Capt Chris, sunny, 80's, light northwind
12/19/2008, Cruz Bay St John, USVI
With a buzz of activity Janina arrived in St Thomas the other day where I met her at the airport. She had a very long day of flight delays and missed connections but arrived in the evening. I did a charter the same day and barely made my ferry connection from St John to St Thomas.
Once I arrived in St Thomas I made my way through the main town of Charlotte Amalie to the Bunker Hill Hotel located in the hills to check in as I had some breathing room time wise. Top priority to was to use as much hot water as I desired and lounge in the AC and watch some TV. So that's what I did.
I bugged out from the hotel in search/knowledge of the taxi situation here on St. Thomas. Pretty much the tourists are treated.....well as tourist's....using tourist type fee schedules. I needed to figure out which is the Safri versus the Taxi as the Safari is a buck and the taxi is god knows what. The issue being the Safari and Taxi are identical and both say Taxi on them. I quickly figured out that the vehicle crammed with West Indians was the Safari and so that is what I flagged down. I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. During the wait I befriended a fellow who was reading a USAA statement and knew he'd be a federal employee. Well turns out he had been a Foreign Service Officer for 30 years with all kinds of good stories. He worked mostly in Central America and was an agricultural guy. With funding from the American Government he would seek out poor farmers and guide them to plant crops that had a market demand instead of planting the same old thing. This lead to better economic conditions for the farmer and had the added benefit of crop rotation preserving the soil. Really fascinating guy and even funnier was the fact he worked in the Embassy for several years in Ecuador and this is where Janina draws her roots.
Time flew and before I knew Janina's tired self came off the little aircraft from San Juan. After just missing a large deluge of rain we made it safely back to the Bunker Hill Hotel and pretty much went right to sleep.
Seeing that we would have strained ourselves to accomplish necessary tasks we decided to stay another night on St Thomas. In the morning we dashed down the Bad Ass Coffee shop for some good Hawaiian coffee and the free wi-fi. We then made contact with Team Wandering Dolphin who are anchored in Honey Moon Cove on Water Island. We journey via Safari to Tickles Restaurant and Bar at a local Marina, that Rebecca just so happens to work at. Rebecca met us at the dock in a borrowed dink and off we went to Wandering Dolphin.
We had such a nice visit. It was great to see the gang, especially in such a beautiful cove. The Cove is a white sand beach with palm trees and a burger joint and everything you'd pretty much expect in the Virgin Islands. So Janina and I hung out on the beach with the Burton Family, swing with the kids on the rope swings and enjoying the great weather and senenery. It was a brief visit to Team WD, but we had to shuffle back from Water Island back to St Thomas and on to our hotel again. With a sinful pit stop at Pizza Hut under our belts, once again we were tired and went to bed just about immediately.
As an aside.....I've had an ongoing medical issue that finally got to the point where I needed to see a doctor. In short I have a fungus that has gotten under my nail and has infected my left hand index finger. It started swelling and really looks knarly. So I went to a clinic in Charlotte Amalie and here is what I have. Onychia and Paronychia of the Finger and Dermatophytosis of the body. So I need to get a prescription filled and put some goop on it twice a day. So uncool as I am left handed and trying to keep my hands clean and dry appear to be near impossible. But this incident will be my first attempt at navigating my Tricare Insurance that I get as a retired military guy. Should be a real hoot. Also for other cruisers and would be cruisers the cost of the visit was $185 big ones.
Ok so after all business had been taken care of we hopped aboard the ferry back to St John. Since Janina plans on staying long term she had a bit of luggage which I feared would impact our bus trip back to Coral Bay. Thankfully the big bus was running instead of the short bus. But as is always the case the bus turned in some notable adventure. Halfway up the mountain a flurry of activity and confusion erupts from the cockpit as we ground to a halt. Well wouldn't you know it we had to transfer to the short bus. We packed in barely and just when I though we were home free some more activity could be heard from the front of the bus. The driver spied an item in the dumpster as we drove by. He screeched to a halt, threw it in reverse and proceeded to do some dumpster diving. He emerged all smiles with an antique radio. He repeated over and over about how the radio was an antique. I observed that our bus also was an antique and I believe he readily agreed.
We made it back to Christa.
Janina came to work with me yesterday for a charter trip to pick up the hikers. The weather was beautiful with light north winds. Very unusual to have north winds and could have been a wonderful window to get further down island. Oh well. We did have some more trauma aboard Saddie Sea, but that is another story for another time.
I've very busy as of late and struggling to find time to update the blog and answer email. It looks like I'll be doing at least 3 to 5 days a week aboard Sadie.
More later
Capt Chris
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