Countdown: 6 days to go

6 days till a major Sandpiper announcement!!! (May 26th)

Countdown: 7 days to go

7 days till a major Sandpiper announcement!!! (May 26th)

Countdown: 8 days to go

8 days till a major Sandpiper announcement!!! (May 26th)

Countdown: 9 days to go

9 days till a major Sandpiper announcement!!! (May 26th)

Countdown: 10 days to go

10 days till a major Sandpiper announcement!!!

Dragging our feet

Anchored in Cruz Bay
St John Island
U.S. Virgin Islands
USA!

18'19.9N/64'47.7W

Hello All!! As mentioned in past entries during out stay here in St John/U.S. Virgin Islands, we have severely been dragging our feet in making our departure for Charleston, South Carolina in time to be stateside for hurricane season (start 01-June). We had planned to leave just last Wednesday morning for a 400nm run to the Turks & Caicos Islands, then run up the U.S. east coast from there.

But Tuesday night a MONUMENTAL decision was made affecting Sandpiper's plans. Stay tuned for a MAJOR announcement on this site to be released 26 May 2009!!!!!

11 Days and Counting!!!!!

Tom and Amy

Island Time

Anchored Coral Bay
St John Island
U.S. Virgin Islands
USA!
18'20.1N/64'40.5W

1189nm to Charleston, SC

Well... it is Friday and our last update stated we would be making a decision if we should stay or go. But alas, no decision has been made yet. We are actively pursuing purchasing a small turn key charter business that has been in operation for the last 18 years. But we are running into several obstacles along the way.

With last week being Carnival in St. Thomas, many working folks were off to a slow beginning early this week. So Monday was a wash.

Tuesday our contact at the bank was in a meeting all day. And since we don't have a local phone it makes it a bit hard for any communications to happen. St. John doesn't have an internet cafe on the island. But it does have a small business named Connections where they have a few computers that are available for internet, a few phones for local calls, postal service, message taking, a great community bulletin board with job listings, and rental listings for the island. Connections has been Team Sandpiper's official office for the week.

This week we have had the true experience of 'island time'. With us trying to decide our future in less than a week, it is hard to get everyone else on the same page as us. The government building on St. Thomas said it would take over 2 weeks just to receive the charter business' old tax information.

We finally made a bit of progress yesterday when we were in contact with the bank and it wasn't the news we were hoping for. When we went in last week we walked out of the office feeling confident that this was all going to work out for us. But slowly we are loosing this confidence and talking more about getting our act together and making northbound tracks. 

This bums us out. We were trying for a small business loan called 'Patriot Express Small Business Loan', a business loan for military personal. We were hoping that the down payment on a small business loan would be less than a boat loan and would also have a lower finance rate. It turns out we still need 20% down and the finance rate is the same, so there is no real advantage. This mystifies us since we are not asking for that much money. How does anyone come up with 20% down for a larger loan for a first time business?

Since we are both keen on staying here in St John we are still trying to make all this work. Tom is busy making phone calls while I continue to use the power of "The Secret", picturing us at work doing something together and that makes us happy. Wish us luck. If you have any further suggestions or words of wisdom for us we are all ears. Or if you would like to donate/loan us a large sum of cash, then that would help too.

Still in St. John,
Amy and Tom