Our crew arrived starting on August 3rd (3) and the remainder arrived August 5th (2).

Our three early arrivals stayed at the Best Western Emerald Beach Hotel (340-777-8800) for two nights. On Tuesday morning three of us did a canopy tour at the top of St. Thomas with "Tree Limin' Extreme" Zip lining tours.

See: http://ziplinestthomas.com/

Then it was off to old-town for lunch at the Green House, Restaurant, shopping at Cardows and SOS Antiques (my favorite store in the known universe), and for dinner we went to Iggy's at Belongo Bay. The food is always great there!

See: http://www.iggiesbeachbar.com/

Our charter started August 5th at noon, but we chose to do some last minute shopping that afternoon after the remainder of our crew arrived, and we did a sleep aboard at the dock that night.

Wells, CYOA's resident taxi driver, did the driving.
Wells is very reliable and has served St. Thomas for many years.
You can contact him at: 340-513-2722

We had a late lunch on the 5th at Bella Blue, Austrian Cuisine, in Frenchtown. I had the pesto chicken pasta. Excellent.

see: http://www.bellabludining.com/

Dinner that night was at Hook, Line, and Sinker, also in Frenchtown, which is just a few feet from the CYOA dock. The food was excellent, and of course I had to have some conch fritters to get the trip rolling!

see: http://www.hooklineandsinkervi.com/

At 9am on August 6th we slipped our dock-lines and did a little sail check in St. Thomas Harbor with Captain Jay. We dropped him off at CYOA, pointed Big Papa Lulu west and slipped behind Hassel island on our own. Free at last!

Here's our route. In 9 days we sailed about 140 miles, about 75% of it under sail.