Oh Captain, my Captain...

We have decided to operate a few charters next year in order to supplement our income and write off some of our expenses. We have been thinking about doing this for months, ever since our friends Courtney and Dustin suggested it to us last year in St. Kitts. Since then, we have met a number of other couples who have also encouraged us to get set up for chartering. They all have said the boat is perfect for the purpose.

Our thinking is that we will set aside up to 10 weeks per year for chartering, with the intention of actually accepting no more than 4 to 6 week-long charters per year. We will take 4 adults or 2 adults plus 2 children, providing them island-hopping tours of the US and British Virgin Islands, or potentially other itineraries as we cruise down and back to and from St. Lucia.

Our job will be to provide great meals and beverages, clean linens, and FUN. We have purchased 4 sets of snorkel gear for guests, and will take them to the beaches and reefs in the dinghy for swimming and snorkeling. In addition, we bought 4 blow-up floaties, and are planning to purchase either a two-person sea kyak or two single seat sea kyaks. We will also take guests to the various island restaurants and tiki-bars for onshore dining and music experiences. Some of the islands also have wonderful hiking trails, and historical sites that can be visited.

We’ve been told we can expect to charge upwards of $10,000 to $12,000 per week for 4 people for six or seven days of cruising. It appears we can probably clear $5,000 to $6,000 after meeting our expenses. This will really help balance our budget, and will provide the opportunity to write off much of the operating expense the boat incurs.

However, in order to legally engage in taking people aboard for hire, we’ve had to meet the requirements set by various regulatory agencies. It has taken several weeks of time and effort, plus about a thousand dollars in fees, but it had to be done. Captain’s License

First, I needed to obtain a Captain’s License of the class which allows me to take up to six guests aboard my boat. I enrolled at The Captain’s School here at American Yacht Harbour. This is a two-week, 56-hour course, followed by the Coast Guard Exam. This will result in a 100-ton OUPV Captain’s license (Operator of Uninspected Private Vessel). Larger commercial vessels carrying more people require a Master’s license. This is a tough course, and covers an amazing array of seafaring skills.

STCW Certification (safety)
Second, I had to pass the STCW courses and obtain Certification in the following classes:

• 7 ½ hours Basic Firefighting (they let us put out several types of fires at the local dump)
• 6 ½ hours Personal Survival Techniques (they made us jump in the water with and without wearing various floatation devices, as well as right an overturned life raft - see pictures)
• 2 ¼ hours Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities
• 8 hours First Aid and CPR (yes, we used the dummy for mouth-to-mouth)

The STCW training was all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and it was pretty demanding physically. I was thoroughly pooped by Sunday night!

The ever-fashionable GUMBY SUIT! (Survival suit for cold-water)

Our instructor insisted that we be able to don the survival suit in less than three minutes.

My entry style may not look very graceful, but dammit, there are four young beauties wearing bikinis in this life raft. Every seaman's fantasy!

We each had to right an overturned life raft. If she can do it, then so can I, dang it!

Our grizzled old instructor, and some of my less grizzly classmates. Note that their eyes are closed. The instructor made us close our eyes, turn around 360 degrees, find a life jacket on the deck and put it on while keeping eyes closed. This is intended to simulate finding your life jacket in the dark, after being torpedoed by a U-boat, or colliding with an iceberg, ala Titanic.

Yes, the old dude finally made it into the life raft.

Why aren't life rafts self-righting? Because our instructor enjoys turning it over and making us right it!

Just like Ivory Soap....it floats!

TWIC (Transportation Workers Identification Card)
Third, Susan and I both had to apply for and be issued TWIC Cards by the US Department of Homeland Security. This is a new ID Card that everyone involved in the public transportation industry must have. That includes people from airline pilots to longshoremen. The good thing about it is that it has a chip containing our digital fingerprints, and is good for five years. The TWIC database is becoming the single database used for USCG license holders, as well as all merchant mariners. We had to go to Charlotte Amalie for this, and it took a couple of weeks. We finally got these yesterday.

We also needed to connect with local yacht brokers, and get our boat listed with at least one clearinghouse web site. We’ve begun making contacts for this part of the process.

St. Thomas has proven to be a great place for me to take the necessary classes, and for us to begin making logistical decisions for this next phase of our life aboard KINGDOM.

A Few Pix of the Virgins (Not us - the Islands)

We spent a week cruising along with our new friends Jill and Dick. They are from North Carolina, and sail their 48' Island Packet, "Changin' Tags". They had two couples as guests aboard their boat, and we took turns hosting cocktails and/or dinner at the various anchorages that week. It was a bit confusing, since both their male guests were named "Jim".

Susan, Jim 1, and Jill (who appears to be in the witness protection program...)


















Jim 2 and Dick (evening cocktails at Cooper Island)


















Jill and Diane (Cooper Island)

















Dick and Jill's sailboat, "Changin' Tags", at Cooper Island, BVI


















Two views out into the Caribbean from Cooper Island anchorage


































Looking West from Cooper Island - View is of Sir Francis Drake Channel

















Nice picture of "Changin' Tags" at anchor - Cooper Island

















The ceiling of Sidney's Peace and Love restaurant on Jost Van Dyke is hung with hundreds of T-Shirts donated by visiting sailors over the years.




















Sidney's restaurant has a unique self-service bar. It is stocked with everything, including mixers, ice, booze, beer, and wine. Customers keep track of their drinks in a notebook, then pay the cashier when they're done.
From left to right -
Jim 2, Dick (behind the bar) Mickey, Jim 1, and Jill (I think...)

















Diane, Jill, and Dick

















Two view of Kingdom at the American Yacht Harbor Marina, St. Thomas, USVI

A Month in the Virgins

After seeing Bryan off to his new life in Miami, we turned to the maintenance tasks awaiting us. Fortunately, St. Thomas provides us the opportunity to engage competent marine technical experts, and the ability to locate supplies and parts that are sometimes difficult to find elsewhere in the Caribbean.

I should mention here that our laptop computer had become ill, and had to go into the Computer Hospital. We took it into a repair place in Charlotte Amalie, where it stayed for three weeks. Several hundred bucks later, it came back with a new motherboard. This should help explain why our email and blog updates have been running behind schedule.

The computer repair was especially critical to Susan, since she only had until the end of February to complete her coursework to renew her real estate license. As you may know, realtors must complete 24 hours of continuing education every two years to maintain their real estate license. Susan made it three days under the wire!

Also, our big 12KW Generator needed to have its fuel injection pump rebuilt. This is the generator which creates the power to run our watermaker and air conditioners when we are at anchor (away from shore power). We located a good diesel mechanic, who removed the pump, and sent it to a company in Texas that specializes in rebuilding them. That also took about three weeks.

The main power control panel also needed the attention of a marine electrician. The “Shore Power 2” system kept shutting off for no apparent reason. The electrician found that the GFI breaker had become defective. A new one was ordered from Miami and installed two weeks later.

Our hot water heater had begun showing signs of impending doom. While working on the generator, I noticed a small drip below the water heater. I traced it to a rusty spot on its bottom. Susan and I know what havoc can be created when a water heater ruptures, and you have VERY HOT water spraying under 40 pounds of pressure all over the place. An engine room full of sensitive equipment is no place to allow that to occur. So we found a marine plumber, bought a new water heater from the local ACE Hardware, and installed it the next day.

While re-supplying our paper goods, which are stored under the floorboards of the forward stateroom, I discovered more water present than should normally be in that area of the bilge. After a bit of investigation, I determined that two out of the three bilge pumps that service that section of the bilge had gone bad. Our friendly neighborhood marine plumber quickly remedied that situation with some high-quality re-wiring and two new pumps.

Once these repairs had been made, we decided to join some new friends for a week of cruising in the BVI’s. Jill and Dick are from Burlington N.C., and are our neighbors here in the marina. We met them our first day here. They are aboard a late-model 48’ Island Packet sailing yacht, which they sail down from the Chesapeake each December. They spend the season here, and return to the States in April. Their children, friends and relatives come to visit and sail with them at intervals each season. Since Dick and Jill have been coming here annually for at least 8 years, they know all the neat anchorages, beaches, and snorkeling spots around here.

We enjoyed our cruise with them, as we traded off dinners aboard and ashore, swimming and snorkeling together. Midway through the week, our big generator overheated and as designed, shut itself down (a very big safety feature). We spent a day at anchor in Gorda Sound, where I was able to replace the impeller in the raw water pump from my spare parts inventory. That resolved the problem. We visited the islands of Jost van Dyke, Virgin Gorda, Cooper Island, and two harbors on either side of St. John; Waterlemon Bay and Little Lamshure Bay . During my repair day, Dick and Jill took their friends on up to Anagada, and met us back at Cooper Island. It was a nice break, with a spectacular sunset sail aboard Changin’Tags under full sail which has Susan completely re-enchanted with sailing.

At the end of that week, Susan and I intended to find an anchorage within a dinghy ride of the amenities of Red Hook, but it was not to be. The weather deteriorated, and we spent a night rolling at anchor in Secret Harbor, Nazareth Bay. So we headed back to American Yacht Harbor Marina, in 30 knot winds, and 8’ seas.

Asylum for Bryan

As previously noted, we arrived at Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI at 2:00pm, Monday, January 10th, 2009. Cruz Bay is the principal location of the Customs & Immigration office for yachtsmen coming into the area from BVI. However, Cruz Bay is tiny, and full of mooring buoys more or less permanently occupied by resident boats. There is a Customs Dock, but when we entered the bay it was full.

The alternate anchorage is around the point to the west, in Caneel Bay. Boats unable to get into Cruz Bay are expected to anchor there and use their dingy or tender to motor back around the point to the Customs office in Cruz Bay for clearing in procedures. So that was what we planned to do.

As KINGDOM motored OUT of Cruz Bay, we picked up an emergency distress call from a boat just offshore a quarter mile. The Coast Guard was requesting that assistance be rendered by any boat nearby. We spotted the distressed boat, and hailed them on VHF Channel 16. They were very glad to hear from us indeed. We notified the Coasties that we would assist the distressed boat.

Aboard the small boat were two women, whose husbands had been SCUBA diving. The men were swept away from their boat by the current, had run out of air, and were by then hanging onto a navigational buoy about a mile away, just in front of Cruz Bay. The women had somehow entangled a line around their boat’s propeller, which prevented them from starting their engine. Our first task was to maneuver KINGDOM as close to the navigational buoy as possible. Susan and Bryan helped the two men aboard, along with their SCUBA gear. Once the divers were aboard KINGDOM, we then had to get as close as possible to the distressed boat in order to transfer the men back aboard it. This was a bit tricky, as we were dealing with strong currents in the channel, and fairly brisk winds. However, we were able to do this successfully. Then we circled their boat while one of the men untangled the line from the propeller. Once they had their engine started, we left them to proceed on their way.

All this took about two hours, so by the time we dropped anchor in Caneel Bay, it was 4:00 pm, and we were exhausted, grungy and hungry. We had started the day very early, without taking time for morning showers. We had fought heavy seas through the morning hours, and thus eaten no lunch underway, so our first order of business was now something to eat. By the time we had each had a sandwich, it was 4:30pm. I started hailing the Cruz Bay Customs office, but they did not respond until nearly 5:00pm. I asked if we could wait until morning to clear in, since it was so late. They refused permission, and told us to be in their office before their closing time at 5:30pm.

Quickly dropping our dinghy, we (Susan, Bryan and I) scooted around the point, arriving at the Customs office at 5:15pm. While I began filling out our usual paperwork, Susan took Bryan by the hand (which was shaking), and approached the young Immigration Officer in charge. She said, “We have a small issue here…” The young officer politely offered assistance. She then said “We’ve just learned that our crewman here is Cuban, and that he wants to apply for asylum in the USA.” There was a momentary silence in the office. The young officer got a sort of silly grin on his face, as if to say, “You’re joking…aren’t you?” The older of the two Customs officers, growled, “You people have a lot of nerve, coming in here just before quitting time with an asylum request!” Susan politely reminded him that we had requested to wait until morning, but that he had denied our request.

They were very nice after that, and told us they had never had to deal with an asylum request, and didn’t quite know how to proceed. They inspected and photocopied Bryan’s documents, and made a few calls to other officers in St. Thomas. They told us to take Bryan to the Homeland Security office in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas as early as possible the next day for his asylum request to be processed. Breathing a sigh of relief, we went back to our boat. KINGDOM, Susan and I were cleared in.
Next day, Tuesday, January 11th, we made a reservation to tie up at the American Yacht Harbor marina, in Red Hook Bay, St. Thomas. Once the boat was squared away, we arranged for a taxi to take the three of us to the Homeland Security office, located in the Niskey Center on the western outskirts of Charlotte Amalie. We arrived about noon. The Security officer on duty called another office, and told us to make ourselves comfortable, and that someone would be there shortly to assist us. About 30 minutes later, Special Agent Fraser arrived, and introduced herself to us. She was a stocky, no-nonsense type, and looked as though she would be comfortable as a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers. She was courteous and professional, and asked Bryan to fill out a questionnaire before beginning her interviews. She told us that her initial task was to verify Bryan’s real identity. She took him off to an interview room, and our waiting began…

Several hours later, interspersed with a short interview with me, Special Agent Fraser emerged to tell Susan and me that they would need to “detain” our crewman while they completed their interviews and processing. She told us that he would be transferred to a cell in the city police station. We, of course, wanted her to release him back to us overnight, but we were unable to persuade her. She told us he would be comfortable and well-fed in the police station jail. We were instructed to call her the next day for an update on his status. That was on Tuesday afternoon.

We didn’t get much information on Bryan’s status on Wednesday, so we decided to try to visit him in the jail on Thursday, just to make sure he was being treated well. We arrived at the police station about 2:00pm, only to find that we were dressed inappropriately for a prisoner visit. We had dressed in our best khaki shorts, with collared shirts, as the weather was warm and humid. We were told, unfortunately, that visitors are not allowed to wear short pants or sandals in the jail. (It would have been nice to have been told that ahead of time by Agent Fraser!) It takes a couple of hours via public transport to go from our marina to the police station in downtown Charlotte Amalie. The only thing we could do was ask the attendant at the jail to let Bryan know we had been there, and return to the boat. We determined to go back and see him the next day.
Friday morning, Susan called Special Agent Fraser to let her know we were heading back to the jail to visit Bryan. But she advised us to come to her office instead. She was going to bring him there in about an hour. Susan excitedly asked her if Bryan would be released that afternoon. Agent Fraser said, “I’m working on that…”

Arriving once again at the Homeland Security Office, we sat down to wait. Agent Fraser told us that an FBI Agent had flown in from Miami, just to interview Bryan, but that it wouldn’t take very long – maybe a half hour. Several hours later, Bryan was released!

We walked to a nearby marina restaurant to celebrate with beer and sandwiches. Bryan insisted on treating us, as his first act as a free man, on his way to US Citizenship. He was also able to telephone his Mother in Cuba, to let her know that he was over the first hurdle.

Bryan was given legal documents which described his status. Officially he was released on his own recognizance, and was free to travel to Miami. Once there, he was to report to the Immigration offices, and formally apply for a series of interviews and hearings, after which an immigration judge would rule on his eligibility for asylum.

So Bryan spent Friday evening and Saturday aboard KINGDOM. On Saturday, Brian gave the boat one last thorough scrubbing, and then packed his clothing, books, and medical gear. Susan made the reservations for his flight to Miami early Sunday morning, where he was to be met by his cousins and an aunt at the airport. Saturday night, we played our last few games of dominoes with Bryan, and turned in early.

By 5:30am Sunday morning, Bryan was on his way to the airport, and on to Miami. Sunday evening, he called us to let us know he had arrived safely, and was with his aunt and her family. We had already begun to miss his lively presence!