Movin’ On

Yes, we’re finally leaving the Virgin Islands.  We arrived here on New Year’s Day and had expected to remain till mid March so we’re not too far off schedule.

The delay was in most part caused by the fact that our credit card number was compromised in early March.  We use this particular card most often because it accumulates airline miles and does not charge foreign transaction fees.  The credit card company has been great to deal with and contacted us when our number was being used at a Kroger store in Atlanta.  They cancelled the cards when we indicated it was not us in Atlanta.

This situation would not pose much of a problem to most people but we live on a boat and don’t usually have access to an address.  Physically getting our mail is always a challenge.

Our cards were due to expire in April we had already been through a few hoops trying to get the replacement cards shipped to Joe and Cheryl prior to their trip.  The company had mailed new cards to our Florida address in late February, then at my request they expressed a second set to arrive sooner.  I  arranged to have all our mail sent from Florida via UPS Next Day Air to arrive the day before Joe and Cheryl were traveling.  That package ended up delayed in Lexington Kentucky due to a big snow storm.  I doubt any of you would give us too much sympathy for being inconvenienced by a snow storm but…

So last week, once the third set of new cards arrived in Florida, we arranged to have our mail sent  via USPS express to arrive at the post office in St. John USVI.  We headed back to pick up the package and decided to take advantage of other resources in USVI before heading off.  Curiously when we received this package it included all three sets of cards.  Guess that snow storm didn’t really make a difference after all…

Enroute back to St. John we ran into Pat on Sequel.  We had been neighbors back in Michigan at Jefferson Beach Marina and had been trying to connect in the BVIs since January.  It was great to see Pat and his beautiful new Leopard 48 catamaran.  We met his cousins Irene and John who were visiting, unfortunately we missed Trish who was with their daughter in France.

We also had the opportunity to stop in at Callwood’s Rum Distillery in Cane Garden Bay on Tortolla.  It’s been in operation for over 200 years, very cool place to visit.

 

While back in the USVI’s we did another big provisioning run, thanks once again to Danielle who loaned her car for the effort.  We are now all set to do some exploring in new places.

We love the Virgin Islands and even though we have done quite a bit of exploring there’s plenty we haven’t seen yet.  Even so, it is time for us to move on.

We plan to take advantage of some settled weather to make our way across the Anagoda Passage and begin exploring new territory.

~ Jeff and Mary ~

PS: we recently learned that people who leave us comments are not alerted when we reply.  Sorry.  We have always tried to reply to all of you and have tweaked the settings so that you should get a notification of future replies.

 

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16 Responses to Movin’ On

  1. Denise King says:

    Tim’s former boss used to own a B&B on Tortolla so that’s how we knew about Boombas. Now he owns a winery in Napa. Nice life! Looking forward to new posts/travels. Take care!

  2. mary ryan says:

    I would like to see the USVI. Maybe someday.. Happy and safe sailing to you and Jeff. Miss you.

  3. Denise King says:

    Did you go to Boombas on Tortolla? What’s the next island?

    • Mary says:

      No Denise, never made it there. It sounds like a fun place for full moon parties. Not sure exactly which island till tomorrow some time. We hope to make Saba but weather is the controlling factor. We will be heading off from Virgin Gorda in about an hour.

  4. Brid long says:

    Lovely to read you – I have just arrived in Rome to work for a few days. Sorry to read about the card. It is always a hassle even when the company is good. Thinking of you and wishing you a very happy Easter.

    • Mary says:

      Thanks Brid. It is a hassle with the cards, it seems like fraud is becoming much more of a problem. Enjoy Rome, will you be there for Easter? I hope to visit some day. Happy Easter to you too!

  5. Larenne and I will be in Curacao April 12… You’re just a couple tacks away!

  6. David p says:

    Fair winds, good thoughts and much love to both you and Echo 🙂

  7. It’s a good thing you could access money elsewhere besides that card! Was your card compromised online or there in the BVI? On an unrelated question… What do you do about medical insurance while you live mostly outside of the USA? We are getting ready to launch in July and want to make sure that Obamacare rules don’t fine us in our taxes for not having medical coverage… We had planned on just having one of those major medical savings accounts for paying out of pocket when emergencies arise. Now we are trying to figure out medical plans. >.< Have you had to deal much with that? I did see some international plans from Aetna but I'm not familiar with that company.
    Thanks!

    • Jeff says:

      Yes Kimberly, we have a back up card so we were OK. We are not sure how the card was compromised. We have been using it both locally and online. BTW, I just can not say enough about how good Capital One is. There fraud protection programs are outstanding. They have always caught fraud early and are very easy to deal with.

      On health care, I am still officially an employee of my company and have employer sponsored BCBS coverage through them. So far we have been able to obtain covered services where ever we have needed them. I don’t know what the future will bring, but I sure would want to at least always have some kind of catastrophic coverage.

      Let us know what you find on insurance and keep us posted on your cruising plans!

      • Thanks, I hope to hear back from Aetna tomorrow and I will let you know what I find out. I have capital one as well and I enjoy that I don’t have to pay anything extra for foreign exchange.
        My blog is at ohanahope.blogspot.com
        We will see you out there sometime 🙂
        Kim

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