I grew up on St. Thomas and stayed through college, attending CVI (now UVI). During my years on the island I worked a number of jobs in high school and college - most of which were tourist related. My opinion during that time, and that shared by many of my co-workers, was that tourists were generally loud, rude, self-entitled, and inconsiderate of locals.

After living 35+ years stateside, my opinion of tourists hasn't changed much.

My wife, two stepsons and I were aboard a charter last week when we stopped at the Indians for a snorkel around 9:45 am. As I expected, all of the moorings were occupied so I, along with another sailboat waited in a holding pattern for a mooring to become available. When a mooring did become available, the boat ahead of me acted quite aggressively in approaching the mooring despite no indication from me that I had any intention of cutting in front of him. His actions later became clear to me as I witnessed no less than 3 other boats who came after us charge in front of me to take up moorings as they became free. Finally, as a fourth boat appeared my wife yelled at him that we were next in line. This was a Nauti Nymph boat captained by a local who had two tourists with him. He smiled and said he would make sure we got the next open mooring (given he was far more mobile in a powerboat) and only asked that he be allowed to tie up to our stern (which I readily agreed to).

Another note I'd like to make is that I can see why there's a 2-hour limit at the Baths for moorings. Please folks, when you're done snorkeling and have returned to the boat, if there are other boats waiting then the courteous thing to do is to leave rather than act like you've paid for the mooring and linger long after you're done. As we waited for almost an hour for a mooring ball, I saw no less than 3 other boats who were there when we arrived, and were still there when we left. I had enough time to observe that they had no one in the water, but were simply laying on the deck sunbathing and/or eating.

Yes, I still hate tourists - and for good reason.