Probably not out finest moment

Okay, as the title suggests this was probably not our finest moment on the island. It was fun nevertheless! We were doing a themed boat party - Cowboys & Cowgirls, Pimps & Tarts for Marloes's & Denis's Birthday and Ryan's going away party. The costume came from the charity store for under $2. Ironically, some of our friends in the BVI posted some pictures of us, and I received a few compliments from my friends back home on my new choice of hair color and haircut. Let me re-assure you my friends, my hair is as real as the gun Ben is holding in the picture.

Ben & some random tart he picked up

Clive & Nikki

Mel & Jas visit our little island

Jassie and Mel gave us a visit mid May for two weeks. We were definatly looking forward to taking some days off to spend with these guys and catch up whats beeing going on back home in Edmonton & Calgary.

This is Mel's photo of the island as they were landing

The view across our house

First night, we went straight to Mulligan's for a Mully Burger and to give the boys thier hockey fix on the big screen.

.....and more sports

while the girls are left slaving in the kitchen!

Sunset at Bananakeet

Bananakeet gives everyone sweet sunset shots just as the, you guessed it, sun is setting!

View of Road Town from the top of the hills

Serene Trunk Bay was all to ourselves

Caribbean football

Trunk Bay

Walking trail to the Batcaves at Shark Bay National Park

Thats one huge cactus!

I think this little guys needs a new home, as this one is obvoiously too small!

Fancy this crawling in your bedroom?

Dundee has regained his agility - seeing how well he did on the hike across bowlerds and ladders - hes a puppy again!

When we were walking through the boulders and caves, there was one area where Dundee was not able to go over by himself. Ben helped Dundee, by lifting him on top of the bowler, and pick him up on the other side. This is the photo before the little accident....

Inside the cavernous boulder known as the Bat Cave at Shark Bay National Park

No bats this time... just Jassie, Mel, Ben and Myself

Captain "I'm Blue dabadee" Jassie driving Island Rover

This puts the store bought Jenga to shame.

Watch out Mel, its leaning towards you!

Hi Jon Bon Jovi!

Final day out on Island Rover with Casey

Going away Party for Ryan

To commend California Ryan's last weeks on the island, KPMG invited all its employees and spouses to Virgin Gorda for the day.

The trip kicked off at the ferry dock in town. We agreed to show up at 8:45am, and take the 9am ferry to Virgin Gorda. Ben and I showed up at 8:50 and we were followed by the first KPMG partner, Casey - alone! 9:57 approached and everyone was inquiring with Casey about his wife's whereabouts. Apparently, she was taking too long to get ready and he decided to take a separate car. We waited on the boat, and just as Tanis was parking her car at the ferry carpark, the ferry started to sail away! Embarrased, Tanis arrived to Virgin Gorda on the next ferry.

We arrived at the scooter yard to select our scooters for the day. "Have you ever been on a scooter?", asked the operator. My anticipated "no" lead me to a "test drive". I failed the test drive, which left Ben's scooter 100 some pounds heavier.

Ryan

Casey

Copper Mine National Park
Copper was mined the early 18th century.
This is where I picked up a couple of copper glittering stones to take home

The rest of the day went as follows - Scooter to the convenience store, pick up a 24 pack, scooter to the beach, play bocce ball, drink, scooter to Leverick Bay for lunch, drink, scooter to another beach, catch a wild chicken for fun, and drink.

Okay, so it didn't exactly transpire like that.

To protect the company's identity in case the employees want to sue the Company, I chose not posted any photos (just kidding)....however, in the course of our scooter expedition, Ben was the first to crash into the curb and injured his knee, scuffed the side of the scooter, while I jumped off just before he hit the curb and threw a ***fit

Secondly, Casey slammed on his brakes and flew forward off his scooter and smashed up all the beers in the backpack and put a little more than a scuff on the scooter.

Thirdly, Mark who was also was piggybacking Kim took a generous turn and found himself on the pavement sustaining any casualties.

The scooter operators eyes widended upon our return with the scooters into the yard. We felt like we were stealing local tourism profts when they told us we had to pay $50 for the damage.

Let it be a lesson, scooters are dangerous! Beer? No, that wasn't a concern.

Tony, Mark, Ben and Ryan

Views from Virgin Gorda

The island furthest in the photo is Necker Island - Sir Richard Branson exclusive home.

April and May is the start of spring. Its always hot, but during Spring and Summer it the temperature goes up another 5 degrees and the humidity increases to nearly 90%. Its also the start of rainy season. Our luck has it that every time we want to take a day off work and go to the beach, the sky opens up to rainfall.

When it rains, it pours! There are only a few things to do on the island - go to the movies, go bowling, sleep and eat. When there is nothing better to do, we prefer to do lots of eating! The selection of restaurants is decent on this 150 square foot island.

On one rainy day, I was treated to an impressive array of sushi which was hand made at our table at the SKY restaurant. SKY is atop a larger hill on the island and has 360 degree views of all the surrounding islands. Its a favourite of ours and its always a crowd-pleaser when friends come over.

Spicy Tuna rolls, Tropical rolls, Ebi tempura rolls, Paradise rolls, and Philadelphia rolls...mmm

A bit of a local celebrity...

In recent weeks, Ben made an impressive come-back to football.

'Wolues F.C. inflicted a stunning 7-0 defeat on the BVI Masters thanks to inspirational Man of the Match and scorer of an incredible goal from 25 yards out, Ben Drummond. '

Pretty impressive headline! Maybe Ben's dream of joining the national team is closer than he thinks!

http://www.virginislandsnewsonline.com/news/wolues-wonderful-seven-goal-mauling-masters

Charlottes leaving BVI

The reality of living in a Caribbean island like the BVI is that friends come and go. Today we celebrating Charlotte's going away by taking out a boat trip to Sandy Cay to drink some champagne, Jost van Dyke to drink the Original Painkillers from Soggy Dollar Bar and finally the Willy T...This is our first time to Sandy Cay

Everyone gathering at Marina Cay to take Clive's 'Stripper' (the boat!) and the 'honey badger' on the day trip.

Honey Badger in the blue...

White beaches at Sandy Cay

While we are on the discussion of friends, I thought it would be interesting to introduce some from our group of monkeys...

This is Nikki - Recently broken up with her boyfriends, she came from Spain to meet her long time friend Clive, who also recently broke up with his girlfriend. This lovely lady has more energy than I ever will, and I wont even let you guess her age!

This is Clive - Stripper is his boat, rough around the edges but still provides a good ride. Clive works at a trust company in the BVI, and originally came from Guernsey. Recently, Nikki and Clive adopted a dog, who coincidentally is having a portion of his manhood snipped today! ouch!

This is Graham - He's not really our friend, but he came out for the boat trip. Interesting fact - Graham is Sir Richard Branson private pilot!

This is Matt Richardson - He doesn't come out much since he started boot camp! Laying off the beers and wont have to go to boot camp! We are looking to buy a boat, and coincidentally Matt is looking to buy a boat with someone else....who knows, we might be on to something!

This is my lovely and well mannered husband... :o)

This is Kate - She is the 1 out of 5 white people actually born on this island. Yep - shes a local!

This is Dennis Murphy - We call him Dr. Murphy, cause hes very intelligent. Dennis works with me at Baker Tilly in the valuations department. He's still looking for a girlfriend on the island

As the rest of the night progresses, the honey badger tries racing us to the Willy T.

We end our trip here! Ah, home sweet home...