Well, we did it! A Bare-boat Charter from Tortola in the BVI (British Virgin Islands) with my good friend Captain Mel Black and I as Co-Captain. I would recommend the BVI to anyone wanting sun, reasonable ‘Island’ prices and wonderful people looking to make your stay as pleasurable as possible.
We chartered a bare boot from the folks at Footloose Charters. Provisioning the boat was easy, the grocery store was withing walking distance of the charter company which by the way also houses ‘The Moorings’ and ‘Sun Sail’. Turns out ‘Footloose’ is owned by The Moorings and is a third tier charterer offering older boats and m-u-c-h lower prices. As you would expect on an older boat we had problems. The fresh water pump died two days out and the back up pump was dead when we left the dock, though we didn’t know it then. The windlass, an after market installation, tripped a breaker which was not on the main electrical panel but under the chart table and we didn’t see it and called for service. Service was prompt and dare I say entertaining. The service personnel met us at one of the many islands and in two shakes of a ducks tail the problems were resolved. One or our service personnel was a Rastafarian, very polite, very professional, and wearing the coolest dreads I’ve ever seen.
We sailed a:
Moorings Gibsea 525Built by Dufour. Customized Gibsea 525 to Moorings specifications
See the tab "Sailing the Caribbean" for pictures.
UBUNTU: New release available
And I had problems up the ying yang when I
upgraded from 9.4 to 10.10 on Oct. 01. My
recommendation, wait at least three months
after a release before upgrading to a new
version.
