boat charters
February 24th, 2010sailing catamarans
Owning a large sailboat can be quite expensive and time-consuming. Let's face it, most of us just want to go sailing and not have to worry about painting, scraping, boat insurance and all the other time-consuming details that sail boat ownership involves. Fractional Sailing helps solve the expense and maintenance headaches . You sail on a part-time basis, without spending huge sums of money.
There is a new twist to sailboat renting called Fractional Sailing or fractional ownership that is now available in 30 larger cities of the United States and Europe. Fractional sailing is time-sharing with the sailboat owner and another six or seven part-time sailors. The price of a new sailboat, using a 33 foot Hunter as an example, is roughly 150 to160 thousand dollars. The owner of the new sailboat gets his monthly boat loan payment, dockage, and insurance paid for by those sharing the Fractional plan. The boat owner is happy and the Fractional members get to sail in a newer, larger craft.
Renting sailboats is not a new concept. There are lots of places that allow you to rent small sailboats. There are community sailing programs on both coasts of the United States and on the larger lakes and inland bodies of water. If you just want to rent a small day sailor then the local community sailing program is fine. However, if you want to rent a large 30 plus foot sailboat capable of holding a half dozen passengers and friends your choices are very limited. Most people are too busy working and when they do have free time they want to enjoy it to the utmost.
A lot of the participants involved in this boat sharing are former members of community sailing clubs. They were fed up with old, poorly maintained sailboats. They also were fed up with trying to get access to boats during peak times. Spending more money for better boats works for them.
An old boating joke states that a boat is a hole in the water that you pour money into. If you go to most Marinas during the week you will notice that most of the sailboats are tied up at their slips. Most boats are only used on weekends. Fractional Sailing makes more use of that idle time. Not everybody has that kind of money to spend on a new sailboat. Sharing the cost makes sense. One flat rate that includes marina fees, insurance and boat maintenance is ideal. Fractional sailing gets you on the water to enjoy big boat sailing without headaches.
A sample plan using Fractional Sailing would cost each member approximately $8,000 a year. You would share the sailboat with the owner and six other members. The plan works like this, you are guaranteed one full weekend day a month. You are also allowed to use the boat during the week either during the day, or during the evening. Each month you get to use the boat for about 80 hours. If you live in a year-round sailing area, like southern California or Florida this works out to be $8-$12 an hour. This is very reasonable for the use of a modern 33 plus foot sailboat. Some of the plans range from $500 and up per month. Prices vary as to which area of the country the sailboat is located.
In addition to individuals, Fractional Sailing can be used by a businesses to entertain clients in a less formal, pleasurable setting. This is similar to playing golf with a potential client. An important deal could be made during a leisurely afternoon sail around the waterways. By using sailing as a bonus offer to a client much of the monthly fee could be written off as a business expense. A lot of deals can be made during these outings. A day sailing is much more fun than a day at the office anytime.
Now let's sum up why Fractional Sailing is becoming popular. Members get to use larger, more modern, better maintained sailboats. The high cost of owning and maintaining a large boat is lowered for each member. Using a shared method allows them access to sailing that would be out of reach for many. More time is spent out on the water sailing.
To find out more about companies offering Fractional Sailing plans, try the search engines or telephone books in your area. There are at least six or more companies listed on the most popular search engine. These are corporate and individual franchises.
“We don't want to do anything to undermine national sovereignty,” Martin said. “And it may take a while for people to get used to seeing armed officers (from another country) working in their territory. But up here, it's really common sense.”
For decades, authorities said, gun runners, drug smugglers and human traffickers working the Pacific Northwest waters have held an advantage over Canadian and U.S. law enforcement officials.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Sgt. Pat Monfort, who directs one of the unit's 33-foot speed boats, said criminals knew “if they could just make it to the sea border that their pursuers, whether they be from the United States or Canada, could not follow them across.”
Now the armed, mixed-crew boats — with U.S. officers deputized as special Canadian “constables” and Canadians authorized as U.S. “customs officers” — allow for cross-border patrols and pursuits.
Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Jamie DeSanno, riding shotgun in the Canadian boat, said the relationship also is helping with the navigation of a complex coastline.
In the miles of water, which include the Strait of Georgia to the north and the narrow Strait of Juan de Fuca to the south, there are an estimated 170 islands, all potential hiding places for traffickers and other criminals.
Since the program began, there have been just four arrests. One was a Canadian fugitive arrested in Canadian waters by a U.S. Coast Guard crew that included an RCMP officer.
The suspect, wanted in a drunken-driving case in Canada, presented no threat to the Games. But RCMP Sgt. Mike Fox said the incident underscores the potential for such a program, especially in the summer months when the waters are teeming with recreational and commercial vessels.
Because of uncertain weather and sea conditions in winter, DeSanno said, it was unknown how many people would travel to the Olympics by boat. Some, Fox said, include people who sail up to Vancouver from the Washington state coast just for the day.
So far, the number of boardings — 140 — represent far more than anticipated.
The agreement, announced this month by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Canadian Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews, is set to expire after the Olympic Games. However, Martin said the Canadian Parliament is considering legislation that could make the program a permanent part of the border enforcement effort.
“If we didn't do this and something happened,” Fox said, “we would be asked why we didn't have this operation. How do you put a price tag on the security of your people?”
MILF fuck queen Holly Halston, mother of four, hasn't orgasmed in far too long, so she pretty much begs the MILF Hunter – a legend among men – to fuck her good.
05:001 year ago
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How it begins:
Ahoy polloi! Ha ha ha! Hi there. Tom Marks is the name. How do you do. Tom Marks. Hi there! Tom Marks. My god, I love a cruise; the sweet tingle of a salty breeze. The. The smoogup. Good lord. I… guup. Ech. I… I… (He vomits.)
Jay-sus key-rist! Look out! He's vomiting! Step… Stepuuuuughg. Back-erp. Ugh. (He vomits.)
Eewwwwww! Goddamnit! Both of these guys are vomiting! Everyone buick. Buick. (He vomits.)
Hahahahaha, dude! Check out all the vomit-huuuugh. Fengh. Hufuuungh. (He vomits.)
A woman screams. Then… (she vomits).
The fuck! Is that vomit on the stairs?! Don't get it on your shoes! It's filyhhuhuuuuu. (She vomits.)
Sir, this is Purser Belliard. We've got a… a situation here. There's… the people are vommuuuuugh. I'm sorry, sir. They're vomuugggh. (He vomits.)
From there, it gets worse.
Hippie
1. That link you give is NOT to the Census Bureau. Can you NOT even process or understand your own links?
2. Obama did NOT “praise” DC voucher – he compromised regarding the Voucher – something you Teabaggers know nothing about, compromise.
** And what a hypocrite YOU are – you are oppose spending federal tax dollars on education and YOU want to dissolve the Department of Education – yet you want to spend federal tax dollars on DC voucher program – sounds like YOU LIKE PORK.
3. I have NEVER said “spending more money there improves things.” YOU are intentionally misquoting ME.
4. What I DID say, and STILL say is:
“Only a pathetic person, like YOU & other Teabaggers, would support cutting education so that some dude with a yacht named, “Tax Shelter” can keep his/her tax shelter”
I also said:
“Educating children IS the future of this country … and YOU supporting cutting their education.”
5. The LINK you gave – that you think is the Census Bureau but is NOT the Census Bureau but is in fact a blog called, the Examiner – disagrees with & contradicts the Fox link you posted earlier.
So, you gave me 2 links – both with conflicting information … hmmm…. and your point is WHAT exactly?
Paul Drinkwater / NBCU Photo Bank / AP Photo; Aspen Police Department / AP Photo
Following in his wife's footsteps, Charlie Sheen is checking into rehab, according to his publicist. The decision is a “preventative measure,” and will require a hiatus from filming his television show Two and a Half Men. Sheen is also facing felony charges for a Christmas-time domestic dispute with wife, Brooke Mueller, and could face three years in jail. So why is he being given a free pass by the press and Hollywood?
One would think that a major TV star showing up at a courthouse in Aspen, facing domestic violence allegations, would merit a blitzkrieg of paparazzi and press. And yet x17, one of the leading celebrity gossip Web sites, which chronicles every Britney Spears-Starbucks entry and exit, and every step Jessica Biel takes on Robertson Blvd., didn’t even send a photographer when Charlie Sheen showed up in in early February with his wife, Brooke Mueller.
On Christmas day, Mueller called 911 and alleged that Sheen had held a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her. (The couple now seem to be headed for reconciliation.)
“If Charlie Sheen’s arraignment hadn’t happened within 15 minutes of Conrad Murray’s arraignment, the media would have covered like crazy,” TMZ.com founder Harvey Levin told The Daily Beast.
“For us, it is pretty far down on the list,” said x17 co-owner Brandy Navarre, of the action in Aspen.
“Violence against women is a controversial topic, it does generate some interest online, but I don’t think our recent stories [about Sheen] have been getting a lot of attention,” Navarre said. “So we didn’t send anyone to Aspen. It wasn’t really—it’s not that important for us.”
Not as important, say, as the world’s best golfer having sex with a harem’s worth of women, or the Tonight Show fiasco at NBC, or Brad and Angelina possibly splitting up—events which, for much of the media, have overshadowed Sheen’s latest, and potentially most serious, bad behavior: In court earlier this week, the star of Two and a Half Men was slapped with felony menacing and misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault and criminal mischief. He could face up to three years in prison.
Accused of a felony. An alleged knife to the throat. This is a bit more than Ambien-fueled sex and a golf club through the windshield. And yet Teflon Charlie—as he’s often referred to—is sailing through the media scrutiny line, relatively unchecked. There has been coverage, certainly. (TMZ.com, of course, has been all over it, but nothing close to what Tigergate merited. Or even what was unleashed on Alec Baldwin in 2007 after a voice message was leaked in which he tore into his 11-year-old daughter, calling her a “thoughtless little pig.”)
Nor has there been any visible, professional punishment (other than from Hanes, which ended its sponsorship deal with Sheen) of the sort that Chris Brown suffered after his own domestic violence episode with then girlfriend Rihanna. (Brown accused Walmart of banning his new album, Grafitti, by not stocking it on shelves.) Or that Isaiah Washington received after making a homophobic slur, allegedly against a Grey’s Anatomy cast member—Washington was eventually fired from the show.
Over at CBS, it’s been “business as usual,” as CBS president Nina Tassler put it during last month’s Television Critics Association tour. Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre even attempted to joke about the matter: “I’m sorry. What happened with Charlie? Did something happen?” Lorre asked—to very few laughs—at the TCA tour.
The one New Year's resolution I made for 2010 is to relax more. Everything has to take its own time this year, without me trying to force anything to fruition before I truly have the energy for it.
Making dream resolutions is not like this. Dream resolutions are not about what we want to do more of or less of during the day, they are about what we want to have happen in our dreams in the year to come. Right around New Year's I take a couple days and read through my dream journals from the past year. I single out the things I did in my dreams that I am proud of, and things that I would have liked to do differently.
This is a type of dream re-scripting, so if you make them yourself just let them come out the way they are. My dream resolutions tend to come out like pronouncements, and I like making them into a Top 10 list. That is part of the fun for me. If you have dream resolutions of your own, please post them in the comments — I would love to read them!
Here are my New Year's Dream Resolutions for 2010:
1. If you are held underground in a “DNA-resistant container,” get out immediately, maybe by turning into a tree and growing yourself out and away.
2. The lucid stream is glittering all the way down to the gravel, so go ahead and dip your fingers in.
3. Do not give your name when caught in someone else's library — Google will find out and publicize it!
4. If you are pole-vaulting across the grass, don't assume you will fail. Enjoy sailing through the air and you will make it just fine!
5. If you see a bunch of little kids wandering around backstage after a performance, bring them to the main hall so their parents can find them and bring them home.
6. Joking about how old you are getting probably isn't the best opener at your high school reunion. On the other hand, you'll learn a lot from the reactions you get.
7. Don't just pass by the guy doing uninteresting things in a dream — he may be about to open the treasure drawer!
8. If a dead relative returns for 25 seconds to tell you your future, and it is everything you want, believe them.
9. Even if the others are hanging back, moving toward ground zero is the only way to get the footage that will really make a difference.
10. Just because you dream of restoring a beautiful theater into a thriving community hub doesn't mean you should do that in waking life. But who knows? Pay attention, and see what opportunities come your way in waking, and in dreaming.
This article was originally published at the Blog o' Gnosis.