Overall, a great three weeks of sailing on the MarSherri (our neighbor's 47 foot cat out of Conch Charters).

Travel (some of it pretty terrible)

AA flight down from Birmingham to St Thomas via MIA was good - on time with no problems. On time arriving STT from Miami on Oct 24. The noon Roadtown Fast Ferry cancelled on us the next day - they put us on Native Sun to Roadtown at 2:30 PM - bummer there (I posted another thread on that experience earlier FYI). Had round trip reservations on the Roadtown Fast Ferry for a month in advance - so much for that. So, when it came time to depart for our return, walked down to the Roadtown Fast Ferry the afternoon before our scheduled 10 am departure and were "assured" that our ferry was indeed running the next day - YEAH, RIGHT!!!! These people will lie through their teeth to you. Arrived for our 10 am departure and were told that the Roadtown Fast Ferry was NOT running and that we had to take Smith's instead, leaving 15 minutes earlier. Sure glad we were there early enough. I've read the earlier comments from my last post about "NEVER" making reservations. These folks are running a very flimsy operation here. Actually SAW the Roadtown Fast Ferry operating the day before so the boat WAS in service. It's a "crap shoot" folks, so be aware!!!

So it was on to STT - took us forever to clear C&I at the ferry dock - caught a cab straight to the airport. Then, you have to go through the entire C&I thing AGAIN!! That was "fun". AA's flight out of STT to MIA was held up for 20 minutes so that they could wait for some connecting passengers on an American Eagle flight. Actually, we did arrive MIA about "on time" but the usual delay happened again - we had to wait 10 more minutes for an empty gate - is it just "us" or does everyone wind up landing in MIA and having to wait for a gate??? I'll bet this happens to our flights 90% of the time going into MIA. Grabbed our connecting flight to Denver and arrived DEN at 11:20 PM. Waited for our luggage and when my rather new suitcase arrived on the carrousel, it was torn to shreds - a gap of at least 11 inches with "stuff" hanging out. Walked over the AA luggage service and they immediately gave me a new suitcase as a replacement so that wasn't too bad. Of course, had to unload my old suitcase and reload into the new one at about midnight - geeze we were bushed.

Dining Out Highlights

Scrub Island

Again, their Saturday night buffet on Nov 3rd was OUTSTANDING!!! Great prime rib carved right there, seared ahi tuna, boiled shrimp, clams, etc. Wonderful food and great service. Excellent deserts also. We spent two nights at Scrub and (again) it was wonderful. Now that you pay $30 / night for a mooring ball, consider this. The TTOL special for a dock berth was (for us) $47 / night. Couple that with a $25 bar credit and the difference between a mooring ball and a night at Scrub's really nice dock is pretty small. Everything else about Scrub is great - friendly service, good food, great pool, big screen TV's where you can catch the football games on the weekends, hot, clean, personal showers, etc. - hey, we think it's worth a little extra per night. Cudo's to Martin and his always gracious and efficient staff.

Chez Bamboo in Spanish Town

Rose runs a great restaurant here - it's always on our "to do" list and we were not disappointed. Won't go into details but the food was wonderful and the service matched it. Morris Mark was playing guitar and singing in the background which was a very nice touch. Highly recommend Chez Bamboo.

Soggy Dollar

Had a urge for a "Cheeseburger in Paradise" for lunch while at White Bay. One of the BEST burgers and fries both Joni and I have had in a long time.

The Fish Trap on St John

Great meal at the Fish Trap (again). This one's always on our list also. Wonderful food and great service.

Starfish Market on St John

Picked up some great tenderloin filets (again) from Starfish Market - damn these folks have wonderful meat. Grilled them on the boat - beautifully marbled - seemed almost like "prime". Have NEVER bought a bad tenderloin steak from Starfish Market.

Fun

A GREAT, GREAT Halloween party at Potter's By The Sea on October 31 (see Walker's pictures on his website).

That's about it - some travel problems but all in all, another great sailing trip to the BVI's and USVI's

Happy Thanksgiving to all (about a week early) <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />