Day off, relax. Do nothing.

I have today off. I didn't get out of bed till John called me at 11am. Even now I am just lounging on the pool deck Facebooking and reading TextsFromLastNight. I am so tired for some reason. Lilly and I took it easy last night and went to bed early. I registered for my TWIC card so I can start working for OnDeck, a sailboat racing company here. I need something to break up the monotony of working in a restaraunt. So that's what's new with me. Lilly is going to KW for a month and wont be back till the day after Thanksgiving. In the meantime I have to find a place to live. I would like to stay in Frenchtown or at least in town here somewhere close. I will be looking for a two bedroom place even though Lilly and I haven't decided if we are going to live together or not. I like having a place to myself but I get lonely so I am thinking I definately want a roommie. She hasn't given me a straight answer on her plans yet so I am going it alone for the time being. Everything will work out. I really don't need to find something till December 1st anyway. So, I'm gonna put that off my list of things to stress about for now. The weather is fine here, hot, but we got lots of rain this week so everything is nice and green! Tropical. I got bit by some weird bug on my arm and now I think I have staph so I will have to have Jill look at that today. Boo. Hopefully not.
OH!!!! My best boyfriend in the world, Will came to visit me last week! Stayed for 3 days, too short but he had 4 days off from work and was freezing in P-Town, Mass so he showed up here! We had an AMAZING time. We went on Limnos, the boat I used to work on, to Virgin Gorda, Norman Island, Jost Van Dyke and St. John. We stayed in St John at Maho Bay Campground, my favorite place in the world! We called it our "honeymoon"! Pics above!

Hot Hot Hot in da ilons.

Its SO EFFING HOT HERE!!!! It was already 86 degrees at 7am. Things are good. Lilly has decided to stay for the whole season so we are looking for a 3 bedroom place with a co-worker of hers. Hopefully it's somewhere nice and close to the bus route or safari. Lilly and I have also been looking into buying this old Taurus that a friend is selling for 600 bucks, but honestly, having a car opens up a whole new box of pain in the ass. I don't think it's a very good idea.

In other news, my old boss, the owner of Limnos Charters called me and asked me to come back to work for him. He heard I was back. That makes me feel really good but he would have to make me on offer I can't refuse. It's really hard work and I have been making such good money here at Bella Blu that I would have to guarantee that I could make at least the same amount. I would have to start commuting again, which I hate. I would really consider getting a car if he offered me a good deal. I was only getting paid 80 bucks a day plus tips for an all day trip, and it was really really hard work. I made 80 bucks yesterday in 3 hours at lunch. The only thing is, I really miss the water. I think I am going to stick it out here at the cafe. After all, they have agreed to give me the time off I need to take my capt. course. And that's really what's most important here. There is a class starting on Saturday but I don't have the time off or the money to take it yet. I may have to wait till December.

Life is good. The weather is great. Water is clear. I need to go fishing soon though, need to touch some fish!!!!! One of our buddies is mate on a big sport fisher, he says next week he may have a chance to take us. WOO HOOOOOO!

I am off all weekend! I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself! We are having a painting party here at Villa Olga and Jill asked Lilly and I to do the detail work on all the railings and whatnot. We love to do maintenance!

Suckers!

Lilly and I went lobster hunting the other day with Mango, Peanut and FNG. She snared one, I sat on the boat because I was too scared to get in the water. It was late evening, I dont wanna die by shark bite.

Worst blog ever award goes to...

me.

I have been really busy and really stressed out. Having Lilly here has really saved my life though. It's so nice to have her around, I missed the hell outta her. We have been trying to figure out what to do this winter. We both want to go back to Key West but I'm so damn stubborn that I keep coming up with reasons to stay because I don't want to admit I was wrong about coming back. I just want to get my captain's license so bad! My job is still good but I miss the water. Lilly's job pays really well but its hard work and her boss is quite unsavory to put it mildly. We will more than likely save our pennies till late october and bail out of here. The college in key west offers the captains course once a semester but we missed this one, we are thinking about doing it in the spring. We just need to do SOMETHING. That's all I have to say.

Hello Ana and Bill!

Tropical storms Ana and Bill look so come near us this week, not a big deal because Ana is fizzling and Bill will probably get sucked way north. But, hey, its H season and this is to be expected! Lilly gets here in 75 hours! Just in time for the Hurricane Party! Things are going well, I am off to the 25th Annual Texas Society Chili Cook-Off! I wish Lilly could have been here for this party! I have been hanging out with my new roommate Chris alot, he is a boat captain, surfer, boxer, from.... you guessed it.... Texas. He is from Farmers Branch which is like 20 mins from where I am from. Small world. So we are headed to the cook off together to make our executive decisions about the chili. We already put our stamp of DISAPPROVAL on the new mexican food place in Red Hook. Totally sucked. He is a mexican that doesn't speak spanish so I'm not sure if he is even qualified to make decisions like that. LOL. He's looking forward to Mom coming to visit so she can teach him some words! HaHa! Well, I have to run! Time to get to the beach!

Twins?

No... I am not having babies.
But, today as I walked past a rasta fruit stand in town I stopped to try a Quenepa. They are small fruits that I have seen all over but never tried. I asked the rasta man what they tasted like and he said "go on a try one chile". So I picked one off the bushel. I couldn't figure out how to eat it, apparently you are supposed to bite the skin to break it open then the pulp covered seed slides right out and you suck the pulp off the seed and spit the rest out. As I did this in front of the old rasta man and some island ladies lounging under the palm trees they asked "you like?" to which I replied, "it tastes like grass." They all cracked up laughing and the rasta man said he would hand pick my perfect quenepa. So he picked up the bushel and chose my new one. I bit into it and the old rasta man said "IT'S TWINS!!!" I said "What?!" and sure enough, there were two seeds in the pod. He said that means if I get preggo I will have twins. Great. I said "I better be careful then!!!" They all had a good laugh with me today. My Dad is a twin and my Mom always said that I would have twins because it skips a generation. I told the rasta that and he said "da fruit nevah lie!"

Well, tomorrow I work a double, hopefully I will make some money. Sunday I am going to Jost Van Dyke and the Willy T with my friends from work. It's gonna be awesome! I will post pics when I get back.

That's the Willy T. The floating bar/restaurant.

And this is the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke. They call it that because there is no dock here, you have to swim from your boat to the beach... hence the soggy dollars.

VIDEO OF THE DAY!!!

Holy crap. I love this song. You wanna see a Virgin Islands night club erupt into a frenzy??? Ask the DJ to play this song. It was amazing. I can't wait to go out and do it all over again. This is a great video too! Proud of Mr. Sean Kingston from Jamaica. :) Only in the Caribbean are whistles and air horns considered instruments... I love this place. p.s. 13 days till Lilly gets here!

Move over Thelma and Louise...

Jolea and Lilly have taken over.

Lilly will be here on the 19th!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! My partner in crime is actually moving down! I am so happy! She gets here at 3:30pm in two weeks! It's great timing because we are losing a waitress on the 20th. Lilly can just take her place. That and Meg's charter boat company just got two new boats and they need crew so we can pick up shifts there too.

Work is going great! I really like it. I have to work at 6 tonight and tomorrow night, then I am off Thursday and Friday and I work a double on Saturday. Woo HOOOO!

I have been eating vegetarian for a few days now. I don't know what kind of animals they grow at Morningstar Farms but damn they are tasty.... My favorites are the Spicy Black Bean burger and the Buffalo "Chicken" nuggets.

Well I gotta go! See ya later!

Farmer's Market day at Yacht Haven Grande!

Awesome morning! Jill and I went to the farmer's market at the marina this morning! It's so nice to support local farmers and visit with the people of the island. There were fresh baked breads, produce, and crafts from all corners of St. Thomas. We ran into tons of people we knew and I bought a cucumber and some local honey. Jill bought some lettuce, sprouts, passion fruit and some homemade blue cheese dressing. So we had a delicious healthy lunch! Now I am off to Hook Line and Sinker, a local cafe on the water, to meet up with my friend Wes for bloody mary's. Love my life.

HELLO FROM ST. THOMAS!!!

I have really been slacking on the blogging but I am going to try to keep you up to speed from now on!

I am back in Frenchtown, living at Villa Olga! It's HOT HOT HOT and I love it. All my old friends are still in town and it's been awesome catching up with them!

I got a great job at a very well known long standing restaurant here in Frenchtown called Bella Blu.
I will be working there 5 days a week or more which is awesome!

The food is great and it's the oldest restaurant on the island! 32 years. Their specialties are Shnitzel and pastas. It's sooooo good! I am trying to stay away from the pasta for fear of getting faaaaaat! I am so lucky I got this job! The people who work there have worked there for a long time, the girl I am replacing has been working there for 2 and a half years.

I am living at the guest house right now with Jill and Doug but pretty soon I will be moving into the house that Jill and Doug bought over the last year when I was gone. The house is right here in Frenchtown, it's a two bedroom place and I would have a roomate who is already living there. Jill says he is really nice and laid back, he's a surfer. Sounds like someone I could get along with. Jill actually took me over to the house the other day and showed me around. The house is beautiful! HUGE kitchen, a real living room! HUGE bedrooms! I can't wait. It's so nice to have work so close, it takes me less than 5 minutes to walk to work. It's a huge difference from when I lived here before. I used to have to get up at 5:30am to walk to the safari stop to catch it by 6am, in order to make it all the way across the island to work by 7am just to work all day on the boat, drag tourists through the Baths at Virgin Gorda, fix them lunch, put away the lunch, take them snorkeling, save their lives, take them back to St. Thomas, clean the boat in the heat of the day all to get back on the safari at 6pm to be home at 7pm, completely, thoughrouly exhausted. I don't want to do that 6 days a week again. At Bella Blu, I wake up at 9:30am, take a swim in the pool, take a shower, get dressed, walk up the street, work from 11am-4:30pm, walk home, take a swim in the pool, have a cocktail, watch a movie, go to sleep. Oh boy. On a day where I work the night shift it's even better! Wake up at whatever the hell time I want, lounge by the pool, or go into town for lunch with Meg and the crew of the Schooner Doubloon, or go to the beach, then come home by 3pm, shower, get dressed, walk to work by 4:30, work till 10pm, come home, watch some tv, go to bed. Oh boy. YAAAAAAAY! And sometimes I will work a double but thats all good too because it's mas dinero! Oh and we are closed on Sundays so I never have to worry about missing out on SUNDAY FUNDAY!!!!

Speaking of Sunday Funday, The 25th annual Texas Society Chili Cook-Off is being held at Brewers Bay here in St. Thomas on August 16th, a Sunday!!! I was here for it last year and it was one of the best days ever! This is my landlord Doug at last year's event...


And this pirate ship on the right is the Schooner Bones, where me and all my friends took breaks from the heat and the chili on the beach while the coast guard dropped frog men out of helicopters! We hope to bring the boat around again this year and do the same. Swinging from the crosstrees while intoxicated probably isn't the safest thing to do but hey, at least we all landed in the water.

Chili cook off madness.

I am looking into the captain's courses because the one I wanted to take isn't till November. I hope to find one in August so Lilly can take it with me. She wants to come down for a while but she wants to be productive as well. Smart. If she can't take her class while she is here then she is just going to go back to Key West and take it because she can live with her family. I hope we can find one sooner. Well, I think that about updates everyone on everything. I will write more later!

BYEEEEEE!

At this point...

I can imagine you are all quite tired of my behavior. I have managed to quit yet another well paying job in search of something that excites me. The yacht wasn't my scene. Not gonna say anything more than that, if you want the whole story you can email me. I quit in Newport after the offshore passage. I loved being out there in the middle of the ocean for 6 days. It was so quiet. But after that I was happy to be back in the land of people. Newport was fun, got to see some old friends. Then I went up to Boston for the Liberty Clipper crew reunion! It was awesome!!! Saw all my old sailing friends and had a great time with Lilly and Sean. I am currently in Provincetown, Mass, staying with my friend Will that I worked on the Schooner Jolly 2 Rover with this year in Key West. He is living here for the summer. This is a beautiful place. Cape Cod is so green and lush!

After careful consideration of my life's direction I have decided to move back to St. Thomas and pursue my 100 Ton Captain's license. I want to take it where I took my STCW license course because I like the way the guy teaches. Not to mention, I really miss that water and the sand and sun and the life down there. I have amazing friends. Can I just say that right now? I called up Jill and Doug who were like my surrogate parents in STT, and when Jill answered the phone the first thing she said to me was, "when are you coming home?" I said, how's Saturday? She said "perfect, call me when you get here you are staying with us."

I have a few jobs in the works there too. I think I would like to bartend a few nights and work on a boat a few days to keep it interesting. I was working myself to death doing all day trips on Limnos. When I get my capt license I will see about maybe running little 6pac boats to Jost Van Dyke or something like that. Who knows, that is a ways off.

I just got to thinking, obviously I am going to work on boats for a living. Thats what I do right? Ok, well, its time to move onward and upward. Can't just keep on being a deckhand forever now can I? Besides, I think I would be an awesome captain.

Sorry for being a total mess. I haven't been blogging because I have kinda been dissappointed in myself. So, here I go again on my own.

I'm really gonna try harder to make you proud of me instead of just shaking your heads saying "what the hell has she got herself into this time?"

Well, I leave P-Town on Wednesday, headed to Boston to visit Lilly and Sean again before I fly to St. Thomas on Saturday.

Catch ya on the flipside. Island time.

One day.... we will leave the dock....

Hello everyone! Happy Saturday! Things are around here are calming down a bit. We have most of our projects done and we will be leaving here on Tuedsay evening. Our generator will be done on Monday but we have to wait for a shipment on Tuesday before we leave. Monday I have to go aloft and wax the mast from top to bottom. 100 feet up! Hope they don't drop me! :) I have had a nice time here in Ft. Lauderdale but I really really really want to get out on the ocean, and get to a new town where I have never been and see some things I have never seen.

It looks like it will take us 6 or 7 days to get from here to Newport, RI. We will be there till the 14th of July then we will head to Martha's Vinyard.

I commemerated my Key West spring with a new tattoo.... yep...

YAY! MIKE IS ON THE BLOGGER!!!

Yall check out my good friend from High School's new blog. Mike is a storm chaser and photog and is freakin awesome!!! Go welcome him to our world!!!

DAMAGE PATH!

MOM! Make these...

http://www.seasaltwithfood.com/2009/05/hasselback-potatoes.html

they look YUMMMMMM!

MOM! Make these...

http://www.seasaltwithfood.com/2009/05/hasselback-potatoes.html

they look YUMMMMMM!

LOL

Our charter site...

http://www.oysteryachtcharter.com/oceana.html

Got a haircut and re-squeezed the spinnaker...

Productive day at the dock here at Harbour Towne Marina in Dania Beach, Fl.

This morning started out with our computer tech from New Orleans coming to the boat to sort our our interwebs problems... needless to say I am up and running on my mac! I feel relaxed and at home now that I have my own bunk and my computer attached to the web. Ahhhh....

Then I pulled everything out of the lazarette so we could get the giant spinnaker out of there, when I say giant.... I mean GINORMOUS!!! This thing weighs like 500 pounds. no joke. That's it, the colorful one in the pic. Well we had to raise it in its squeezer thingy that keeps it all together and re-pack it because it was all messed up so that was a sweaty job. Then we put it back in the laz and I packed all the dive gear and lines and fishing gear on top of it. whew!

Then, we did some laundry and the guys came to disassemble the generator that decieded to eat itself last week. Dirty job. Then I cleaned the interior and tried out the new vacume we bought. It's VERY quiet and light.

Then we took the bimini down and gave it to the cleaning dudes to get the stains removed before we leave next week.

Then we wrapped things up and headed into town. Lee needed to go to Best Buy to get a new flat screen and blu ray player so he dropped me and Amy off at the hairdressers because we both were in desperate need of a hair cut. I haven't had mine cut since D.D. cut it last year... no joke... So the lady started cutting, and cutting... and cutting... she cut about 4 inches off. I needed it. Feels good! Now it's time to color it and get on the big blue watery road. North bound and down, rollin up and truckin'!!!

Amy is cooking traditional english "Toad in a hole" and no Mom... It's got nothing to do with eggs in toast...

Sausages laid in the bottom of a baking dish, covered with a mixture of eggs, milk and flour, baked in the oven till the whole thing rises like a big biskit!

p.s. that pic was taken before our hair cuts in Miami Beach.

TA DAAAAAA!

Sitting still for another week or so...

Well, one of our generators bit the dust on friday so we are headed back to ft. lauderdale tomorrow for another week or so while we wait on our gen to be fixed... sucks because it puts a damper on our fun plans up north. We are still going to NYC but we may have to shorten or postpone the Boston area visit... blah. Oh well. The owner already said that we could take our time heading back south after the big new england summer trip. we will be here in the yard for 6 weeks starting in October. So we may stop in the Boston area on the way back down and also in Charleston or Savannah. I would love to go to either spot! I really miss Savannah! Mom sent me a lil care package and I asked her to send my book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil because that book is awesome and takes place in Savannah... I read this morning for about 30 mins before I had to put it down and get to work. It's just so freakin good! It's a true story so if you ever get a chance to read it I highly reccomend you do so. j

I fell in the marina on Saturday night. My cell phone and ID and credit card are at the bottom of the marina. Good thing I postponed getting that iPhone! As soon as I find a bank of america I can get a new card and get back on line. I'm so excited!

Our owners trip on Saturday went really well! Everyone had fun and they invited us to go bowling at Lucky Strikes lanes here in south beach yesterday so we did, it was so fun! We bowled and drank and ate and had a blast! I taught the owner of my boat the top gun hi-five, you know when Goose and Maverick are playing volleyball and they do the hi-five then bring it all the way around and do the low five... classic. We were on the same team so that was our deal... they are probably wondering where the hell they found me... lol!

My old chef Justin from the Seattle yacht is in ft lauderdale now too! His generator broke as well so I will be seeing them soon. I just saw them in key west a couple of weeks ago but I can't get enough of Justin and the scoot!

It's hot as hell here. South Beach Miami!!!! I am ready to get out of here though. Ready to head north where you need a blanket at night. My focsle doesnt have a/c yet so it's freakin hot in there right now. good thing mosquitos don't like me because I have been sleeping with my hatch open.

SHIT! I FORGOT TO WATCH THE SEASON OPENER OF TRUE BLOOD!!!! DAMN!!! It was last night. I will have to watch it online...

Gotta go. Back to work!