De new houzz be coming along, mon.

We bet you think that all we do down here is party. Well, our social life is actually pretty busy. But we also have had time to concentrate on designing our new home. Our architect, Rob Crane has offered lots of great ideas. But this house designing stuff is hard. What to include, what to leave out. How many bedrooms, the size of cisterns. Do we really need a hot tub? Door knobs or pulls? Anyway, we bet you are a tiny bit curious to see where we are. So here goes:

This is what the house will look like when viewed from the sea. Basically it's a public area on the top floor. Great room (living, dining, kitchen) in the largest square. A small den/television room is one step up the hill, in the middle. Two more steps up leads to the master bedroom, at the left. You will see an outdoor shower at the extreme left. An outdoor pavilion and pool are located at the extreme right. Downstairs are two guest bedrooms with a shared bath between them. Also storage areas. Here's a floor plan that should make it easier to understand.

We have been looking at where to site the home on our lot and how to provide for parking and just general access.

Here's my sketch of what the great room will be like using my existing furniture and adding a few new pieces. We think the whole thing will have a clean, modern feel. But with some nods to traditional caribbean design, like an exposed wood ceiling with fans and travertine floors.

Rob is making some tweeks to the plan and we hope to have that wrapped up in the next week or two. Then he will start on 'working drawings' like the electric and such. Also at that point we will begin the process of finding a contractor. See, we aren't just party boys. We be workin' it. X marks the spot where the house will be. We be in heaven!

Sailing is work. Not.

Since Bob of JimBob can't image entertaining friends in de islands without taking them out to sea, we hired a boat! And what better boat than the fifty footer owned by our two new friends, Captain Greg and Captain Barbara.

Two captains? How can you sail a yacht with two captains? Well these two manage very well, thank you. Here they are, and their yacht too.

JimBob and the Rogers arrived at the Caneel Bay Resort dock at about 9AM. Yikes, that's early down here! Anyway, Greg and Barbara greeted us and escorted us aboard. It was an absolutely gorgeous day in the VI. But then, what day isn't? Sorry.
 
Off we go to windward towards Jost Van Dyke and the BVI. (That's British Virgin Islands for the land lubber) Captain Barbara was at the helm while Captain Greg trimmed the sails. JimBob and the Rogers did nothing. For all you boat owners: imaging just sitting back and letting someone else do all the pulling. Fantastic! There were rumors that whales were about, but on this day we didn't see any. Maybe another day.

Just as Bob was getting really relaxed, Barbara asked if he would take the wheel. Are you kidding? Bob was at the wheel in an instant. What a helm, light yet responsive. That old 37 footer at home is looking pretty small. Bob, get over it! Our hosts were nice enough to take us up 'The Narrows' so that we could sail in front of the new lot where the house will be built. What a treat.


Next we picked up a mooring at Leinster Bay and went for a bit of snorkeling. This was Joanne's first experience. She loved it. Lot's of cool fish and coral to see. Dave said he saw a barracuda. Good thing he wasn't wearing any 'bling'.


Finally it was time for lunch replete with rum punches all around. Jim. Not. The sail back to Caneel was all downwind and smooth.

We passed by Soper's Hole for you BVI lovers. We were back at the dock by 3PM and headed home for a quick shower. The day ended at our favorite watering hole, Zozo's bar. Located right off the waterfront, it is one of the best places for a magical sunset view towards St. Thomas and a good drink. The sun set into the water. Ahhhhh.

We be on de move, mon.

Since we knew that our friends the Rogers were activity kind of folks, we planned lots of outdoor stuff to do when they came to visit. One of these was a hike on a famous St. John trail: The Reef Bay Trail. It's part of The Virgin Island National Park. You can hike this trail from the top to the bottom and then hike back up to the top. Locals says it is about a 3 hour hike. Then we found out that we could go with one of the park rangers and that we would hike to the bottom and a boat would take us back around the island to Cruz Bay. Ya, mon. Dat's de way to do it.

We met our ranger at the National Parks Headquarters and were ferried by taxi to the trail head. Then down we went. It is a rocky decent but not as challenging as expected. The ranger gave us lots of information and local color about what we were seeing. Look, a termite nest. Wow, huge.

We hiked up to a place where natives carved symbols into the rocks over 1000 years ago. Very cool. We lunched by the side of a natural spring. Then it was time to hike down towards the seashore.

At the bottom are the ruins of a sugar plantation / rum factory. And restrooms. Anyone need TP? There we were met by our power boat to take us home.

Some decided to swim out to the boat. We took the easy way. The dink.Time to relax and cool our little feets!
Joanne and Dave were ready for more. The boat ride home was great because we saw parts of island we'd never have the chance to see by land.

All in all it was awesome. Next activity: a sailing adventure.