We're Here!

Day 1

written by Stacy

Mark and I and the kids made it down to sunny St. Thomas in just under 16 hours. We flew from Medford to San Francisco, SF to New Jersey, and then from there, strait on to St. Thomas.  On the flight out of New Jersey we flew over Lady Liberty and the kids were very excited to catch a glimpse of the famous statue from the air.

We finally arrived in St. Thomas where we met up with Keith and Kathy at the ferry docks.   

The Williams had flown in several days earlier and spent a few nights at a fabulous resort catching up on their sleep—apparently sleeping on airport floors during 4 hour layovers was not quality sleep time for either of them.  It took Keith and Kathy a little more than 20 hours from Medford to get here.  So while we were stuck on the airplane this is what the Williams were doing:

I'm assuming that Kathy is laying here worried about us and how we're surviving cramped up in our little tiny very uncozy seats.

With their three extra days, Keith had spent his sailing a rented Hobie Cat while Kathy rented a kayak.  

Here's the view from their hotel at the Ritz Carlton:

 

 ...and their view from their lanai (where I assume once again they were sipping cold beverages and worried about how we were doing):

Needless to say they looked well rested and not as haggard as we Skillmans did when we finally met up with them at the ferry docs.

While waiting in St. Thomas (USVI) to catch a ferry over to Tortola (BVI) Keith spotted a man wearing a shirt that said “Striplins Warriors” on it.  We were highly amused and I sent him on a covert mission to get a picture of the guy.  It didn’t take long for Keith to take the picture but of course it wasn’t up to my photographic standards.  It was a little too far away to really see the t-shirt.  So I did what I do best…awkwardly made friends with my new T-shirt buddy.  The end result was getting a much clearer and waaaay closer picture of the shirt…

He seemed to be most willing and happy to pose for this pic.  And his friends all laughed and called it his "lucky shirt".  But if you look at how horrid I look in the photo, having just spent 15 hours huddled in a ball on a tiny airplane seat, I’m not so sure this guy was that lucky to have me hug him.  I’d hate to see what his unlucky shirt gets him.  Kathy very smartly pointed out that while she gets made fun of (mostly by me) for petting stray island animals that perhaps my bizarre penchant for befriending and hugging locals isn’t all that different.  The end result often finds us both using a generous amounts of liquid hand sanitizer.

The people on the BVI’s all seem extraordinarily friendly and helpful.  Strangers nearby are often quick to give us directions and advice.  On our ferry ride over to Tortola we traveled with a lot of people who had been over to St. Thomas to go shopping.  Things are so much cheaper there than on Tortola that most people are willing to take the 40 minute ferry ride over, shop on St. Thomas at a few of the giant stores much like our Costcos and Home Depots and then lug huge quantities of it all back again on the ferry.  To do this they have to clear Customs and use their passports.  I even saw a guy carrying new rims for his car and another guy with a new kitchen faucet (oh yeah, and a guy with a wide smile and a new toilet seat).  I don’t think I’ll ever complain again about shopping at Costco and having to lug all my stuff all the way back to Ashland or unloading the car from the garage.  Puts it all in perspective.  Their way of shopping is an epic job to be sure.

On both the U.S. and British Virgins, they drive on the left side of the road, a rather abrupt change to get used to mostly due to the very curvy and narrow roads on the islands.  As a passenger, it took some getting used to—especially at night.

We finally reached Tortola, passed through customs, got our passports stamped, and headed by taxi to the boat.  “Hakuna Matata” was there at the docks just waiting for us.

After first inspection she looks like a fantastic boat--this one has AIR CONDITIONING.   The boys surveyed the equipment and checked for all the right charts while the girls went through the galley making sure we had everything we needed for cooking onboard.  We made a huge list for provisioning the boat and then called for a giant cab capable of holding our crew and all the groceries we'd be bringing back with us.

While we waited an hour for the van to come and pick us up, we had a quick dinner at a restaurant overlooking the marina.   We were excited to eat Rotis again.  We first discovered them during Keith and Kathy’s charter back in 2009.  These chicken and potato curry "burritos" are one of our favorite things to eat, and our dinner did not disappoint.  

We ate some of the best rotis ever.  Mmmmmm!  So good to be back!  Not only that but I think it was some of the best coleslaw I’ve ever eaten in my life as well—island-style coleslaw with pineapple and a little coconut milk in it.  Oh yeah, it’s really good to be back!!

The restaurant we ate at was up above a little sailing club and we got to hang out and watch the local kids sail around on their little regatta boats.  Connor and Chloe decided they could handle an after school sailing club membership here.

Our big van/taxi finally arrived and it was time to provision.  This is where Kathy’s expertise comes in.  The three boys parked them self steadfastly at the front doors of the little grocery store and dared not partake in the coordinated attack we call “food provisioning”.  There they discussed with the local men--who dared not shop either, the fine points and serious rules of Cricket (the national religion here). 

Kathy, Chloe, and I gathered our lists and two shopping carts (one of the carts was suffering from an evil case of “squeaky and rusty wheel" syndrome--a malady often found on island carts).

While there we ran into another boat provision-er.  By that I mean that he was the only other shopper in the store with a cart chuck full like ours--which I rudely mistook a few times as MY cart and threw items inside that didn't belong.  The poor guy kept wondering why his cart would have strange items in it and I kept wondering why MY cart kept wandering off to different isles.  In the cookie isle we discovered our little shopping snafu and got our little game of "Who's cart is Whose?" all worked out.

Check out the carrot Chloe found at the store:

We were lucky to find most of what we came looking for.  Usually provisioning gets really tricky in small stores because you never know what you’re gonna find.  And sometimes are very surprised at what you find.  Case in point: chicken feet.  Too bad we didn’t bring a recipe for that.

Keith at some point bravely wandered into the store and reported that he had found "Thighs with skin and fat".  He then, with a giant smirk,  made sure we knew he was talking about the chicken and that he was clearly not making a reference to the shoppers.

Here's mayo we found for $6

Connor, who suffers from a cold cereal addiction, decided to go inside the store and went looking to see if they had cereal.  He was super excited to discover half an isle dedicated to his favorite meal of the day.    Yep, that's $7 for cereal, which Connor was more than willing to have us pay. 

All in all not too bad.  For our first grocery stop we spent about $750 on food. 

After a short drive back, we successfully unloaded the food.  This is a huge accomplishment as one must “walk the plank” so to speak each time you ferry the heavy bags from shore to the boat.  Nobody and nothing ended up in the drink so all in all a successful provisioning trip indeed.

The night ended with a thorough unpacking and settling in.  The kids were excited to move into their cabin.

While we were winding down for the evening I made the kids write in their trip journals. 

Chloe of course was super excited and quickly composed several pages of trip narrative while Connor briefly noted a few random statements on a single page such as…

 

“The plane ride took forever”

“I found cereal” (with 7 smiley faces scribbled after it)

“p.s. I don’t like writing at all.”

Tomorrow we have a few more provisioning items, one last official tour of the boat’s systems, and a few instructions. 

The marina here has internet so a great time to update our little blog with this lengthy post.  It also has excellent showers which may mean a last chance for a REAL shower in the morning.  They also have a great laundry facility and I just wish we had some laundry to do.  In about five days we’ll be dreaming of that laundry-mat.

Cheers!