Location: St. Thomas, USVI – Airborne to Paris Via New York

After a brief 12-hour stay in Puerto Rico we are headed to St. Croix for a short visit with my friend John Ballard. We knew that we were headed for another adventure when we boarded the smallish 20-passenger puddle jumper airline and the safety announcement was given in an English/French/Reggae blend where one word flowed into the next without a pause. From the air, Puerto Rico vanished beneath us and in a short 30-minutes St. Croix slid into view. A smattering of white building with red and blue roof covered the hillsides surround by a turquoise blue sea.  This was the island of St Croix.

John and Laura met us at the airport and after we had tracked down K2’s bag that had traveled ahead of us we jumped into John’s truck and headed down the left side of the road. We were diving on the left side of the road? This is the USA – turns out that the US Virgin Islands are the only territory in the USA where cars drive on the left side of the road – with left hand drive cars. We asked around and the most plausible story was that when the area was under Dutch control the local donkeys were trained to walk on the left side of the road – now 80 years later the donkeys have been replaced by Hondas, pickups and Mack trucks and we are still driving on the left. No one can fully explain why the USVI has not changed over, but several conspiracy theories persist.  One theory is the taxi drivers do not want to lose fares if visitors were more comfortable with driving on the right with a left hand drive vehicle.

We headed to the Ballard’s hilltop house, where magnificent views radiate over the town of Christianstead and the Caribbean Sea – on a clear day we are told that you can see St. Thomas and Puerto Rico, but alas the humidity was too high and all we could see was the sparkling blue sea against the white sand beaches. After a tour of Casa Ballard we were treated to a tour of the east side of the island. Rounding a corner I spotted a huge white satellite dish pointed skyward. I immediately recognized it as one of the Very Large Base Array (VLBA) receivers. See http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/vlba/html/thesites.html. These receivers are located from western edge of the USA at Mona Kia on Hawaii and across the continental USA to the eastern edge at St. Croix. They are operated as one unified electronic telescope that searches the universe for electronics signals. What makes this exciting is that ever since I visited the VLBA receivers in Hawaii I have been trying to collect the whole set. Along with the VLBA receivers, John took us to the “eastern most” part of the USA. Well I suppose they mean to say in the western hemisphere, because Alaska is both the most western and eastern extremities of US territory as it cross the 180 Latitude.

One of the quainter features of St Thomas are the long abandoned Dutch windmills. Instead of pumping water, they were used to crush sugar cane on the Dutch sugar cane plantations. All that remains of these imposing structure is a slightly tapering cone of fieldstone about 30 feet in diameter, 50 feet tall with walls about 2 feet thick. The wooden top and mill have all been scavenge or lost to time.  There are over 100 of these stone structures doting the landscape and in some places they are incorporated in more modern house designs.

We had one more day of hospitality at Casa Ballard, and we are on the move again. This time we are off to St. Thomas for the 27^th Annual Rolex International Regatta. John and Laura take us to Christianstead where we have lunch and later board a regularly scheduled seaplane service to the town of Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas. When we arrive we call a couple that we met in Puerto Rico: David and Danielle Comeaux. They are our gracious hosts during the Rolex Cup. David and Danielle are regular crew on the boat that has picked us for the cup: Tempest. K2 raced on this boat during the Heineken Cup and found to crew to be great fun. They were short crew foredeck so for some unknown reason they wanted me to foredeck. I reluctantly agreed because if there is someplace for something to go wrong on a race boat it will be the foredeck.

The first day brought light winds, which is not the sweet spot for this 38-foot Benneteau. We labored through the day sailing only one very long race but it was good practice for the crew and we honed our skills. The next day we had two shorter races with a little heavier wind. In both races squalls came across the racecourse leaving us soaked to the skin. The final day was the boat’s sweet spot with winds in the high teens. We raced well and Tempest placed 2^nd in their racer/cruiser class, proving that the old lady can lift her skirts and get down the racecourse. That second place as well as several first in the BVI regatta the prior weekend secured Tempest a first place in the CORT, which is the combined scores of Heineken Cup, BVI and Rolex. With a borrowed blue jacket and a tie with sailboats on it K2 and I attended the Rolex awards diner with the crew of Tempest.

For lunch we met another couple from Tempest, James and Hillary. We took a short ferry ride to the island of St John, where we had lunch at Pusser Bar. Rockefeller owned St John, but he donated 2/3 of it to the National Park service, which operates it as a national monument. It’s a quaint island without the development of St. Thomas, and some say without the real island feel. It was just a scouting trip for future reference for us.

It is Tuesday so we must be in transit on a flight from St. Thomas to Paris Via New York. While travel can be a hurry up and wait time, it’s the waiting that allows you to reflect on what you have experienced in the past few days. It’s been an incredible week, St Croix with the Ballard’s, St. Thomas with the Comeaux and the crew of Tempest – each experience was open, friendly and inviting. Some of these people we had only know for a few hours before we were staying their home, but they treated us like long time friends. I think this is the reason that I travel, it’s not only the sights and sounds of new places but the warmness and hospitality of the people you meet that makes travel worth it’s hardships.