Sept. 30



Much has happened since our last blog:

• We snorkled a lot of different places in the area around Tortola (British Virgin Islands), and saw numerous colorful fish and reef features. I even was stung numerous times by unseen small creatures; I believe they were small, transparent jellyfish. Three days later and the blisters are still there. The water is quite warm...about 80 deg...and pretty calm so far. We saw some large fish when chumming with left-over rice from dinner, averaging about 2' long with some about 5' on the last evening on the training boat. Captain Jim said they were remoras...we thought they looked more like sharks.


• Karen and I are in the process of purchasing a sailboat, a 2002 Beneteau 361 (36', 2 cabin monohull), and will know for sure in the next week. The boat needs to be hauled out of the water, checked for any problems and necessary repairs, then we take it out for a "sea trial" to make sure it's what we want.


• Karen and I also finished our sailing instruction with Captain Jim Palmer. We are looking forward to trying out our new skills on our own...taking small steps and being careful until we have much more experience under our belts. Captain Jim taught us well!


• We are now staying in Sint Maarten (the Dutch side of St. Martin) in an apartment graciously offered by Captain Jim, who also happened to own a few apartments here. How cool...It's a one bedroom, with kitchen, bath and a three level deck overlooking one of the large bays of the island. We've also rented a car for October, and have already been to a lot of the areas...even at the end of the airport runway where the jets land or takeoff next to the beach. We've managed to get many photos and tonight I hope some can get onto the blog, with labels.