I hope you all enjoyed the tips and assorted other goodies I left for you while I was out sailing with my honey in the British Virgin Islands over the past 10 days. Now I'm back, wading through the 1,000+ e-mails that clogged my in-box before it overloaded. So, there probably will be a ton of stuff posted in the next few days--or I may just get overwhelmed and delete the lot of them and start over fresh.
Anyway, one thing that I couldn't help but notice while I was sailing, snorkeling, and ducking the ubiquitous squalls was that I just couldn't get away from this business. I'd turn on Zed BVI radio to get the local weather forecast and get a report on how the booth space is selling for a local tourism trade show (very well, it turns out). Then we had just dropped anchor in White Bay on Jost Van Dyke when a catamaran full of corporate execs pulled up to the beach bar, complete with an MC who broadcast to everyone in hearing distance about the teambuilding event they were going to do. Then a helicopter flew by and dropped some stuff in the water, which they had to retrieve and pass back to their teammates. While it shattered the calm of the afternoon, that helicopter thing was pretty cool, and they all smiled and waved at us as they cruised by on their way back to the Ritz-Carlton in St. Thomas. Then on our last night, we went to Great Harbor on Peter Island knowing, since we were all out of food, that there was a great restaurant we could go to for dinner. Except it was sold out for a group function. So we had to beat feet to get to the next harbor that had a restaurant or face the possibility of a farewell dinner consisting of blue corn chips and some killer salsa.
Anyway, it's good to be home again, even with a few new inches of the white stuff greeting us. Now, back to all those e-mails...