St. Thomas

This morning we docked in St. Thomas, part of the US Virgin Islands. Surprisingly, we were the only cruise ship in the harbour – a harbour that can accommodate up to 8 cruise ships at a time. The US Customs & Border Protection surprised everyone, including the ship’s officers by deciding at 8:30 last night that, since this was our first stop back in the US, we should go through an inspection this morning prior to being able to disembark. Apparently, this is the first time that this has ever happened and it caught even the most seasoned ship’s officers completely off guard. Passengers weren’t informed until about midnight last night – after many had already gone to bed.

Once through immigration, we disembarked the Grand Princess and boarded the Island Girl, a ferry to St. John, one of the 3 major islands that make up the US Virgin Islands (St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix). After a 45 minute ferry ride along which we were accompanied by Chuck (a brown booby) who apparently accompanies the ferries across looking for the fish that the ferry disturbs.

Two thirds of the island of St. John is a National Park with spectacular vistas and 27 natural white sand beaches, all of which are public beaches. Trunk Bay on St. John and Megan’s Bay on St. Thomas are both on the list of the 10 best beaches in the world.

The island has termites – termites who build their nests in the trees. Very large nests!! The island also has populations of wild deer, wild donkeys, rats and wild boar. We did not see any boar, however we did see a deer and 2 donkeys -  they just stood there while cars and buses drove past, or stopped to stare and take pictures. As Graham said, it’s like someone paid them to stand at the side of the road.

While we were waiting for the ferry to arrive to take us back to St. Thomas, we decided that, since we were in a US territory and we needed a little cash, this would be an ideal opportune ty to get some since the closest bank was a 2 minute walk from the pier. Graham went off to do the banking and returned with our cash and…. a beer! A $2.00 beer. He did try to finish the beer where he bought it, however the bartender told him that “this is the islands, mon. You can drink it anywhere.” So, back to the pier with it he came.

Our trip to St. John was very enjoyable and the scenery was again spectacular. By the time the tour was over, it was back to the ship just in time to sail for Santo Domingo.

Graham says that I have to put this in the blog – every day since we’ve been aboard, I have eaten fresh pineapple twice a day – breakfast and lunch. To me this is a special treat associated with cruising. The pineapple is just not the same as what we get at home. This morning, I couldn’t finish my breakfast pineapple – I am officially sick of pineapple.