This is my life

Sometimes I get to thinking like man I’m so exhausted or I can’t wait for this charter to end so I can sleep....and then I get a moment of clarity! I get to sail and cook everyday on an awesome new boat and enjoy a different place every day! So 4 of our guests left the boat after 7 days and we have 2 still here for a few remaining days. It’s been so nice sailing with them as they are avid sailors and have owned a few boats in their time. Super chill and easy going.....

I was on my way to the market to provision for the final days and saw this cute little puffed fish by the dock. He was chasing a shrimp!!

And this cutie pie was chasing a lizard 🦎 

This is the path from the dock straight to the airport. I walked up and grabbed the first taxi I could find. 

I felt a little lonely in this big bus all by myself. I also felt like a jerk because I hired him to take me there and back....so when u do that, they don’t stop for other people on the way. We passed a few moms toting babies and big bags.....an old man who looked like he could get off his feet....all this room and still couldn’t stop.... 

We picked up a few toys for the boat. The wooden one with the numbers is called shut the box and is over 700 years old and I love playing but can’t seem to find anyone to play with :(

Another beautiful sunset....and sundowners!



Yep this is my life! :) worked hard enough to get here now really enjoying my time...☺️

Storm surge

Clearly storm surge can be a boats worst enemy...:( 

We spent the night in Trellis bay next to the airport and noticed alllllll these boats just washed up onshore....sad sight to see.....



Such a beautiful place and then the reality sets in....Irma left quite a wake...

On the other hand!! Cooper island survived and is beautiful as ever!!! They have their Christmas tree up and we parked right up front near that gorgeous beach! Time for a rum punch! 



Sailing to our overnight destination just chillin on the trampoline.....and I got in a quick vertical pano before the headsail came out. :)

 

Sailors again!!

We are finally sailing again!! So our permanent boat finally came in about 2 weeks ago. It was brought over on a container ship and took a couple days to clear customs. We’ve been running around like crazy getting her ready for charter. It’s a lot of work unpacking all the furnishings and supplies and taking the tape and plastic of every little thing. I was working alone for the first few days. Tyrone got called out on charter for 5 days leaving me to do all the initial u wrapping. There was another captain with a medical emergency so he needed to fill in last minute. We got her up and running tho and she sails great!! It’s a brand new Leopard 5000 which is a 50ft sailing catamaran naked Old Marblehead 😁 

We have a little cafe area or a breakfast nook! 







How it started... 

And the finished product....












There’s an insane amount of storage underneath all the floorboard in the galley and saloon and even the cabins! All much needed space but not all easy to get to.... currently under sail heading to The Baths today. ☺️ 

Maniacs on mopeds 😳

When we make the journey out to Anegada we have lunch on the boat just after we anchor and then the guests spend the day exploring the tiny beautiful island. They can taxi or take mopeds (when we have drinkers we recommmend taxi) for the day and go to Cow Wreck Beach or to Bamboo beach or both it’s whatever! We sent this weeks guests off on mopeds and they had a BLAST! We did too!!😉 we took our own and explored places we’ve not been yet! Such a great day and thenhad dinner ashore at Potters by the Sea where they serve the famous Anegada lobsters😋

I decided next time no visor on the helmet. It was scratched and wouldn’t stay up. 

Had to have the tunes!! I highly recommend this little guy. It’s the UE Roll and has elastic on the back so we can strap to almost anything anywhere. We actually own two of them because u can sync them up and have surround sound😁 they are around $80 on Amazon I think....

There’s a little botanical garden right in the middle of the main road where it forks!! How pretty is that!?

Decisions decisions....





They call it Cow Wreck beach because there was a ship that wrecked and it was full of cows they say....so there’s a bunch of cows running wild on Anegada!

We made it over to Bamboo beach in Loblolly Bay. There’s a lot more coral over here to be snorkeled than the other spots...


We stopped at a random spot for a cold beverage and found this little one eared Willie! This super affectionate kitty had half an ear missing. Such a sweetie tho😍 all in all it was a great day!! After we turned in our scooters we went back to the boat where I put together a quick snack while everyone got dressed for a nice dinner ashore. We ate an amazing meal in an awesome place....and then we all passed out! Food comas for everyone! 

When life hands you lemons...

When life hands you lemons .... go with plan B! We set out early like straight after breakfast to power over to The Baths. We get here pretty quick but every single mooring ball is taken....welcome to high season in the BVI!! It was kind of a bummer not being able to get our guests front and center like we always do....but we just had to say ok well then plan B it is!! We came over just a bit and found a gorgeous beach to anchor in front of....now it was raining and gloomy when we dropped the hook and everyone was on their phones and looking doubtful....then the sun came out!! Even my mind is blown right now check it out...

You’d never guess it was just raining and gray out! I’m starting to think the backup plan should be our primary 😉 here at The Baths there is a 90 minute time limit when you’re on a mooring. We are anchored at the beach so we can pick up the guests and bring them back and have this amazing view for lunch! No rushing out of here so someone else can grab our mooring. Here’s where we would have been...

Time to throw lunch together and pick up guests😎✌🏼

Willie T

Oh how I love the famous Willie T’s bar!! Such a fun atmosphere for either just a lunch stop or overnight if our guests are more into the night life scene. The Willie T’s is famous in the BVI for having a second story with a platform that you jump off of! It’s sort of a right of passage to jump from the Willie T (topless)🤭 well that was back in the day. I guess it’s not like that anymore. A long time ago they used to give T-shirt’s or something if you jumped topless. It’s not encouraged anymore but it’s just what you do! Jump from the top, take a shotski.....maybe not in that order....for those who don’t know a shotski is an old wooden ski with 4 holes for shot glasses...u and your friends line up in a row and take it at the same time...10 years ago on our honeymoon we jumped from the top (fully covered) and just did it again on Halloween at night. It was like jumping into an abyss!! It was so dark!! But I did it knees shaking and all 😂. A little bit of liquid courage may or may not have been involved. 

So we are here again today for the jump with a nice family. The 3 boys had no trouble or hesitation jumping in after I served them a nice lunch. We moved a bit further away from all the noise and traffic to a different part of the Anchorage after that and the guys are spending the day fishing while I prep dinner and dessert for this evening. It’s nice that it’s a different experience every time we come here. You never know what the guests are going to want to do. Today it’s fishing and kayaking 😎

This would be Great Harbor in Peter Island 🌴 the pelicans are dive bombing the shore line where all the little fish hang out by the rocks

Got a bit of good news just now though!!! So we swapped boats before charter because our engine was being replaced on Roxanne (the powercat we are running until the permanent crew arrives) and we were told that Roxanne would be delivered to us midcharter...,haven’t heard much about the progress but a friend of ours just let me know he saw her moving from the boat yard back to the dock! I’m hoping that’s a good thing!!!😬 

I’ve also started a new blog project called Tales from the Galley.... www.nomore9-5taketwo.com. It’s going to be more about what I do these days in the galley...tricks for cooking for so many...easy recipes that are still a big hit...stuff like that... my key lime pie is starting to smell too good. Crap. That usually means it’s about to burn!! Byeee

Back in the BVI’s😍

We’ve recently started working for a new charter company in the British Virgin Islands. It’s been just over a month and we’ve done about 4 charters so far. We are currently on a 51ft power cat made by Leopard. Aaaand it’s AWESOME. I never thought we would be power cat fans but it’s soooo fast!! We get to each location faster than anyone else and get the best mooring. It’s less work obviously because there’s no fussing with sails and all that business. With this company I have the freedom to make my own menu and cook whatever I want on whatever day. We don’t have to report to anyone on a daily basis several times a day. I feel very fortunate to be here to be able to enjoy this time in an amazing place in this world. ☺️ 

Would you like to know how we got here?? Well it all started 10 years ago on our honeymoon. We chartered a private monohull with the captain and chef/first mate for a guaranteed adventure of 7 islands in 7 days. We stopped at the famous Soggy Dollar Bar and met one of the captains of a charter boat from a little company called The Moorings☺️

We started chatting him up and let him know we were totally interested in that kind of life. He said get your captains license and come back and we will give you a job.....just like that..... now we got caught up in the whole city life thing for 5 years but then finally one night it hit me that we needed to cut ties and set sail for a new life😉 

So began our journey. Within a week we sold one car. Within a month we sold our furniture and leased our apartment. We paid off all our debt in 3 months and saved enough to pay for both captains licenses in cash which was about $12k each. Saved enough for living expenses for about 6 months, bought one way tickets to South Africa with just one backpack each....😳 yeah my mom freaked out...she’s ok now but it was quite a shock to the family considering we didn’t grow up sailing like some people do. 

I feel like we have always been In the right place at the right time....we put things out in the universe and they just seem to happen. All in their own time but it’s a bit crazy sometimes if you think about it. We landed the ultimate job working on a private catamaran for one really cool single owner in the South Pacific (where we’ve always wanted to go and experience all the different cultures we are blind to in our day to day 9-5 lives). We wanted to deliver a boat from Cape Town to the Med and we did that and had the best experience with a very skilled captain (which we learned sooo much from) sailed the South Pacific pretty much on our own for 3 years....then wanted to dabble in the charter business see omg as how we want to have our own one day. We got the job and worked in the beautiful Bahamas for 2 years. That was an unexpected pleasant surprise!! It’s such a hidden gem with turquoise waters and white sandy beaches and very low population of charter yachts. We always said we wanted to work on a certain boat and we wanted to work in Antigua with its 365 beautiful white sandy beaches one for every day of the year! We rocked up sailing with a friend and ended up jumping ship to work on that boat we always wanted to work on in ANTIGUA!!! We were like whoa now this is getting weird.... we wanted to come to the Moorings for a while but the timing was never right. Now the time is right....😎 10 years after our honeymoon in the BVI’s here we are working charters in one of the most sought after places on Earth🙊 Like is this real!?!?!? Sort of wish I could find that one Captain and shake his hand😁 

So here we are on charter with a writer for Travel and Leisure magazine and she’s really inspiring me to write again. You get used to having this paradise in your life every day and you begin to feel like it’s normal. It’s absolutely not normal though. 😳 I forget that.... apparently there are people out there who would love to here about this life style and also how in the world I put out the meals that I do in this tiny galley of mine! 

So.... I do believe I will give it a shot just to put the Info out there and give away all my secrets....reveal the magic that is my life as a galley wench. 😆 Look our for a new blog called Tales from the Galley.....oooh spooky👻 

Gotta run...time to get fenders and lines ready for the dock. ✌🏼 

He fell in🤣🤣🤣

How I feel when I try to be sexy🤣







Taxi ride to Hog Heaven! Really nice ribs 

10 years later on our favorite island Anegada!!! At cow wreck beach!!

 Only looking SLIGHTLY different 10 years ago😜



Like my foxy kitten for Halloween at the Willie T??

The Baths w blue skies...

Tropical fruits for brekkie anyone?

The Baths with a little rain but still romantic 😍