Happy Holidays

Hello to all and Happy Holidays......

It's been a crazy rushed time here at the villa. We had a few weeks without guest so I've been doing some minor projects which always comes down to the wire.....

So Williams family of 4 gets in around 4pm and lets us know that Dollar rent a car does not have a car for them, even though they have a "confirmation" number.... Dollar hooks them with some other no name rental car company and finally gets them a car and I meet them at the dairy around 6 pm..... Get them checked into the villa and they decide to head up to "Kokopeli" for some pizza and then do some shopping at Cost-U-Less. Well we get a call about 9:30 pm and they have had a flat tire. Car is packed with groceries and it's dark out, they didn't take one of the 4 flash lights that we supply them with in the villa either... So I jump in the car with a can of fix a flat and go to the rescue. I find them in the dark on the side of the road over by Mahogany Run Golf Course. Fix a flat runs out all over the pavement. Whole inside of the tire's sidewall is gone. We transfer all the groceries to my car and find the spare tire but no lug wrench or jack..... We then unload all the groceries from my truck so we can get to the lug wrench which in under the groceries and then it turns out that it doesn't fit their car anyways.... So I take 2 of them with the groceries back to the villa, grab 2 other lug wrenches from other vehicles but guess what? ......they don't fit this tire either.... So I put the other two in the car and we leave the rental car on the side of the road and head back to the villa...I then pour a very large rum and egg nog!. It is now next day at 10:20 am so I am hoping to drop them off at the car where the rental car company will be there to help......To be continued....

Tis the Season.....

Well the Christmas season is upon us. Hopefully I can get some last minute internet shopping done today so the stuff gets here by Christmas. My injuries are not as bad. The lower ab pain is almost non-existant. I've put myself on a half marathon 13 week schedule to get ready for the 8 Tuff Miles Feb. 27th. I'm incorporating yoga and swimming as cross training. I hope that Santa brings me a bike for Christmas so I can start training for a Triathlon this next year.

Well todays workout was an easy one. 2 mile run @ 9:00 min mile and 500 meter swim both down at Magens Bay. It is a nice place to be able to train.......compared to the "northerners"

OOPPS...... forgot about my blog.

Well not like anybody is actually reading this....but yes I let my blog slip a little after returning from the Irishman delivery. It seems like everything is about Facebook now. And don't get me wrong, I love Facebook and think it's great. But I think the blog is still needed. So I hope to get back to it and keep this and Facebook updated.....

Back Home in St. Thomas

Hello All:
I have made it back to St. Thomas. 22 hours of travel from Europe. Palma de Mallorca to Barcelona, Spain to Atlanta, GA and finally back in St. Thomas, VI. I'm beat and we have guests checking into the villa today. I have put another video up in my gallery from the voyage between the Azores and Palma de Mallorca. You can see all my videos at http://gallery.me.com/threepalmsvilla. Unfortunatley, I had to come back before we completed the voyage. After "stranded" almost 2 weeks in Palma it was time for me to come home. Palma was great and i'm going to post more pictures and videos soon. We had several mechanical problems and everything is fixed now. Irishman with Harold and the rest of the crew have finally left and now heading towards Trieste, Italy instead of Croatia. I had to look on the map but it's actually really close to Croatia. It's right up there by Venice. Not sure why the owner changed his mind, just got a quick email from Harold yesterday. That's it for now. More later.....

Update From Palma, Mallorca.

Greetings All.

We arrived here in Palma last Tuesday, June 23rd. We have had no or very poor internet here at the Marina, so I apologize about not getting an update out. We had a mechanical problem with our engine exhaust that had to be taken care of and of course it has taken must longer than we thought. We are finally getting ready to leave here on the last leg of our journey. This island of Mallorca off the coast of Spain is beautiful. We rented a couple of cars and toured part of the western coastline. I have posted a few picutres of some our hot spots.

Harold surprised us with tickets to a musical last night. "Come Fly with Me" It was described as "combining the legendary music of Frank Sinatra with the visual spectacle of Cirque du Soliel. It was really great. http://www.comeflywithme.com/eng/show/thetheatre.html.


I should have a video posted tomorrow highlighting our sail from the Azores to Palma.

Our trip from here on to Croatia should only take us about 6 days....

Spencer

Delivery Map

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Spencer Update 6/20 ...

Saturday 6/20/09  5:00 pm

 

Position:

36 degrees 09 minutes North

07 degrees 39 minutes West

Approx. 100 west of The Strait of Gibraltar

Hello All:

All is well here on Irishman...The smells coming out of the galley have us all waiting in  anticipation for dinner. It's crazy how fast things can change out here.  Less than 48 hours ago we had our foul weather gear on and Tropical storm force winds.  Today we are laying out on the deck sun tanning.

We are about 100 miles west of the Strait of Gibraltar.  Wind and seas have almost totally died and we are motor sailing at around 9 knots.  During our rough conditions on Thursday our engine starting making some strange noises. Kind of like it was struggling. Yesterday it actually did die on us a couple of times.  We have figured out that we obtained some very dirty fuel in the Azores.  We have filters that trap anything so it won't get into the engine but these filters are becoming clogged much faster than normal causing fuel not to flow to the engine.  The rough conditions have probably stirred up all the junk that usually settles to the bottom of the tanks. Hopefully as long as we keep these filters clean we should be fine.  

We are eating very well out here with our Italian chef Stefano.  Last night was had roasted chicken and potatoes.  Lunch today was stuffed portbello mushrooms and a nice salad.  Of course Harold and I have plenty of hot sauce on board that we put on almost everything.... usually without insulting the chef.  

The ship traffic has increased tremendously as we approach the Strait of Gibraltar. Tonight is going to be a busy night watching the radar and avoiding these hudge cargo ships.

For our Trivia question on 6/17/09,  the winner is Michael Roach in Arizona that correctly defined the "Horse Lattitudes".  Rob in St. Thomas was disqualified for being way smarter than anybody else I know.....  Just kidding ... Rob, you win a T-shirt as well.  As for Michael Roach, I think I still have a St. Louis Cardinals World Series Championship shirt in my closet for you!!!

Trivia Question #2:

The northern county of Prekmura in Croatia is famous or kown for what?

That's all for now on Irishman.......

Spencer