panic) and we told them we come with cat. Jake just rolled with the punches and used the toilet there just like on Flame (on land he uses the great outdoors).

Well, obviously I could go on and on about him! He is just the sweetest, good natured cat!

You can see another post (June 12, 2006) with Jacob and Flame HERE.

Unfortunately, Flame won't be at the November St. Thomas charter yacht show as they will be on charter. But, as we will be in the Virgin Islands aboard our boat, we will probably run into them and catch up on everything... including more pictures!

View FLAME's brochure : CLICK HERE

Contact us, Paradise Connections, to book Flame : CLICK HERE

JIMMY BUFFETT Live In Anguilla CD/DVD

I'm soooooo excited! I just discovered that the CD/DVD set of the Jimmy Buffett concert that we attended in Anguilla earlier this year is coming out on November 6th!

You can pre-order it through this link on Amazon.com... We have!



A double CD and an 82 minute DVD were recorded LIVE at the Dune Preserve, Rendezvous Bay in Anguilla, in Bankie Banx's backyard and the site of famous Moonsplash Festivals. The CDs include 30 songs, all of your favorites, plus some special in-concert rarities like Domino College, Waiting In Vain, When Salome Plays the Drum, King of Somewhere Hot, Treat Her Like A Lady, and Distantly In Love.

The DVD was recorded in High Definition and is in Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound.

Make a pitcher of margaritas, put on your parrothead paraphernalia and ENJOY!

Butterflies on parade

We went in to the Simpson Bay Lagoon, St. Maarten, this morning to get a saw blade from Budget Marine. Of course we forgot they were closed this weekend for inventory... so it goes...

But, I was so surprised at the amount of butterflies flying across the Lagoon... hundreds! I believe they are called "cabbage whites" although a few of them are yellow. I'm so afraid that they are going to run into the dinghy, or me!

When we returned to our boat which is anchored outside in Simpson Bay, there were butterflies flying in from the west. Where did they come from??? Certainly not all the way from Saba!

Some cross the Lagoon from east to west, while others are going west to east? Why? Where are they going? It is a beautiful day and I hope they are enjoying it.

Update: LA SUCRIERE French Bakery in Lagoon

Hi, I wrote about this bakery back on June 4, 2006 and thought I should give an updated opinion... I was so excited when this bakery opened, but not now. We hardly ever go there anymore. The quality of their pastries varied greatly and I don't think they have wifi now. When we were having wifi problems, the ladies thought some people could get it near the front of the store, but perhaps that was using the wifi from the restaurant across the street? They don't have ice.

I bought a baguette-type bread today. 95 cents but much smaller than a "real" baguette.

A couple of months ago when I went there for bread they only had three loaves and the lady refused to sell them to me as they had been there too long...

Maybe it has changed hands... the few times we've been there this year we haven't seen the owner.

Oh well... Still an option of where to buy bread in the Simpson Bay Lagoon.

Humdinger wind generator

This is cool. Bob just showed me this video (CLICK HERE) about a different approach to generate electricity by the power of the wind. It really is a humdinger!

Visit the Humdinger website CLICK HERE and see The Windbelt.

MacBook Kernal Panic

Not another kernal panic! I was writing a blog entry using Firefox and also had Calculator & Entourage open, plus using Airport and I was shut down with the dreaded kernal panic.

A few weeks ago I had a kernal panic followed by another and another.... and finally it just quit and I had to get a new logic board.

I was in the process of writing a blog and ranting about getting water at Island Water World in Simpson Bay Lagoon, St. Maarten. I take this as a sign as to just feel good about typing the rant but not to actually post it :)

Hope my MacBook is OK. We will be purchasing the AppleCare Extended Protection Plan for MacBook and thus extend our warranty for another two years, as it looks like it is a necessary and wise purchase... plus I save $50 instead of buying directly from Apple.

US Coast Guard National Vessel Documentation Center web address

I have a difficult time finding the website for the U.S. Coast Guard National Vessel Documentation Center so here it is, just in case it will help anyone else:

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/vdoc/nvdc.htm

Their phone number is 1-304-271-2400 and press 6 to speak with a documentation officer.

Hope this helps others!

Coffee and a barracuda

We just went outside to have our second cup of coffee out on the foredeck. I spilled mine... oops! and when Bob came back out with a paper towel for me, he saw a good sized barracuda off our bow.

So, I quickly mopped up my coffee drips and ran down for the camera.


I hope he's gone by the time we want to go for a swim :)

Halloween Festivities

We picked up our mail this afternoon at The Mailbox and there was a flyer advertising the Lady C's Floating Bar's Halloween party. My gosh! Halloween is just around the corner. We won't be in St. Maarten but there is a pirate dress-up party at the St. Thomas boat show.

Amazon.com has lots of costumes which you may want to look at too, if you are as unprepared as I am... They have categories broken down on the left side of the page in case you don't want to look at all 57,000 entries :)

Click here for Halloween Costumes

Hope we can find something...

We can narrow down the search to Women's Pirate Costumes

Have fun!

Pet Locator Transmitter

I just ran across this in an old 2004 Sail Magazine... The Cat Locator.

Their website is: http://www.thecatlocator.com/ but it looks like they no longer sell this item... Could it have been some FCC issue? Oh well, check it out anyway.

It would have been handy for all of those times I would go around the Joinville-Le-Pont marina shaking a box of cat food and calling Wacka's name. She loved to go into the greasy engine room of a unused motor boat that was a couple of spaces up from us. Usually, she'd just look at me... then I'd have to try the "cheese" ploy. Our cats loved fromage!

Amazon store - Gift Certificates - Very Handy

Today I logged in to Amazon.com and tried to buy some DVDs of television series as they are definitely a good bank for the buck. We are going to be going up to the Virgin Islands so I wanted our order to be shipped to a different address than what is our credit card billing address.

I made several attempts to get around this discrepancy but to no avail... Amazon would not let me use my credit card, but they had let me use a gift certificate for my book order...


Buy an Amazon Gift Certificate

Aha! Like Baldric of the BBC Black Adder series, I had yet another cunning plan :) I'll buy myself a gift certificate for the amount of the order and use that for the DVDs that are to be sent to St. Thomas. It's great. You receive an email with a code that you then redeem for later use in your account or you can enter the code when you are at the check out. Simple! What an easy way to buy something while travelling, or to send a gift to another person with no hassels!

Saturday, Saturday!

We planned on going to the movies Thursday night to see either the new Mr. Bean film (we love Rowan Atkinson's BBC series, BLACK ADDER) or the ping pong movie, Balls of Fury. It started raining Thursday afternoon and finally stopped at about 7pm Friday, so no movie.

I did get quite a bit of web site work done though. Check out the Barge Blog (Oct.4,2007) for the cool barge charters for Christmas in Scotland followed by New Year's on the Thames. I also did a nice posting on our Yacht Charter Blog (Oct.5,2007) to promote our friend Kerry's special pricing to fill in Promenade's calendar for next season.

So, it is still very overcast but we hope to see an early 2pm-ish matinee. Otherwise it is just too crowded on the weekends and we'll have to wait until Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday evening (ladies night $4)... Films change on Thursday.


Black Adder, complete set

Hugh Laurie ( House, M.D.) is a delightful recurring character in Black Adder.

We'll be off in a few minutes for a water run and possibly go to the SXM Yacht Club for some pancakes!

Today, October 4th, is World Animal Day

Today, October 4th, is World Animal Day. World Animal Day takes place every year on 4 October. Animal welfare groups, sanctuaries and individuals throughout the world hold special events to heighten public awareness of animal issues and to encourage people to think about how we as humans relate to animals.

The website can be found at : http://www.worldanimalday.org.uk/

Here are photos of our wonderful French cats that sailed across the Atlantic with us aboard Loose Moose 2 and shared their much too short time (15 & 16 years) with us...


Here's Wacka and a younger Me. This was taken aboard the original Loose Moose at Meaux, France, probably in the summer of 1988.


Here's Bullwinkle with some of his moose friends at the house we rented on Water Island, Virgin Islands, after we lost Loose Moose 2. This might be Spring 2001.


I also love lizards. Here's an iguana at Molly Malone's, Red Hook, St. Thomas, USVI

Enjoy your fine, furry, feathered, or scaley friends today and everyday!
.

Skinny fish

It was way past sunset last night by the time we had our "sundowner" of rum and brie & crackers (I'm going to miss the good brie we buy on the French side of St. Martin) so I had my new little LED flashlight with us out on the foredeck to be able to find the cheese on the plate.

I turned and pointed the beam of light into the water and I was surprised that we had so many of these skinny fish (I don't think they are ballyhoo but maybe cousins) all around the boat.

Coleman Stirling Refrigeration

Recently this blog has been getting many hits for the post I did about our Coleman Stirling fridge. We've been using it for a year and we still love our Coleman.



NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON.COM

Coleman Stirling Power Electric Cooler : Thermoelectric 26-Quart Portable Cooler W/ DC Power Cable & Household Power Supply: about $449 from Amazon (click link )

We'd love to buy a second one to use as a freezer... if we only had the room!

Is there a 4th dimension thingy out there where we could expand the interior of our CAL34 to a 50-foot boat?

Check it out! ==> CLICK HERE

:)

French St. Martin - Clearing In FEES

Better late than never.... I meant to post this several months ago...

Today, May 18, 2007, we checked into the French side of St. Martin in Marigot.

There is a clearance fee of $7.00 (US) which can be paid when entering OR leaving. (Charter yachts must pay $2/guest upon departure)

There are NO overtime fees

OFFICE HOURS (in season):

- Monday-Friday:

• 9:30am - 11:30am
• 2:00pm - 4:00pm

- Saturday:

• 8:00am - 10:00am
• 2:00pm - 4:00pm

- Sunday:

• 9:00am - Noon

ATTENTION! New anchoring fees coming soon...

The Port Official (nice guy, speaks excellent English) told us when we were checking in this morning, that there will be anchoring fees in the future. The regulations are currently in effect but they do not have the manpower right now to implement collection and processing. He expects they will be in effect for next season. It will be for Marigot Bay and Grand Cas... not sure about the French side of the Lagoon but as it is so close to Marigot I would expect that yachts will have to pay there as well.

(I bet all of those people anchored by Mt.Fortune on the Dutch side with their little French courtesy flags up pretending to be on the French side so they don't have to pay the $10-15 per week Dutch fees will be upset.)

He said fees will be 0.40-0.50 euros per meter per day. For my 10m boat, that translates today to $5.40 to $6.75 per day. I hope he meant per week.

Oh well, so it goes... :)

My MacBook is back!

Two weeks from tomorrow, my almost 10-month old MacBook went on the fritz. Started with a kernal panic. I crashed the computer and it restarted. I thought I might not have enough hard drive space for system swap files, so I decided I should move a video off the computer and onto a DVD. During the copying, it had another kernal panic. Yikes! What's going on?

OK, I just went and deleted the large video file and fortunately, instead of poking around the computer to try and suss out what was wrong, I immediately saved my email (Entourage database) and a few other very important files to an external hard drive in case something horrible was about to come my way.

Good thing because not too much later, the computer just shut down on its own. Turned on the MacBook and I got a black screen and the little sleep light on the front was on solid. Tried so many things such as boot from the install disk... which stalled... Tried hardware test on install disk... which stalled. Couldn't remove disk. It did start up once when I did the hold down option key while turning on power. That way I got to select the startup folder off of the hard drive and after it booted, I was able to eject the disk. It didn't last though... Sometimes it didn't make the "suck in the disk" sound at startup, or it was really weak. The battery was fully charged. I reset the PRam, but nothing. I reset the PMU, after which it started up once... might have just been a coincidence.

I called Apple but they were only concerned about selling me the extended AppleCare warranty, even though I was still covered. They must get a commission, because I was on the phone for 10 minutes and still hadn't received a case number or described my problem. I was disconnected and with three different people, they only wanted to sell me AppleCare. The Sunday afternoon Bush League crowd, I guess.

I decided to call Small Dog up in Vermont for their advice and possibly ship my MacBook to them. Super nice people, and he said it should be repaired within 3-5 days working days of them receiving my MacBook. Of course, shipping from St. Maarten to Vermont and back would be costly, but hey I was seriously considering $180 for shipping as they are a reputable company. Check them out and subscribe to their newsletter.

We noticed that Apple lists an Authorized Service Center which is across from Simpson Bay Marina. We decided to drop on by and check him out even though we had heard a bad report on the VHF cruisers' net. He seemed like a nice guy and we wouldn't have to ship the MacBook off-island. He said that he'd receive the parts in 3-5 working days from Apple. This was Monday and we decided on Tuesday to go with the local guy. I asked if I'd have it back by next Friday and he said Oh yes, before then... Well, we got the call on Friday (surprise!) that we could come and pick it up... I'll tell you more after we get Bob's MacBook warranty repair taken care of in a couple of days.

But, it has given us the incentive to buy the extended AppleCare which extends our warranty by another 2 years. CLICK FOR MORE => (AppleCare Extended Protection Plan for MacBook) It's a good price, too.


Walk the plank... aargh!

AMAZON now offers MP3 music downloads

Wow, I'm going to check this out! Songs for $0.89 and lots of albums for $8.99 or less...




Looks like a good thing. Not a lot of selection yet, but it is new. Must be patient... Remember the beginning of iTunes & podcasts ???

Enjoy!


CLICK HERE

St. Maarten Customs & Immigration Dinghy Dock

A couple of days ago we tied up at the dinghy dock just outside of the Dutch Bridge as we were just going to MacDonald's for lunch. We then walked up the street and bought a couple of things at the store. Took us less than an hour...



Ooooh, when we were just getting into the dinghy a woman from St. Maarten Immigration came charging out and told us that we were NOT to tie up to this dock to do shopping, etc. This dock is only for visiting Customs & Immigration, the Port Authority, and the Police Station. Told her I was sorry, but I didn't know that & thanks for letting us know for the future and that we'll be coming in to pay our Port fees so will be tying up there tomorrow. Wow, was she Ms. Snippy. This is the first time I've had an altercation like this. I was nice and polite with her. I don't know if she was wanting to release some pent up frustration or what but I wasn't going there :)

Speaking of "The Friendly Island", the radio guy was reading articles out of the local paper and one story finished with the words "the friendly island" and the next headline was something like "Two gas stations robbed within fifteen minutes" or maybe it was "Two chopped as gangs clash in Sucker Garden".

I think we need a break from here...

So remember, do not park your dinghy at the dock in front of the bridge unless it is for official business. You've been warned :)

Also, remember that bridge times don't change until the beginning of December...
CLICK HERE for previous post with bridge times.

It's better here than other places... and the beauty of living aboard a boat means you can just move your home somewhere different when you get the fancy...

Cool, huh?

MORE PAPERWORK FOR CLEARING IN & OUT

This is from the CARIBBEAN COMPASS September 2007 edition, Info & Updates:

New Rules for Yachts in CARICOM

Yachts traveling from country to country within much of the English-speaking Eastern Caribbean are looking at more paperwork.

Legislation has been passed which requires all air and sea carriers to submit passenger information in advance when arriving at, and departing from, each of ten Caribbean Common Market (CARICOM) member states. Participating CARICOM member states are:

• Jamaica,
• Antigua & Barbuda,
• St. Kitts & Nevis,
• Dominica,
• Barbados,
• St. Lucia,
• St. Vincent & the Grenadines,
• Grenada,
• Trinidad & Tobago, and
• Guyana.

These countries are collectively known as a "Single Domestic Space" (SDS).

Compass is informed that the term "sea carriers" includes both private and charter yachts.

To comply with the new regulation, you fill out a form (available by registering at www.caricomeapis.org) which asks for information such as passengers' names, nationalities and passport numbers, and the vessel's dates and times of departure and arrival.

There are three ways the form can be submitted:

• By sending as an e-mail attachment to maritime@impacsjrcc.org
• By filling it in on-line
• By faxing it to (246) 228-4040.

When arriving in the SDS from a port outside of the SDS, the form must be submitted no later than 24 hours before arrival.

When departing from the SDS to a port outside of the SDS, the form must be submitted no later than 15 minutes after departure.

When traveling between countries within the SDS, the form must be submitted no later than one hour before departure.

For more information contact Diane Hazzard at (246) 429-7931 or diane.hazzard@impacsjrcc.org

I'm planning to check out their web site and see if it is currently in effect. What happens if you decide to bypass your destination and go somewhere else because of timing, or weather conditions, etc? Will the country that you bypassed get worried when you don't show up? Plus, you won't have a form filled out prior to your arrival for the country you are entering...

Wasn't it last year that they were saying how they had just cut down on forms and things were easier?

Maybe we'll just stick to Anguilla, St. Maarten, and the French Islands :)

Too much Big Brother in my opinion. So It Goes... perhaps it is time to move on.

MORE TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY

While I was typing up my Shopping rant post (see below), Bob was checking out one of his favorite blogs BOING BOING



and he told me to check out their post about International Talk Like a Pirate day, which you should all know by now is September 19th.

CLICK HERE FOR THE BOING BOING POST

The "Jobby Roger" link has decals for your Apple computers.

The "Toast" link is for a toaster which grills the skull & cross bones onto your bread...

That's kind of cool!

Check out the boingboing post for more...