Looks good, Bob. Those gopro's are well worth the money.

Found some good aerial footage of the run here when I went to watch your videos.

While yesterday was a nice day for the most part, a tropical depression has almost worked it's way thru and has had us hunkered down for most of the day today. Carib weather radar shows the rain is pretty well done for the rest of today so hope to go for a rip in the boats and will likely find some big water. Tomorrow we are hoping to go out to Anegada and it's pristine beaches and reefs for some diving and find the guy who serves lobster dinner right on the beach. Need this system to pass thru first.
First pic is the view from my room yesterday and 2nd pic from this morning with wind kicking up the waves some.


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Storytime
 

Since I am waiting out this tropical storm, I have some time for a story.

A week after I did the BVI poker run and had returned to Canada, I received a phone call from a talk show host in Puerto Rico. His name was Ryan Christiansen and he had heard about our trip down from FL and invited me to talk on his show about the experience and I did. A couple of days ago at the Saba Rock Resort I meet this guy who engaged me in conversation and tells me about his son who is a talk show host and how he got to wakeboard behind Earthrace when it came thru the BVI 2 years ago on it's way around the world. Turns out the guy I'm talking to is Ryan's dad and he shows me these amazing pictures of Ryan wakeboarding behind Earthrace. It was of of interest to me as I had enquired about buying the leg on Earthrace across the Mediterranean in which it got caught in a storm and severely damaged the boat ending the attempt. I did not do the leg with them as people a lot smarter than me had talked me out of doing it ! Thank goodness. It was subsequently sold to Greenpeace and as most know was rammed and sank in the Antarctic earlier this year.



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The tropical depression has moved along enough that Expat got his Tiger out and I ran the Nor Tech, getting some great running shots and video of his boat. We visited a few different Islands today and took some time for a swim and a bit of snorkeling. Tomorrow I will run over to St Thomas to hopefully load Team PREDATOR on the trailer for shipment to FL and then fly north on Wednesday. My time in the BVI for now is coming to an end. What a great experience and I am definitely planning on returning later in the year. David and Chrissann and Saba Rock Resort have been great hosts and I will always appreciate and remember my time here. I am going to leave the DUX boat in David and Chrissann's care and get it at a later date.
In the last pic I was caught napping ...... with my own camera ! LOL

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Hey, it's great to see David got the Tiger on the water! Looks great!! I'm glad to see you guys could go for a run after the rain. Great pictures!

Julian

Thanks, Julian. I will see you next time thru. Hoping to return in October and possibly ship the Donzi down and leave here for the winter.
I will keep in touch.
Bob

Great idea! Make a little noise withe the Donzi! jajaja... My dad says he'll miss hanging out with you in Ponce on the way back. jeje... Hopefully we can go meet you at Saba, when you return. Definitely, keep in touch.

Julian

Here are a couple more pics of Bob and Team Predator and the Tiger on the docks at Trellis Bay and Cooper Island. All those sailboaters don't know whether to try to get freindly or just hide their women as we all know they would rather ride with us!
That Nortech sure puts the Tiger in it's place-on the dock anyway.
Bob is flying out from St Thomas today and I'm sure he will post more running pics and such when he gets back to the Great White North. We had lot's of good fun-even during the unfortunate heavy rains during his visit. More later. David

David,

thanks for the pictures. I think the Tiger looks pretty damn good next to Team Predator. If you guys double-team the blowboaters they'll never stand a chance!

That shot of Bob in the hammock is a classic. :drink:

Hope to get back down your way sometime- that island world is beautiful beyond words. j

Jay, you know where we are. Around the bar for Painkiller Happy Hour. Quite the scenery here today. You would be clicking away for all! db

Boo, hoo, ....it's over
 

Like they say all good things must come to an end. I am now back home in Canada. The boat is safely in the shipyard awaiting transport back to Ft Lauderdale and will then be hauled to Nor Tech who store and maintain it for me. It may not arrive until July 7th as it will go to San Juan first then put on a larger ship for FLL. In the mean time I will play with the Donzi up here.
Anyway the whole trip was a blast from start to finish. I met so many great and helpful people all along the way as well as had the pleasure of spending time with Jay, Hans and Marc. Made some special friends in David (OSO Expat ) and Chrissann at Saba Rock and Ron and Brant from St Thomas as well as Julian Sr and Jr (OSO JGC) in Ponce, PR just to mention a few.
I have a few stories to tell yet and some cool pictures to post and will do that over the next couple of days as I have time. After that the thread will slowly drift away as I contemplate ........what next ? LOL This is going to be hard to top and at some point I may look to OSO for some suggestions on what I could do for my next adventure.
Thanks for following along,
Bob

Bob

Thank you for taking all of us along for the adventure and ride
It been wonderful ,and I am so glad that you are safe back home.
Enjoy your Summer up North and hope we see you soon
maybe on Marco
Thank you again

Jim

Jim

I think that hammock pic needs to be your new avatar Bob!

Enjoyed reading about your adventures!

Awesome thread bob. So...... how about some pictures of the doniz:party-smiley-004:

go here www.performanceboatclub.ca.
click on galleries and go to the 2009 Rice Lake run. Several pics of Bob's donzi there.

Thanks for sharing Bob, it was a great trip!

Here we are at the 1,000 Islands poker run last August. I used some of the same paint colors as the NT. Kinda partial to blue. LOL
I will be on Georgian Bay with it this weekend. PBBC has an overnight poker run going up to Kilarney at the top of the bay. Water temps will be about 30 degrees cooler than I've enjoyed the last few weeks. LOL

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He, he. Need a boat in my avitar, Rob. We had finished our lunch at Peter Island and intead of having desert with David and Chrissann, I excused myself and had a short nap in that hammock. That was the best with the sound of the water lapping up on the beach. :)

I agree, Jay. Tiger looked and ran great. I downloaded some video about midnight last night and David will be glad to hear I got some great, big water video of him running beside us on the way back from Peter Island to Saba. Will post when I can but will need some time.

Bend over LOL
 

Getting the boat on the trailer was not easy.....or cheap. The first truck could not do it so we then got a wrecker. The ramp was hard bottom but not concrete and irregular and dropped off quickly. The wrecker worked well and in a half hour of fooling around we were loaded and on the street for tie down. A large crowd started to gather as time went on and a dozen of them were standing beside the boat for a group photo. One of them invited me to join the group to be in the picture. As I walked toward them someone says loud enough for all to hear "put the "black guy" ( me ) in the middle. Everyone cracked up with laughter.
When we got to the shipyard we had to wash the boat outside so we stayed hooked up to the wrecker then had him park it in the shipyard. His time was 3 hrs total so I'm thinking maybe $500 tops. From the safety of his truck, he informs me that the charges are $1,200.00. I say wow, that's a rip and turn to my buddy Ron who along with Bart made the arrangements. Now Ron is 6'- 7" and a Michael Jordan look alike. I thought he was going to rip the truck door off to get at Junior. The price fell to $500 in a hurry.
After Ron, Brant and I laughed about it over dinner at Oceania. They were a great help and we had a lot of laughs together both out at Saba Rock where I met them and at St Thomas. Ron has the Midnight Express and Brant the Monza, both pictured earlier in the thread by Jay.
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When I flew out Wednesday I chartered a small plane for the ride to San Juan. It gave me some great picture taking opportunities. He flew over the port and I took a few pics. Boat can be seen near middle of the pic.

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I had asked them how they would be loading the boat on the ship and they said we will "drive it on". Thought they were joking and left it at that. When I now look at this pic and see the small ship backed up to the sea wall, I think that is exactly what they will do. I sure hope that the containers do not fall on my boat ! They did say that their large ships cannot get into the port at Charlotte Amalie and that it will get transferred onto a larger ship at San Juan, PR. Glad I'm not around to watch it. :)

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USVI and Spanish VI from the air
 

When there were no morning flights on Wednesday to get me over to San Juan, PR again, Brant came to the rescue. He called a friend that flies commercially and as luck would have it had the day off so flew me over to San Juan. We flew only at 3,000 ft so it gave me a chance to take some pics of the islands between St Thomas and Puerto Rico. Beautiful as well.
Last pic is landing at San Juan International airport.

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You Tube of David's Tiger
 

This is a Go Pro video of David running his Tiger with me from Peter Island over to Cooper Island. Seas were about 4 ft but there was a pretty good ocean swell to go along with it. It was a fun ride. Enjoy. ( I will swap out the music for something better when I get time. LOL )


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Bob that is the life I hope one day I will be able to do something like this It looks beautful there

Thank you. It is nice to have goals in life and hope you to can one day experience boating in the Islands. Work hard, put some money away and you can be that guy in the hammock. LOL
All the best,
Bob

Fixed it for ya Bob.

He, he your a funny guy, Sean, I did not want to discourage him by telling him I was once a workaholic, worked really, really, really hard and woke up one day about 10 years ago and said.... there is more to life than work and I'm going to devote more time to my other passion, offshore boating. It worked out really well. :)

mr bob thanks for taking us along on the journey. that pic in the hammock is a beaut. sure looking forward to going along on the next adventure. vicariously speaking. thanks again

Bob, I just read the entire thread the other day and as far as I know, its the best thread ever. I wish I would have followed it day by day. Hope you have a few more stories up your sleeve from this trip to post! Thank you!

Also, I did not know Earthrace sank. Was it recovered or ? Never heard anything about this.

Thanks again Bob for sharing another great adventure and I hope that you don't let all these threads fade off. Combined, they create the makings of a wonderful book of short stories and misc. side stoies with great pictures to boot!

Yes...
http://open.salon.com/blog/karll/201...panese_whalers

Thanks, TEAMBAJA and others. Not sure there is a whole lot more I can add but will give it some thought. I got back home and became engulfed again with the daily routine and have not had much time. Also figured after a month we all had enough but nice to see there is still interest.

Right now Team PREDATOR is probably in Puerto Rico being transfered onto a larger ship going to Ft Lauderdale. I can track it and follow its progress back. I must check up on it today.

Bob

Powerboat blogger Tank Sears (thisistank) had some nice things to say about Bob's recent journeys in his latest blog. Check it out...
http://powerboatmag.com/tank-sears-blog/

Bob I had someone post to me that it was 10 grand to ship their cog tiger from la to Hawaii. You have any input on what cost was like any if you brokered it or is there a sophisticated boat shipper out there

$ 10K to Hawaii does not look out of line at all for a Tiger given the distance. It cost me $4,600 to ship the NT from St Thomas to Ft lauderdale on the return. I do not have any west coast shipping contacts but may be looking for one. I am going to check the cost of shipping my Donzi to New Zealand later this year. I have a niece living there and have fallen in love w NZ since looking at her amazing pictures. Hmmm, just might be my next adventure. Will PM you with my findings eventually.

Bob here's a product I found in a diesel magazine. If you haven't heard of it, might be worth looking into;

http://www.dieselcraft.com/Home.php

Interesting Cat but I don't think it is necessary for my application. Probably better suited to trucks or commercial applications etc. that are racking up thousands of hours. I have only 380 hrs +/- on the boat and dirty fuel or filters has never been an issue. Not sure of the cost, but doubt it could be justified in my application.
Thanks just the same tho. Like yourself, I enjoy following some of the diesel threads when they come up from time to time. Always lots to learn.
Bob

I saw a figure of $500. I think only one is needed because it hooks up to the fuel tanks. Most standard oil filters only filter down to 25 microns. This centrifuge filters down to 1 micron. Wouldn't hurt to call Dieselcraft and ask questions...

Yeah I'm a diesel freak, can't wait to see two of the new 800hp Banks Duramaxes in a 30'+ V bottom or cat.

Bob,

sent PM

Got it Andy. Check your in box.


I am sitting at my cottage now in Canada where it has been pouring rain for the last 12 hours. I am looking out over the lake and cannot go anywhere. Your bringing this thread back has me now thinking back over this trip and what a great adventure it was. I'm trapped indoors today so maybe I will just fantasize over "what next " ?