Boat drinks. Boys in the band ordered boat drinks.
Visitors just scored on the home rink.
Everything seems to be wrong.
Lately, newspaper mentioned cheap airfare.
I’ve got to fly to Saint Somewhere.
I’m close to bodily harm.
— Boat Drinks by Jimmy Buffett
Yes, that’s right. It was the annual Presidents’ Day vacation…for nine glorious days. This year’s boat drinks were had in St. Thomas, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, at the Bolongo Bay Beach Club.
>cue sound of rolling waves and rustling palm fronds<
The folks at Bolongo were, as their web site claims, just about the friendliest people we met in the USVI. Our trip began on Friday, February 14th at an hour way too early to even claim to be morning. National Airport to Charlotte, NC for a 45 minute layover that turned into 3 1/2 hours. Unfortunately, this meant instead of basking in the sun for three hours and then turning in early I didn't get my first cocktail until nearly 6pm Atlantic time (yes, boys and girls, the Virgin Islands are on Atlantic time, which means they are Eastern Standard + 1 hour). It didn't matter so much, though, as the 85 degF temperature and the breeze from the east was the equivalent of a long lost lover's caress to this summer person who has been cold since November.
Saturday morning brought what was the first of a string of "yet another horrible day in paradise" days. Clear, blue sky and puffy white clouds as far as the eye could see stretched out over white sand beaches and blue water.
A quick note about the U.S. Virgin Islands: The USVI is composed mainly of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix -- there are some smaller islands but they're uninhabited. The U.S. Virgin Islands are part of the United States. If you go to them, you haven't left the U.S (inexplicably, though, you must go through Customs and Immigration before you can leave St. Thomas...more on this later). St. Thomas is an interesting mix of tourism, local life, and just about everything that is both right and wrong with the Carribean.
Most of the retail business in Charlotte-Amalie, St. Thomas' largest city, centers around duty-free shopping catering to the cruise ship business. This means that you can find all the jewelry, liquor, and perfume you could ever want. Since St. Croix is home to the Cruzan Rum distillery and the Virgin Islands Brewing Company it sort of makes sense that you’d be able to purchase a lot of liquor in the islands. What was scary, though, was that all the stores had, basically, the same merchandise with a varying degree of depth in their stocks.
St. John, by contrast, is largely private homes and natural parks. The shopping there includes galleries of locally produced art as well as the sorts of stores you find in a tourist mall catering to an “upscale” clientele.
Possessing the only casino in the USVI, St. Croix is home not only the aforementioned distilleries but also to the largest oil refinery in the Carribean. Most of the Venezuelan crude imported into the U.S. flows through St. Croix before being tanker shipped to the mainland.
So what did I learn on my winter vacation? That sometimes you just need to lay on the beach and do nothing. Especially when this
is what you come home to.
Only 25 days until the first day of summer.