Blogs from British Virgin Islands, Central America Caribbean - page 12

Hello families and friends, Well, we thought we had arrived, but there was one more adventure left! We delivered the great San Juan boat one leg further to the beautiful island of Virgin Gorda. What a gorgeous trip, calmer seas and interesting islands. We picked up the owner and his family, after customs and immigration again, and headed over to Tortola, where we stuffed our gear in our bags and headed to the Tortola airport in a taxi. There a Bell helicopter was waiting to take us back to San Juan Puerto Rico airport. It was great to see the islands that we had just boated through, and to see all those nasty reefs that we were careful to avoid. At this writing, we are cooling our jets at the Atlanta airport, awaiting our flight to ... read more

We are huge proponents of free Wi-Fi. It's always the smaller, poorer cafes, hotels and terminals that have free wireless, while the large, rich chains such as Starbucks and Westin charge an arm and a leg for access. Airport lounges are the worst. Not only should Wi-Fi be provided free by the Port, but at a minimum, the super exclusive executive lounges should provide it gratis. The cost to do so is tiny compared with even the daily complementary newspaper or magazine budget. Luckily, in Virgin Gorda, the Marina offers free wireless Internet across the whole harbor. Several of these posts were done while sitting in our rented jeep in the evening, windows rolled up and A/C on. You see, the mosquitos, sand fleas and no-see-ums are brutal in the evening if we were to sit ... read more

J is now a certified PADI Open Water Scuba Diver! After 4 days of intense work with "Scuba Steve" and his wife Sara, he graduated at the top of his class (of one). The classroom and shallow water part of the course were conducted at Little Dix Bay - I know, life's rough! He made 4 dives off the Dog Islands: Coral Gardens, the Chimney, Cockroach Island, and the Visibles. These locations also had great snorkeling which CM happily explored. We saw numerous large barracudas, lobsters, sea turtles and one nurse shark. The water temperature at the surface was 88F and at 60 feet below, 84F. The dives were each right around 45 minutes in length, the first day we had 2 dives to 40 feet, the second day 2 dives to 60 feet. Each dive ... read more

So I flew in last night. First I had a fairly long flight from Chicago to Puerto Rico. Everybody on the plane spoke spanish and I sat next to this abuela who was trying to ask me all these questions to which I tried to respond in broken spanglish. Everyone was very nice and they all treated each other like a big family. Then I connected to a prop plane in Puerto Rico that flew me to Beef Island. From there a taxi to Nanny Cay which is where I stayed last night. The taxi was crazy, the roads here are real narrow and the drive on the left side, but it is an american built car so the driver is on the left side too. Again I was with some spanish speaking people and I ... read more