April And Stuart

Dear Blog ,

I’m so sorry I have neglected you. I know I have been careless with your feelings and have been spending my time elsewhere. I’ve found a new love, Facebook. It was an simple introduction that turned into a full fledge love affair. One that I still continue today. It allows me to express myself…. yes, yes I know you do too but this is different. I can get involved with more of my friends and I can speak to it anywhere that I have my blackberry with me.

I know you understand but how can we get back on the right track? Do I need to pay more attention to you? Okay I will. Yes, I know Stuart has strayed as well…. he too was blinded by the shinny newness of Facebook as well. I will try and bring him back as well. We have several drafts in our blog waiting to be published…I will finish those for you as well.

Again Blog, I am so sorry for neglecting you.

Sincere apologies,

April

Well it is that time.  Employee reviews.  Stuart and I both were working on reviews for several of our employees; looking at the books, numbers, sales, measuring accomplishments and talking back and forth about the process of performance reviews and goals - trying to help each other put some things down to paper that we could give to everyone.  You know, to help them be the best at their position as possible and to do the best for the company as is needed.

Jokingly, I mentioned that it was our 3 month wedding anniversary and that maybe we should have a 3 month review for each other.  We had a good laugh about it….. and then he seriously wanted me to make one for him!

I really didn’t give him one, I bought him a new clock radio instead (since he hate the old one).

But maybe I should create a list of criteria for a 6 month review… any suggestions?

We decided to visit Zach, Dana and the boys in New Jersey and to take Brandon into the city to see Old Yankee Stadium. The flight in from CVG was less than smooth. Brandon and I were suppose to be travel for 3 hours and it turned into a 10 hour travel time. Brandon was less than happy which made the mommy crazy. But once we reached Zach’s and Brandon had a Fresca, Stuart a beer and April a nice glass of wine - all was forgotten.

Next morning we were up bright and early, we hung out with Sammy and Charlie in their play den and then we were off to the big city via way of the train. I think Brandon thought it was kind of cool and we enjoyed the ride in. We jumped off at the Garden - Brandon thought that was cool for sure. We walked the streets, took pictures and had the best New York Pizza. We hit Rockafeller Center- all the way to the top!

We really wore ourselves out but had a great time. We made it back to HoHokus later than we planned but what a gorgeous day to be in the city and to walk through Central Park eating ice cream. We had a fabulous outdoor dinner later that evening with Zach and Dana at a quaint street-side restaurant. It was a good day!

We still hadn’t made our way to the “House that Ruth Built” so we had to make that our top priority on Sunday morning. We got up early and started out to be able to eat breakfast in the city. We walked through little Italy (some kind of festival was happening). We pushed through the crowds in Chinatown and stopped to check out the merchandise. We ate breakfast over by NYU - bagel with cream cheese, lox and capers…. mmmmmm! We made our way to the train and boarded to go to Yankee Stadium. It was a cloudy day but the event was not to be dampened. We walked around it, took pictures, went and bought memorabilia for Brandon and Nicolas at the official gift shop and tried to buy our way in for a tour - No such luck! But what was lucky was that Stuart needed to “sprinkle” and asked around as to where he might find a facility. The office let him in and he got to walk around right into the stadium… how perfect… Brandon immediately felt nature’s call and asked to use the restroom as well. As we sat waiting for him we chatted with the guard and told him we were from Ohio and that we were a bit disappointed for Brandon since we could not get him tickets to the tour. The guard took pity on us and ushered us into the stadium. Pretty cool and Brandon was certainly happy. Our mission was accomplished.

We ran around, hadmore pizza and decided to go to the Museum of Science. Pretty cool too… Brandon thought it was kind of cool how the displays that were in the movie really were from the inside of the museum. We definitely wore ourselves out again but had fun doing it.

We went back to Zach and Dana’s and bbq’ed outside, the boys played whiffle ball and burned up the last of their energy. It was a great ending to a very very memorable trip.

Travel began early this morning, up at 5 a.m out the door at 5:45, at the airport at 6:35 and in the air at 7:25. Dropped down in PBI at 11:25… It sounds as if travel is tedious and cumbersome however to the contrary it is quite beneficial. I was reading emails from clients & artists that came in after 10 p.m. last night, addressed their issues and had information waiting for all of them before they ever began their days. I rarely afford myself time to read a real live newspaper. Primarily because my news is supplied to me in news emails and small morning chit chat with Stuart (he is a ravenous news reader… he furnishes me with all pertinent information that I need to know for the day). But when I fly I need to have something to read during the first :20 minutes of flights until we reach cruising altitudes. Today I learned from the NYTimes that I operate the majority of my by business by way of Cloud Computing…the new white-hot technology buzzword. This means that I engage in using internet applications that are not housed within my office…ie: Google calendars and google mail. I also learned that the few times that I thought I had acquired poison sumac from weeding my bushes and flower beds was most probably not poison sumac.  Poison sumac is indigenous to swampy and beachy areas - primarily on the far east and west coasts. I learned that east of the Mississippi is the biggest hotbed of growth for Posion Ivy.  So PI is really the only thing that I would have most likely be exposed to. I also learned that Posion Ivy is a huge consumer of CO2. That the more CO2 is available the more it thrives… so now I will reconsider the pruning back of my indigenous Posion Ivy in the hopes of contributing in some small way to the reverse of the green house effect.

I also learned that the second quarter earning reports that came out this week was not as doom and gloom as was projected. I felt my “recession denial” further confirmed by this information. There was also an article about the trends of retirees who are coming out of retirement. It was also noted that the unemployment figures have once again gone up… Hmmmmmm…..I pondered on these two tid-bits of information as well as considering the volume of business that is still unsolicited and coming our way. The volume of brand new business construction centers and a slight improvement in housing market also fueled my thoughts …Conclusion- the unemployment numbers are not being measured nor being reflected equally as in the prior quarters. The number is based upon the amount of people “seeking jobs”. It is my conviction that yes there are more people who looking…people who want and were not looking before; such as retirees and non-working mothers and college students who are all concerned with the economy getting tough.   Just my thoughts…during a Ho Hum flight to Florida.

Well - Delta canceled our flight today … Probably because of that newspaper article … But they have sent us over the hills and through the woods and we’ll get home today … maybe. Currently we are parked in the West Palm airport awaiting a flight to NYC where we hope to catch a ride into Cincinnati!

We work up extra early this morning, 5:15 a.m to catch the sunrise. It was there somewhere behind the clouds. And the sun peeked through off and on during the dawn. We took pictures of the boats in the harbour and light coming from over the island’s top. It was a beautiful morning and I was a bit sorry that we had not taken advantage of the mornings the other days. We took pictures and used the binoculars to look for our once again lost sun pads. We saw them floating next to the dock and Stuart dingied over to get them. I shelled the last of the hard boiled eggs and made tea and bacon. We had so much food left over and I felt a little guilty about not eating it all. Stuart came back with the pads and tried pulling them onto the back of the boat. They were a bit waterlogged and slimmy so when he tried pulling them onboard he lost his grip and they started floating away. I think one of my fondest moments of the trip will be remembering Stuart fully dressed (and wearing The Hat too) jumping on top of the pads on his hands and knees trying to keep the pads from floating away. It reminded me of a dog jumping onto a raft…it was incredibly funny, especially watching it all from behind. The cute little smile on Stuart’s face said “what else could I do?” Great moment. Once we got the pads on and organized our selves fully by packing and accounting for everything we needed to have to get back to Tortola we set off. It was probably the calmest day in the water, or it might have just been that it was so early in morning and it is always that calm…we were on the waters by 7 am with hopes of getting to the marine around 8. We passed a British navy boat along the way and made it into the marina before 8 a.m. We called into the Moorings and they sent out a guy to help us maneuver into the marina. We pulled up to get gas, $800 thank you very much, I took the internet and radio stuff back as well as let the Moorings people know we were ready for check out. I went and took a bath while Stuart stay during the fill up. Once I was done he went to shower and I stayed with the Nauti Cat. I have to say the showers were very nice, and definitely new. Overall I would also comment that all the facilities and restaurants were well kept (exception being Willi T’s). We were glad we got in early because we had plenty of time to get all in order. We got our rides to the ferry, went through customs ( very easy), rode the :45 ferry back (slept most of the time) except for the few minutes to note all the “interesting” people around us… Stuart’s comment to me on the ferry “Conversation for later” and I agreed. French people in front of us were by far the oddest couple there. We got to St. John’s with several hours to spare before we needed to be at the airport so we walked housed our bags at the taxi station and walked down several blocks to a restaurant, I believe it was call The Green. While sitting we started a conversation with a guy sitting alone. His name was_____ and he was from Boulder, CO. It sounded like he was having a midlife crisis. He just decided with not bags to go sailing without his family or friends. He paid for a captain and sailed around. He talked about his wife a lot… we suspected divorce was looming. He ended up being on our flight and so he tailed us for the next two hours right up to when we split up on the plane. He was alright and bought us beers but we both thought he was a bit full of himself and wondered how much was true. We were certainly sorry for our honeymoon to be over but I think we were also very happy to be getting back and to sleep in our own bed.

Saturday morning and we got up. Did some clean up around the boat and tried to decide what the day’s activities would be. Stuart had read that the caves were a good snorkeling spot. We dingy to the caves from where we were moored. The caves were pretty darn cool. We saw some really beautiful fish, Parrot fish were everywhere. We swam through some jellyfish and were lucky enough to see a sea turtle. There was certainly more to see than what snorkeling afforded us and I regretted not preparing to scuba dive. We stayed out for about an hour and a half. I thought it was a great time and probably one of the more outstanding things that we did on the trip. I thought is was fun holding hands swimming along, taking pictures and exploring the caves. With all that exercise we were extremely hungry so we went back to the boat and made lunch. During lunch it became official - we were out of beer. We plotted our next destination to Peter Island with aspiration of getting a pampering of a massage and expensive meal. On our way we called and found out that there were no appointments left for massages, so we decided not to bother going to dinner there either. Next stop Cooper Island. We got into Cooper Island and moored at the little beach club. This is the first place that we have notice an abundance of palm trees. Most of the islands are full of low brush and funny enough cactus. ( the cacti looked like they were just a week or so away from some spectacular blooms) We donned our red swimming suits and dingied into the beach club. We grabbed some drinks, made reservations for dinner that evening and did some walking around. We grabbed a couple t-shirts and cute hat for Nicolas (worried that it might not fit though). The teenagers from the night before (Willie T’s) were on the beach throwing around a coconut and bothering teenage girls…how lucky were we? We tried snorkeling over by the cliffs closest to our boat. While the water was clear and we did see some conchs it was nothing like the snorkeling we did earlier in the day. We swam back to the boat, showered outside and relaxed for a little while before going back to the beach club for dinner. We dingied over about an hour before our reservation and sat on the beach and had some pina coladas. We had had great hope for another glorious sunset but the clouds came in and kind of put an end to that. We sat down to dinner on the outside section. We ordered some wine and sat and enjoyed our dinner for a couple of hours. A couple and the brother of the wife sat down next to us. We struck up conversations with them during dinner. This was there 7^th or 8^th trip to the BVI’s. We ran into a lot of people that come back time and time again. Hmmmm, maybe?

We got up early morning, had a light breakfast of hard boiled eggs and bacon and then quickly charter our next stop to be at Soper’s Hole, basically to get some cash. The goats were out first thing in the morning. We read that they had wild goats and cattle and that it was best not to mess with them. It was a very pleasant morning and the little bay was quiet. We threaded our way out of Little Harbour and set off for the next hour to get to Soper’s Hole. It was pretty choppy and we were really banging around a lot. We noticed that the cloud cover was thickening up and the wind was definitely picking up. We came into Sopers Hole with only three or four moorings available. Which we thought a bit odd. The wind was starting to make good waves and it made the mooring ball catching process a bit difficult. It took Stuart and I four attempts before we were able to get it. As we got ourselves moored we started noticing the weather really taking a turn and that boats were racing to get in. We hear a lot of chatter on the radio too. Boats were coming in to get away from the pending storm. We were glad that we had timed ourselves the way we did (lucky is what we were). Shortly after mooring the 45 mph winds and rain started. It was a good :20 minutes of hard rain. Stuart stayed up top for a while to hold down the canvas top that had a weak zipper. While he was doing that (getting pelted by rain) the sundeck pads went flying away. Stuart came down to help me while I gathered the other pads and brought them inside. We started taking pictures and sat inside for a while. Radio chatter about a boat sinking and unmanned dingies as well as emergency calls for help were happening all the while. One boat lost its mooring ball and had to maneuver quickly to get its self secure again. It had to have been frightening for the family on board. It made us incredibly worried about out weak rope that we had make-shifted because the hook that the boat came with had too narrow of a hook to hook to any of the mooring balls. Stuart had taped the fraying part earlier and thought it was secure enough but the weather added enough of a twist to certainly make us concerned about it again. After the rough weather passed a sailor in front of us raced out to find friends that they could not connect with by radio. He briefly stopped to see if we were okay and we mentioned out sun pads flying away. We are glad we mentioned it because about a half hour later the guy came back with them in his boat! We were grateful and wanted to offer him something but he wouldn’t take anything. We were lucky, and counted our blessing because we had figured that was going to be about $1000 to replace. Several boats that we not so lucky came into the harbour demasted and with shredded sails. One of the Mooring boats actually sank. (We later found out that boats sinking is fairly rare and on average they lose one boat a year).

We left Soper around 2:30 in the afternoon, post a cash machine trip and small shopping spree. We sailed over to Norman Island. Mooring at the Bright. We cleaned up and talked to our offices briefly. We were given a clue by the guys in Stuart’s office that Alan had sent a funny email, so we went straight to the computer to see. Kipp had responded to our email of the storm by sending an Omaha storm picture of a tornado and lightening, we laughed pretty good at that but then we opened Alan’s response to that email and we howled. The photoshopped picture of us from Foxy’s in front of a huge tidal wave was hysterical. The neighboring boats must have thought we were crazy.

We dingied into the Bight for drinks. We went over to Pirates. A family food and bar place. We sat and had drinks. While we were there a call on the radio came in saying that a man had stopped breathing on one of the boats in the Bight. Everyone just kind of looked helpless and stood around, no one had any idea which boat it was. It took about another 10-15 minutes and the coast guard or emergency boat was at a boat in the far end of the harbour. We never exactly heard what happened to him other than people were performing CPR on him and that the emergency boat had left in less of a rush. We stayed on the beach until dusk and then dingied back to the boat to make dinner. I concocted a pasta dish with the tomato and onions, cheese and milk. Stuart raved about it I thought it was okay. We chatted with Amalie and Sam while we ate our only self cooked dinner. After the clean up we decided to go to the famous Willie T’s, which is a float pirate’s boat bar. We had heard and read about it being a crazy and insane bar. The kind where people jump off the top into the water naked for free drinks and t-shirts. We tried to squeeze our dingy into the mass of dingys already there. 60’s and 70’s dance music was blaring. We got to the bar and had to elbow in to get to the bar, all to find out that half the bar was full of teenagers, and young teenagers at that. We were highly disappointed, drank one drink each and left. We sat out on the bow of the boat under the stars for a little while and then retired for the evening. We were extra concerned about the rope post our storm experience and Stuart got up often to check it throughout the night.

In the morning we cleaned up and went to Saba for breakfast. We grabbed some food and a sailing flag. Not sure what we will do with it but we have one! We left the harbour around noon and sailed for a while, destination White Bay. White Beach is on Guana Island; beautiful, quiet beach with very few boats around.

(Stuart note: went to Guana but passed marina Cay Great Camanoe on way)

We tried anchoring at White Bay but we kept dragging anchor. It was certainly windy enough to think that if we didn’t anchor well we might have problems. We were bummed that we couldn’t leave the boat because of the anchoring situation. I spotted a large fish hanging out under the boat, we think it was a King fish. It was a bit scary looking from the water. I snorkeled over to the beach while Stuart stayed on the boat. There was not much to look at within the water but it was so clear that the swim was soothing and enjoyable. The sands of the beach were of such a fine grain that it was almost like walking through powdered sugar. The only thing that was not enjoyable was the looming pelicans and the frightening King Fish living under the boat that I had to pass to get back to Stuart. The idea was that I’d check the beach out and then Stuart would go, but he changed his mind when he realized the time and that we needed to find a mooring for the night.

We sailed off to Jost Van Dyke with great plans to visit Foxy’s, the world famous Foxy’s that is adorned with bras, shirts, panties etc… clothing that people signed and attached to the ceilings and walls. We tried to go straight to Great Harbour but all the mooring were taken when we got there so we had to back track to Little Harbour. Little Harbour was not as “exciting” and had less moorings but it had mooring balls! So we were thrilled and went about hooking ourselves up to the closest ball to the dock. We were so close to the shore that we could hear the goats grazing on the hill. Once we moored we cleaned up to go get some cash. We dingied over to Abe’s shack. But Abe’s didn’t have an ATM…so we ended up paying a little extra for a taxi and used a credit card to pay. Abe, the same Abe who owned the rental car, taxi and dining shack drove us to Foxy’s. It was up and over some hills. There is not all that much on the island, at least as we could tell.

We made it to Foxy’s. A fun lively place. We were surprised that it was being run by a bunch of non-island guys. We put our reservations in, waited at the Foxy’s bar and I downed a yummy Painkiller and Stuart had a beer. We didn’t have to wait long. We were put at a table that was close to the bar, the edge of the dance area and right under a “Hogs flag!” Stuart had his picture taken under it. We did not leave any of our clothing at Foxy’s – which was not a disappointment to us. I ordered the catch of the day which ironically was caught by the group at the table next to us – it WAS a King fish. The food was decent, the atmosphere was fun. There was a crazy “island” man that  we guessed was paid “island entertainment”. He was a large man but despite his largeness he was incredibly good at back bend beer upside down drinking and he was doing the limba that was a meer foot off of the ground. I frankly thought he looked and acted a little inbred, I don’t think Stuart disagreed with me. We had a little hermit crab hanging around the table and the black lab checked in on it from time to time.

We did some dancing. It was incredibly hot so we had to sit and relax after a while. We took pictures of us all sweaty and red faced. I don’t think we completely cool down until later that evening. Foxy’s is where we saw our first bat. We had never noticed how large they were – or maybe we just thought they were birds flying at dusk. I suspect that they had about a good foot and a half wingspan.

We awoke this morning and tried our hand at the percolating coffeemaker. Coffee was fair (got better the following days). Today we will head to The Baths.

We dingied into Saba and took their tender over to the land taxi on the other side of the sound, “Ice Willie” a basketball star and part-time cab driver (Ice Willie is on the BVI National Team) drove us to the Baths on the other side of the island, about a 25 minute drive up and around the island. It was a great drive with gorgeous views of the bays and beaches below. Ice Willie stopped at several scenic spots and we took some photographs. He dropped us off and promised to be back at 2 p.m. to pick us up. We hiked down to the Baths, seeing interesting lizards that had turquiose bellies and orange tipped noses. The Bathes is a national park, we were impressed with how clean and well kept it is. There was no trash and it was not overly “tourist-ed up” although it was clear that a lot of “tour boats” visit. We walked through the huge granite boulders that make the Baths famous and were able to take several photos along the way. We explored the Baths hidden grottos and helped others take pictures in the unique spaces. We ran across a young, recently married couple. The bride had graduated from Lakota West high school in West Chester in 2003, she was one year older than Kerri. She didn’t know Kerri but it was pretty amazing to run across people from home, it’s a small world.

We hung out at the beach until about 12:30 and then started back up to the top for a little lunch. There was great little café (At the Top Baths) at the top and we sat down and had some great Pina Coladas, shared a salad and coconut chicken wrap (which I thought was great but Stuart burned his finger on the juices). We had another round of drinks and moved to the cafe’s pool where we washed the salt water off and relaxed. We chatted with a couple from CA, they were on their 10^th wedding anniversary. They were staying at Little Dix, a nice resort on Virgin Gorda. We also chatted with a family with three young children…the children played troll under the bridge that crossed the pool. It was cute and for a second we missed the kids… but just for a second.

We dried off and went in search of Ice Willie at around 1:45 p.m. No Ice Willie. We found a little bar that had a hand made sign offering pbj’s, beer, cigarettes and ice cream. How could we go wrong? We encountered several characters in this little joint. One of which was local who was originally from Cincinnati “John from Cincinnati”. He offered Stuart a free 5 bed room villa if he would help John finish his website (his 32 year old webdesigner died on him leaving the site half finished….???) We hung out for a while longer and talked to two guys that had brought their teenage daughters to the BVI’s for a Father’s Day sailing trip (Brian and Felix -who we swear was Herb from WKRP). We hung out long enough to realize Ice Willie wasn’t coming back for us. We chatted a little longer and planned a possible Trellis Bay renedevous with Brian and Felix… which we never made.John offered us a ride back… we were a bit leery but everyone seemed to know the guy and we were open to the adventure, (Stuart just keep whispering “Courage” and patting my shoulder…why did he do that!) John chatted and BS’ed the whole ride back. We made it back to the taxi station…he yelled up to The Last Stop Café for Agnes. She was in and tending bar with her 8 month old daughter, perched in the punkin’ seat behind the bar. We stayed, had one last drink and waited for the ferry. While we waited our buddy Ice Willie drove up to the taxi station. We yelled down at him…he smiled and swore that he had come back for us…yeah right! He claims he was on the BVI basketball team…whatever!

The tender from Saba Rock showed back up to return us to the resort so we could fetch our dingy. Arriving at Saba, we met pregnant Helena from Prague (which we’re convinced is a super model because of everywhere that she says she has lived) and her husband a monied Indian who had just arrived at the resort from Cannes. They invited us to join them at Biras Creek at 8:45 that night (we didn’t go). We also met another couple Michael and Megan from San Francisco…she was in IT staffing. They had left their family on the boat and had rented a room a Saba for the night… they needed a privacy from their parents and brother. We had a few “Painkillers” and yummy calamari and then dingy’d back to the boat.