*Jan. 10, 2003. Our last full day on Shamu. With the winds this morning Brian thinks we could make Cooper Island for lunch then on to somewhere near there for our last night. We decide to go for it. The winds changed and we got to Cooper later than expected so it's Cooper for the night, that's Ok. Quite a few tacks on the way and I spent some time writing this journal. It was less than ten tacks though, Brian says he's only good for ten tacks in one day, not sure what happens after that.<br><br>We arrive at Cooper around 2:00pm. Lunch on Shamu then on to the beach. A couple of barracudas, one really big one, take up residence under the boat here. There is a boat working on the moorings here and we saw at least one brand new ball. We walk the beach, check out the shops and take a few pictures. I saw a guy cleaning some fish on the beach and stopped to talk. We talked about the fish and the heads not being cut off, "if I cook dem for a tourist I have to cut de heads off." As we're talking I realize this may be the James that I read about in Walker's trip report who he spent a day with last summer, sure enough, it was. I asked him if he knows Walker, he said, "yea, cool guy. I spent all day with him talking about life. He spends a lot of time up at Anegada." I said, "My wife would never stand for that." "Yea, pretty flat," said James. He asked me if I knew Walker in person or from the internet, I told him from the internet, I got the impression that he didn't feel that was good enough. Nice conversation, nice guy.<br><br>We head to CIBC for drinks, then back to Shamu. The non-frozen bushwackers didn't taste as good as they did last year, maybe more ice would have helped. After dinner I went for a short night snorkel, no one else would get in the water, Brian and Kent waited in the dinghy. I saw a really big eel and some other fish but no sharks. <br><br>*Jan. 11, 2003. I'm up before everyone else as usual. I see James trolling with a hand line in a dinghy, I wave and he waves back. Before we leave Cooper Island, the boat that was working on the moorings the night before shows back up. We motor sail up the channel to St. John so we can clear customs back into the U.S. While passing Great Thatch Island we notice some construction, someone is building a house or something. I believe until now this Island was uninhabited.<br><br>There are no balls at Cruz so Brian and Ann drop anchor. We decided to say goodbye to Shamu at St. John so we could check out Cruz Bay then take the ferry to Charlotte Amalie later. We clear through with no problems, and head to the ferry dock where Brian and Ann will bring our bags. Said goodbye to Ann and Brian, left our luggage at the ferry dock and headed to Mongoose Junction for lunch. Half way through a delicious cheeseburger Brian shows up, we forgot our TTOL flag again. When I asked him how he found us he said, "Cruz Bay isn't that big." We thanked him and said goodbyes again. <br><br>A little while later we're on the ferry to CA., about a 45-minute ride. Off the ferry, across the street, hang a right at the Foxy's Lager store and we park ourselves at Fat Tuesday's, it's frozen drink time, hey we're still on vacation right! We suck down a few of those, take a taxi to K-Mart by Havensight for cheap booze while the taxi waits, then we head to Best Western Emerald Beach. At check in I can't find my AA credit card so I grab Diane's, Kent's credit card has a hold on it, probably from his purchase at Saba Rock so he whips out another one. Other then that, smooth check in. We relax a while, watch our last Caribbean sunset for a long while then we make a last minute decision to head to the Greenhouse for dinner. Kent and I ordered ribs, 20 minutes later the waitress comes back and say's they're out of ribs,… 8:00 on a Saturday night. So we re-order, and complain to the manager, he says he's sorry. I figured he'd buy us a round. Oh well, it's de islons mon. I ordered the filet mignon this time, it was Ok. As we leave there's fierce competition between the taxi drivers for our fare, we take the first one that gets to us. He has one of those open-air trucks, brand new. He asks us to vote to see if we'll be listening to Harry Bellefonte, not sure what the alternative was. The vote was 2 to 1 for Harry Bellefonte, his sound system sounds great and Diane and I sing along with Harry all the way back to Emerald beach. I told him I love his truck and be careful not to mash it up, nice guy, didn't get his name.<br><br>*Jan. 12, 2003. Kent had an early flight so we didn't see him. We had the free Continental breakfast at Emerald Beach. For us it was a noon flight, STT to SJU to ORD, then a 3hr. drive, all went smoothly, home at 9:45pm. Time to start planning again. <br><br><br>Notes: <br>Thanks to all the posters on TTOL, I learn something from everyone.<br><br>Thanks to all who we met along the way who helped us out, the people we met made our trip that much more special.<br><br>I owe Diane $200,000.00 after this trip. $100,000.00 for finding my spare digital camera battery and $100,000.00 for finding my credit card. <br><br>Click below on Trip Pics, I'll have 2003 pictures posted by the end of January, maybe sooner.<br> <br><br><br>