Here we go...a tad verbose, but I tend to be that way.
Saturday: Christine and Tom (our travel-mates) arrived off of the 2:00 Red Hook ferry, got the car and headed to the house without hassle. We landed at 3:20 and I quickly realized that hopes of making the 4:00 from CA were not to be. 3 planes landed at once and they had all of our bags on 1 carousel. I adjusted and waited for the bags. We ended up in Red Hook waiting for the 5:00. No problem…there’s Red Stripes to be consumed. We got over, met up with Tom and went up to Pocket Money. I grabbed another beer, put on my bathing suit and nearly drowned in the pool. It’s surprisingly deep. You walk off the bottom step into 7 feet of water. That was a shock. The house was great. Well laid out, great deck with plenty of sun and shade, great view of STT. Our A/C unit in our room wasn’t working, but we went on. Headed to town for dinner at Duffy’s. That was good and further set the mood.
Sunday: Woke up and had some breakfast. Went to town to get on the rental agreement and stocked up at Starfish. The process weren’t that outrageous. High, but lower than expected. Later on, I went to the National Park office for maps and guides. I finally dragged the rest of the bunch out of the sun for a leisurely Sunday drive. We drove up Northshore Road and stopped at Hawksnest for a look at the water. Continued on to Cinnamon before coming back on Centerline. I’d forgotten how steep the roads are. The crew was a little scared I think. Dinner at the house was nice. Our A/C was still not working.
Monday: I had big plans for Monday: beaching, snorkeling, hiking…riiiight. The pool won. We lost power for a while and I managed to get the A/C humming along. That was good. Got the crew into town for lunch at Polli’s. Well, we tried to eat there. After 25 minutes of waving at the waitress and actually handing her a paper with our order written on it, we left. We ate at the Texas Coast. It, as I would say many times over, better than it needs to be. With its location, they could serve poop and still get business. The conch fritters were very good. More pool and another dinner at the house followed.
Tuesday: Happy 30th birthday to me. I dragged everyone out of the house to catch the 8:15 to Tortola. The ride over was wonderful. Christine announced that she could ride back and forth all day and be happy. We got to West End and negotiated a way too high rate with a cab for the day. Roy was supposed to provide us a tour of the island. It went like this “On your left is Apple Bay. Apple Bay is on your left. On your left is Apple Bay.” I then proceeded to flip through the guidebooks I had to fill in the rest. We made it to CGB and I was as happy as a pig in you know what. The Buffett fan in me was very pleased to be there. We swam around for a while and I sweet-talked my self into a sack of cold beer for the group at the warm beer price. Roy did manage to get the people to open up Callwood’s, so I got to add another stamp to the Buffett book for the day. We took off and went up to Skyworld. That was fun. The views were amazing. The bartender there is cool and has a great story of how he got there. Plus, he’s from Scotland. Christine’s from Ireland so they hit it off in that language that they speak that I think is English. We went to town for lunch at Pusser’s. I managed to almost consume 3 Painkillers with my lunch, so I was a wee bit tipsy. We shopped there and at Sunny Caribee and all was well. From there, it was back to West End and St John. We went back to the house for some pool time and my fancy birthday dinner.
Wednesday: I was doing some hiking come hell or high water. In the morning, Tom, Susan and I went out towards Annaberg. We ended up hiking on the Leinster Bay Train out to where it hits Johnny Horn. We saw some ruins there and headed back. It was ungodly hot and I was happy that I packed 3 liters of water. Annaberg was interesting, but very hot. Back to the house for a while and then we went snorkeling. We decided on Trunk, but went after 4:30. It was deserted. The snorkeling was OK. Christine had never been and Tom really can’t swim so I figured it was a good place to start them out. We went back to the house and ended back at the Texas Coast for dinner.
Thursday: I had told Susan that we were getting up early. We were at Honeymoon Bay by 7:45 and were snorkeling before 8. There was nobody on the beach. It was great. We were back to the house by 10:00 just as 2 other people had the nerve to show up. We went to STT for the afternoon. We did some damage at Ballerina Jewelers. Charlotte Amalie turned out to be a little too touristy and we were off the island 2 hours after we arrived. We snacked in town and then had leftovers for dinner at the house. This, of course, was after we’d had another power outage.
Friday: Tom had announced the night before that he was going out to Salt Pond Bay in the morning. I told him I’d be ready a little after 7:00. We rode out to Lameshur and I think we took the rental jeep farther than we should have. Oh well… We went back to Salt Pond and walked to the pond and then out to Drunk Bay. That was weird. The windiness reminded me of Aruba. Back to the house and more pool and sun from there. We ventured back to town in the afternoon for some shopping and ended up at Morgan Mangos for dinner. It was really good.
Saturday: Christine and Tom left on the 11:15 ferry to CA, so we had a few hours in the house before we left. I elected to get the 2:15 because there was no way I was waiting 3 hours in the airport. We arrived for our 4:40 at a little after 3:00 and were to the gates in 25 minutes. It was very easy.
All in all, it was an unbelievable trip. It was better than I’d thought it would be. We did less that I had “planned” but the sun, pool, beer and rum won out over hiking and sight seeing. I ended up more than fine with that. I’m certain that we’ll be back.
