Run into Toby at breakfast, and we decide to pal up for the day and ferry over to St. John - a 45-minute boat ride - in search of a good beach.
| Come to find there was a meeting last night - allegedly, there was a OinkiCorp booth where we boarded the ship, where schedules were provided. I didn't see it. Did they really expect people fresh off of 12+ hours of overnight travel to seek them out? Evidently, we were assigned to teams then, and given colored bandanas (remind you of anything, San Francisco?) to represent our affiliations. I have no schedule. So fire me. I will repeat that phrase more than once in the coming days... |
 |  | When the boat leaves the dock at Charlotte Amalie, that is the precise moment where my vacation begins. I cannot sit on the front of a moving boat without a big goofy smile. The water is very calm for ocean, and it's mostly a smooth ride. Though I get the occasional big splash of water from crossing another boat's wake, I love it. It's probably 80 degrees or so out on the open water, so the spray really feels good. We watch St. Thomas and small islands slide past, glittering water, bays with white beaches, big hotels and condos here and there, an island for sale. |  |
| The island of St. John is almost entirely a US National Park. Much less luxury-commercial than St. Thomas (or at least the part I see, the town of Charlotte Amalie, where you can buy cheap expensive jewelry on every corner, and you are accosted more frequently by happy natives who love your money very very much sah!). |
St. John has a small cluster of tourist-oriented businesses, but it's definitely got a more rural flavor.
Finding a visitor center and a couple of maps, we decide to try the 2.2 mile hike down to Reef Bay. There's a .2-mile side trail to petroglyphs there as well. With little to go on, I figure the hike down (and up) from a a fairly significant altitude on Centerline Road will make this a less-visited (=more desirable) beach. We find a taxi to take us up to the trailhead.
The taxis here are mostly full-size American pickup trucks, gaily painted (I like the purple Dodge Ram with moons and stars - fantastic!), with normal pickup-truck bed replaced with four or five bench seats and a high roof.
On the taxi, we meet a couple who tell us that the south side of the island is more developed, and they suggest we try Leinster bay, where there's a nice beach from which you can swim out to Waterlemon Cay. We like the sound of that, and as the taxi powers around steep curves (the left-drive truck driving on the left side of the road), and the views start to open up, we decide that the north side looks pretty friggin great. Turquoise water; white sand; flowered and viney impenetrable jungle-like undergrowth... We catch glimpses of Hawk's Nest Bay, Trunk Bay, Cinnamon Bay, Maho Bay - each looks absolutely wonderful.
| The taxi drops us off and we hike maybe a half-mile to the beach. In a flash, we're both in clear, lukewarm salt water. |  |
 | Waterlemon Cay is about 3/8 mile out; I'm not sure I could swim it, normally, but we are buoyant in the salt water, most of the swim is parallel to the shore, and the current (unknown to us then) is generally going that direction. It looks pretty far, but it's a lazy float out there, unbelievably fine. |
We make it to the Cay in about a half-hour. Toby lays giggling, allowing the small waves to roll him back and forth on the sandbar, in his own solo From Here to Eternity moment. This may sound silly, but I get it pretty quickly - it's healing and cleansing to just let go, not "pushing the river," and to basically just be a part of the sea and sand. I lay there too, and it's fantastic! This little acre of heaven, for the time, we have entirely to ourselves. I find a coral-free spot where I can sit shoulder-deep and just let the wave action move me where it will. Floating, I feel the tension of the past days seep out from my much-abused spine.
There are coral reefs all around, bits of coral like bone fragments on the Cay. Snorkelers pass, and I do wish I had fins and a mask. But mostly my new mantra, "ricky ticky ticky," empties my head, and the sun burns straight through to my bones.
The swim back is tougher, against the main current, and though I can float on my back and rest at any time, I do have to actually exert myself and swim to make any headway. After a while, I move in towards the shore, and take the path back around to our stuff. (Toby makes the whole swim.)
 | Pelicans really know how to live. They bob on the water, occasionally flying a short distance to crash into the water and scoop up some morsel. At one point, I see three flying together about three yards away from me, and one drops in for a bite. It looks pretty clumsy, but does a pelican care about such things? I could learn something from pelicans. |
| We lay on the beach for a while, and swim a little more - and this is where I get a bit of burn on my pasty-assed whiteboy front - before deciding to try to hoof it back to Cruz Bay and the ferry. We've underestimated the distance pretty severely, however, and also we get semi-lost (how "lost" can you really get on a 21-square-mile island?), so eventually we catch a taxi back from Maho Bay. |  |
The last ferry to Charlotte Amalie has already left, but there are others to Red Hook at the other end of St. Thomas. Another cab gets us back to the ship in plenty of time before tonight's meeting.
Situation Normal. Tonight's meeting is at 7:45. I've missed my chance for dinner in the Carmen (sorta-semi-formal -- I am under the impression that formalwear is required, and sometimes it is, and I'm not sure when, and I do not own formalwear, and do not see the value in renting formalwear merely in order to eat dinner...) dining room, so must try for the casual Windjammer buffet at 7:30. Vague hope of powering down food in 15 minutes there, and then rushing down five floors to the meeting, but when it opens, we find that we need a reservation to eat spaghetti and meatballs immediately.
I am just grumpy enough to decide that if I have to miss dinner, I will miss the meeting (about which I only heard by word of mouth anyway) too, and go to my room, read and write a bit, and go to sleep. What joys might OinkiCorp conjure for us tomorrow?
Today's excursion cost $33 in transportation.
Y'know, there's one more thing that's kind of ugly. People on these islands look to be barely subsisting. The influx of cruise people is their livelihood. I expect there's significant resentment there, though I see very few signs of it...
| Introduction | November 13 | November 14 | November 15 | November 16 | November 17 | Vacations | Steve |