After two restful sea days, we arrived in the port of
Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Tuesday
morning. The ship has a “shopping host”
aboard whose job is to suggest places to shop on shore, and where to get the
best bargains. Since the Caribbean
islands are all duty free and tax free, it is possible to get some worthwhile
bargains ashore, but we suspect that the shopping host’s job is to get us to
stores “recommended” by the cruise line.
The deals are good, but it seems like almost the same deal can be
reached in any store in town. In other
words, the “shopping host” doesn't add much value to the experience.
We were on St. Thomas thirty years ago, on our
honeymoon. We stayed in a hotel in
Charlotte Amalie for a week, and then took a week’s cruise on a 50 foot
sailboat that we had chartered with good friends. It was a great experience; one we’ll always
remember. The town has changed, though,
in the years since we were last here; instead of a cruise ship or two, there
are now four to six ships on any given day during the winter season. Consequently, the shops have multiplied
similarly. There are hundreds of
opportunities to buy jewelry, watches, liquor, etc. in town.
St. Thomas, along with three other islands, makes up the
U.S. Virgin Islands, purchased from Denmark in 1917. Several smaller islands make up the British
Virgin Islands, which, we’re told, have a much more laid-back feel. Before tourism took hold in the 1970’s, sugar
and, to a lesser extent, coffee were the primary economic engines of the
islands. As with most Caribbean islands,
pirates used the shores as their own and sailed out to plunder other
vessels. Blackbeard is said to have
built a castle on a mountain top, and Sir Francis Drake utilized Megen’s Bay on
the north side of St. Thomas to launch attacks on passing ships.
What does one do in a major shopping port like St.
Thomas? They shop, of course, and that’s
just what we did. With our friends, John
& Judy Poremba from Santa Rosa, we went from shop to shop, looking for that
special deal. We did make some
purchases, including watches for both of us.
Debbie has wanted a Movado watch for years, and we found a good deal
here; almost two for one. We made other
purchases as well, but nothing significant.
We did find a local restaurant a couple of blocks off of the main street
that served excellent Caribbean food. We
had conch in a lemon butter sauce that was very good. Conch, like abalone, can be tough and chewy,
but this was very tender and flavorful.
It was served with several side dishes, including fried plantains,
Yum! We wandered back to the ship in
mid-afternoon since the Grand Princess was set to sail at 5 PM.
By the time we awoke the next morning we were in the port of
St. Johns on the island of Antigua.
Antigua’s claim to fame is its 365 beaches, one for each day of the
year. Christopher Columbus landed in
Antigua in 1493 and named the island in honor of the Church of Santa Maria de
la Antigua in Seville, Spain. The
British colonized it in 1632 and established large-scale sugar
cultivation. In the 18th
Century, Admiral Horatio Nelson sailed into Antigua in 1784, and a few years
later, the British established one of the most important military bases in the
Caribbean at English Harbor. The
dockyard once served as the Headquarters of the British fleet in the Leeward
Islands. That headquarters has now been
turned into a museum and National Park.
We decided to visit a small bay on the eastern side of the
island and swim with the sting rays.
Sting Ray City can be found several places in the Caribbean; we have
been to one previously in the Cayman Islands.
Once at the bay, we boarded a
boat for a five minute ride to a coral reef and shallow sand bar where we got
off into waist-deep water. Moments
later, here came the sting rays, drawn by the boatmen who had buckets of
squid. There were twenty-five or more
sting rays, most of them about three feet across. They were swimming slowly among the tourists,
looking for a squid breakfast no doubt. The
only trick to feeding them was to hold a squid in your fist, with fingers and
thumbs tucked in. They swam over your
fist and kind of sucked the squid from your hand. Their skin surface was silky smooth and soft
to the touch. A few tourists squealed at
the touch of a sting ray, but most enjoyed the encounter. There was also a coral reef in the area and
some visitors snorkeled over the reef.
After about an hour, we reboarded the boat and returned to
the bay shore where there were fresh water showers available to rinse off the
salty sea water. They also served a rum
punch that was mostly rum; they say it’s cheaper than the fruit juice they mix
it with. Then we traveled back through the countryside to St. John. We got back on the ship, changed clothes and
had lunch. We got off the ship again to
explore the town. Antigua is a beautiful
island and St. John is a charming little city.
We decided we’d like to come back here.
We returned to the ship for a 5 PM sail-away. Tomorrow we’ll be in Barbados.
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