Warning in advance - this post is super long. I thought about posting it in two posts, but I couldn't figure out how I would split it up, so I didn't.
My vacation was awesome! St. Thomas is definitely somewhere that I want to return to. The island is beautiful and the people are some of the most friendly that I've ever met. Despite how much hardship they must go through, they still have a spirit of joy that is amazing.
So day 1 - we flew into St. Thomas around 11 and got our rental car and headed into town. The first thing I had to get used to was driving on the left side of the road. Luckily for all of us, Bonnie was doing the driving, but even being in the passenger seat was weird. Everything feels turned around - left turns are like right turns in the states and right turns like left turns. After spending 2 weeks there though, coming back and driving on the right side of the road was a little weird.
Anyway - we went the downtown area Charlotte Amalie. There are a bunch of shops, but they also have a place for the locals to sell their merchandise. That is were we went to find Anna. Last time Madre went to St. Thomas she had her hair braided, and Anna had been the person to do it. She was still there and both Madre and I had our hair done. Also in the locals market was a lady selling Corona, so we sat, had our hair braided (which feels like a scalp massage - very relaxing), and drank a Corona! Welcome to the islands! :)



(This is Olga. She is the one who did my hair.)
If you ever go someplace like St. Thomas where you are going to be doing a lot of swimming and such, braids are well worth it. I just got up and went in the morning and while swimming and snorkeling my hair never got in my face. It was so nice!
After stopping for a lunch/dinner at what would become one of my favorite restaurants, The Greenhouse, we checked in at the hotel. Bluebeards Castle is where Bonnie has her timeshare, but it is currently under renovation, so they put us up in a very nice unit overlooking the harbor. We had a balcony so we could go out and sit and enjoy the tropical weather. We could see cruise ships come and go and during our first week there was a youth steele drum band/orchestra that practiced close by that was fun to listen to. At night the harbor lights would come on and it was beautiful.



A typical day on island time started off by deciding on which beach we were going to. It would depend on if there was a cruise ship in or not, and how far we wanted to go. One of my favorite beaches (Brewer's Bay) was pretty much un-discovered by the cruise ship people and therefore mostly deserted, except for the locals. It was near the airport, but planes don't fly in too often so it's mostly quiet. It had the white sand and the turquoise water and it was lined with tiny shells. I started off thinking I would do a "shell for the day", because I'm used to the Oregon coast where the shells you find are broken and not all that interesting. But at this beach I was taking home handfuls of shells in my beach bag. There were tons of different little shells that were unbroken. To me, they were like finding treasure.
So anyway - the weather was wonderful. We'd get to the beach, lay out our towels and lie down for a bit and get all warm from the sun. Then it would be time for a dip in the ocean to cool off. And the water was the perfect temperature. Then it would be back to the towels. It was a difficult life. :) We bought snorkel gear on one of the first days in St. Thomas and it was fun to go snorkeling too. Another beach (Hull Bay) had a great reef with lots of colorful fish, and interesting things to see. The pictures you see of the colorful reefs and the brilliant blue and yellow fish - it's really like that. I got to swim with a sea turtle, and he was really friendly - not scared of us at all. He just went along with his business and let us get pretty close to him. The day we swam with the turtle was also my friend George's birthday, so in honor of him we named the turtle George. And then it became habit. Everyday we named a new animal George. A pelican, an iguana, a little lizard, a baracuda, and one particular seagul that came to visit us on our balcony everyday - all named George.
One of the things I liked about the ocean in St. Thomas was how easy it was to float. You could just lay back and you didn't really have to tread water to stay on the surface. It was so relaxing. And the surf is calm, so you didn't have to worry about being swept out to sea or moving around too much.

On both Sundays we were there we went to Magen's Bay. It has been recognized as one of the top 10 beaches in the world. And it is wonderful. Usually it is packed but we went on a day that there was no cruise ship and got their early enought that we were there with only a handful of other people (on a day when a cruise ship is in, it can be towel-to-towel packed). On the first Sunday we went there was a church meeting in one of the covered facilities near the beach so we could hear their steele drum worship music and we listened to them talk for a while. They have such cool accents. They enunciate every syllable almost or something, but it's just fun to listen to them speak. The second time we went, there were locals having a birthday party. They know how to party! We enjoyed the music and danced in the ocean.

We found out from a local about a beach called Linquist Bay. Not many tourists know about it, so it's usually not very busy. We looked for it for couple of days without any sucess of finding it. But one of our waiters was more than happy to give us directions. He also told us it was the beach that they film Corona commercials on. So we got Coronas and went and made our very own "commercials". :)



And then there was all the food. I think I could write an entire post just on what we ate and how good it was. Lots of seafood, but lots of other good things too. There wasn't a bad restaurant we went to. I committed dietary abuse and had a "food baby" almost every night - sometimes a food baby twins. :) Two of my favorite places that I would recommend to anyone are Mims and Mafolie. Mims had a great atmosphere - right on the ocean with outdoor seating and amazing food. And Mafolie (also with great food) was up on a hill with a great view of Charlotte Amalie.

Lani and I with our food babies.

The four of us at Mims

The view from Mafolie
And some other fun pictures...

Day 1 - notice how white I am!

Day 8 - I have a little bit of a tan! :)

One of the beaches we went to had pretty good sized waves - enough for the surfers to come out.

Sail boat races in the harbor

The Iguanas are everywhere!

Charlotte Amalie

St. Thomas sunset
(Pictures courtesy of Alaina Bryn. )