I am going to preface every ‘Friday On Tour’, by adding that this travel diary was written some time ago, but over time shows how persistence can pay off. Please remember that many times when we were writing we were exhausted, out of our comfort zone and often on the edge due to just being tired. So occasionally we have a little dig at other countries, please as individuals don’t take it personally or be offended, we actually loved 99% of places we went and the people we met. I also occasionally might add comments in ‘hindsight’, If I do I’ll make them in blue. So please enjoy and fee free to make comments.

Hello to everyone,

David:

Thanks to everybody that helped in our final getaway. We had a busy time in Brisbane finalizing details and preparing for our departure but finally made it. As I write we are sitting in our room at the Clay Hotel Miami beach. Hotel seems to be a bit of a classic and the area resembles St Kilda a little.

Mel: (26.1.04, 2.20am local time):

It’s about 5.30 p.m. at home and both David and I have been having trouble getting into a decent sleep pattern. We have arrived in St Thomas and it seems to have been a journey and a half to get to this point.

We chanced accommodation in a fabulous hostel in South Beach, Miami. The room was on the basic side and the hall a little smelly, but it was located in a very cosmopolitan area, with trendy shopping and outdoor dining only two blocks to the beach. The area has a very Spanish feel about it, in fact Spanish is spoken as frequently as English and the shopping strip is located on Esponola Way. Dreadlocks and fuel gusling Chevs are also a common site.

The first night we arrived late and were pretty jaded from the traveling so we had a quick quesadilla and an early night. The second night we hooked up with a group of Aussies also staying in the hostel and ended up having a late night. Somehow we got tickets to ‘Kelly’s Birthday’ (we still haven’t figured out who Kelly is) at a place called Backdoor Bambi, which I though was a strip joint, but was only called this because you entered through the backdoor not the front. The free tickets included two free drinks, but the bar staff were quick to point out this didn’t include tips and they don’t except change. This was a bizarre place, what kind of of person wasn’t there, trannies, gays, gorgeous women, backpackers, women dressed as chickens and every thing in between. We only stayed for a few drinks because the prices made your average nightclub in Toorak look cheap.

Between the jet lag and expensive drinks we both felt like crap the next day, but had to be up early to get our flight to St. Thomas.

David: (30/1/05 10.00 AM local time):

We have now been in Tortola for approx. 3 days. We had 2 nights in St Thomas in the US Virgin Isles on the way. Scenery was quite spectacular but very touristy. Up to 8 cruise ships a day for very expensive duty free shopping. The locals thought we were British, no idea of what Australia was. Accommodation very exp. $90 US for room not much larger than double bed with shared bathroom down the hall. (Mel: but it did have a sensational view and breakfast was included) Hey Macca we met a bloke named Jeff in Red Hook, St Thomas who new of GF Marine, your service is famous all around the world. Good experience but were glad to be heading for Tortola.

Tortola: arrived via fast ferry (approx. 50 Min) at ferry terminal to be greeted by not very friendly customs officers. Eventually convinced them to give us a month.

Cheapest accom. We could find $65 US per night with 7th night free. Tiny room with fridge and en-suite practically no windows and on main road (quite noisy). (Mel: not to mention the roosters crowing at around 5am every morning)

Tortola. has much nicer feel with much less US influence as it is much harder to get long term visas. The scenery is absolutely stunning especially from small harbor side bar called Village Cay. (Mel: the view is stunning because there are boats tied up there worth more than half the RBYC fleet combined!!!) This is proving to be the place to hang out to network and make contacts. We have met some really friendly Canadians and an American who have been helping us with advice and contacts. The island seams to be very friendly overall with people just stopping to offer a lift if you are walking along the street out of town. The food is crap, the coffee not even that good and expensive but not as bad as St Thomas.

We had a caribbean deliverance style experience when we walked to a local suburb Purcell Estate looking for cheap accom. Definitely not an area we would be comfortable staying

The Charter industry is huge with The Moorings alone having over 230 boats on line.

Any news from Aus greatly appreciated because not many people seam to know it exists over here.

Mel: so far we have been asked questions like:

Australia is that any where near Greenland?

Is it true that Spanish is the main language?

Is it also true that it is always very cold over there?

And we have been accused of always eating bangers and mash and drinking Tetley tea.

David & Mel

BUT

Firstly, it serves as an opportunity for you to get to know my husband as well as myself a little.

Secondly, I feel it is a story about persistence, failure and success and maybe it might help to inspire a few people.

I will start with a very simplified introduction and if any one is interested I will continue with the story. 

So…..

David, my husband (who wasn’t my husband at the time) had a ‘great’ job, earning pretty good money, a package that included a car and a bunch of extras. He hated it! He used to say all the time I’m turning 40 soon and I’m wishing 5 out of every 7 days off my life away. I hate Sunday night, because I dread Monday morning and spend my week wishing for Friday afternoon. This went on for a few years, then one day something happened at work and he quit.

This was a major, monumental action for David! By nature David is conservative and believed that you needed a good 9-5 office job. I used to tell him get out, do something different, I was always much more of a free spirit. The questions for David that always came up were: 

How will we pay the mortgage?

How will we pay the bills?

How will be able to afford to eat?

I’m sure you know the questions that I mean.

My answers were always pretty vague – we’ll figure something out, the answers will become apparent, that’s because I didn’t have a clue. I had just graduated from University and was struggling to make a dollar and David was no longer working. So he brought into a franchised green fields lawn mowing and gardening round with  no clients. This was something he had always wanted to do. Life became pretty good, we finished work early every afternoon and went kitesurfing or sat at the beach waiting for the wind to come in. Financially we were marking time if anything we were slowly sliding backwards, in fact we were going backwards. We were also working part time running day and evening charters on a catamarans on the Yarra River in Melbourne.

Then way day, about a year after David started the mowing round, he came home and told me a story!

The owner of the lawn mowing franchise, who had also become a friend,  had been asking him about what we do in our spare time. David explained about our sailing, part-time work on the catamarans and kitesurfing. Justin then  told David about this fantastic work over in the Caribbean running charter yachts, making money and living a great lifestyle. David then told me.

I was like, wow too cool – lets go!

Mr conservative David was like, don’t be ridiculous, that’s a stupid idea. It took me about a year to finally wear him down. It then took us at least another six months to get organized and get out act together. 

One of the very first things I did was get online and contact every charter business in the British Virgin Islands, the mecca for charter boats in the Caribbean. What little  response we got was so negative, we were basically told don’t waste your time. We decided that we HAD to go, the only way to get a job was to be there.

We sold almost everything including, our home  and the mowing round. We keep a car so we had something to come back to in case we didn’t get work and put our furniture into storage. 

The day we sold our home at auction, was not a good day. We sold for about $50 000 less than we thought the house was worth, in six months the bottom had fallen out of the real estate market. I got angry, drunk a bottle of champagne and then cried for about two days.  Our real estate agent gave us some great advice – just sell, you are moving onto a better and different part of your life, if you don’t sell, the house will hold you back. At the time I thought he just wanted the commission, but he was right. So we moved forward with our plans and didn’t stress about the $50 000, there was not much else we could really do.

The next step was to find out what was actually involved in the job, so we had dinner with Justin and his wife. It became apparent that my side of the job was harder than I realized. I had thought the food I would have to dish up would be vegemite and cheese sandwiches and BBQs every night. David reckons I went pale and looked ill while Justin’s wife was telling me about the cooking…lol – she actually enjoyed cooking, for me cooking was a chore.

I cried and threw temper tantrums (as only a good women can) for another 2 days! Poor David, I’d badgered him for a year, we sold our house, our business, spent over $6000 on airfares and now I was saying I can’t do it an I don’t want to go…lol. David bought me a basic cookbook and convinced me that even I could cook such basic food. Fortunately I believed him and decided I would learn and do the very best I could.

The next hurdle was David’s lack of qualification to be a captain in the American market.  David booked in for a 12 hour practical exam to get his RYA Offshore Yacthmaster, with almost no training for the exam, but a lifetime of experience. We had allowed two weeks before flying out so that if David failed he could sit the exam again. If he failed the second time we were doomed! Fortunately he passed first time round.

Our friends were telling us how lucky we were!! Hold on, we have given up everything we knew, for something we knew nothing about, we were told not to bother going to the BVI and were shitting ourselves about what the near future held and it potentially could cost us a lot of money for not much at all. The only difference between us and them was we were following through with a dream and a end goal, it could have been them.

Yeah! We were finally on our way and I can honestly say the following two years off our life  gave us some of the most amazing experiences and is has motivated us to achieve with the internet marketing so we can go back to some of these amazing place.

A few simple life lessons we learnt in this period included.

1. Take action, take action, take action – do something and follow through.

2. Have a plan

3. Have belief in yourself 

4. Support each other

5. Only YOU can change your life, only YOU can take the action to change your life!

Interested in more……????

I will gleefully start up another blog if anyone is interested as this was a dynamic part of my life. As I do actually want to keep this blog about my journey with Alex Jeffreys and internet marketing.

Hope you enjoyed this part of the story so far.

Cheers

Mel