Tessa and Tristan snorkeled and fished all day. I am amazed at how relaxed we are with our kids. We give them a lot of freedom. It feels very safe here and they are really building up their confidences. Earlier in the day, a 70 foot motor yacht pulled into the slip next to John and Holly’s boat. That night as we were having cocktails on the back of the boat, we met the guys from Philly and their crew, who were two guys from the Philippines. They made a grand entrance earlier in the day, hurling themselves into their slip, ramming the dock pilings. They were nice guys, a couple of blue collar guys who had made it good, but their crew was the talk of the evening.

The owner of the boat brings workers in from the Philippines to use as “boat crew”. It was pretty obvious to everyone that these two, I will call them Hal and Phil Ipino knew nothing about boats. But they were friendly, spoke some English and worked hard. They came to the US on a visa that allows them to work as a crew on yachts. With the 70’ boat he could bring 6 workers to the US. The other 4 he had put up in an apartment in Philadelphia and they were doing odd jobs for him, like painting his house and driving his daughter to school.

He paid the Philippine government $1000.00 per month, per worker, and after the Philippine government got their share and other expenses were deducted, the crew got about $350.00. Of course they also had free room and board. The other stipulation, to make sure they were working as crew on a boat (and NOT painting someone’s house or being someone’s gopher) every six months they needed to leave the US, on a boat, and have their passport stamped. So every 6 months he came to the Bahamas. It’s all perfectly legal he said. In fact he said that several times.

It seems to me if in a 20 minute conversation you have to say “It’s all perfectly legal” more once, it may not be so perfectly legal.