Thursday, December 16
Actually, the US Virgin Islands (USVI) as a group is America’s Caribbean. Since St Thomas is one of the three islands in the group (along with St John and St Croix), I figure the slogan works for this post. After an incredibly windy sailaway from Charlotte Amalie, we’re back at sea. The stiff breezes have calmed down and I’m quite comfortable in my corner on the veranda.
The three-part map shows the US Virgin Islands.
The inset at the bottom is a closer look at the island of St Thomas.
the other inset shows where we played in relation to where
we docked in Charlotte Amalie.
Before I get to today, a quick trip into the past. St Thomas is a popular cruise port; we’ve been here five times prior to this cruise. The first time we visited the island was in 2002, aboard Celebrity’s Infinity. We joined one of the safari truck tours that take people around to the scenic overlooks en route to a beach break — in our case, the world-famous Magen’s Bay. In 2003, we stopped in St Thomas after crossing the Atlantic (from Barcelona, Spain) aboard Celebrity’s Millennium. Mom was with us on that cruise. Instead of staying in St Thomas, we grabbed the ferry to the neighboring island of St John, took a safari truck tour, and went to Trunk Bay for a bit of swimming/snorkeling. It turns out that we didn’t do much of either as it started raining soon after we arrived at the beach.
Our third visit in 2004, aboard Holland America’s Maasdam, was a non-event. The ship was experiencing mechanical problems and was delayed coming into port. With no space at either of the docks, the ship anchored off-shore. We tendered into town, strolled around Charlotte Amalie, and returned to the ship. Like I said, a non-event.
In 2008, we returned to St Thomas aboard the Caribbean Princess. On that occasion, we went to Sapphire Beach so Mui could snorkel. And finally, last year we came back to the island on Celebrity’s Mercury. As we did in 2003, we took the ferry over to St John, skipped the island tour this time, and went directly to Trunk Bay where Mui snorkeled to his heart’s content.
St Thomas and St John 2002-2009
So from the past, to the present. We were up at 6:00a as the ship was on approach to Havensight, the dock that is closer to downtown Charlotte Amalie, the territorial capital of the USVI. It was still dark and we enjoyed seeing the twinkling lights along the coast. With dawn came thick grey clouds threatening rain.
It’s a grey sort of day in St Thomas.
At that point, we were still planning to disembark the ship as soon as it was cleared at 7:00a and make our way to Red Hook to catch the ferry to St John. Well, it wasn’t to be. First, we noticed that the all aboard was 3:30p, earlier than we had anticipated. Next, the ship did not clear until closer to 7:30a, taking with it any hope of catching the 8:00a ferry. After a short discussion, we decided to stay local and go to a beach not far from town. The announcement a few minutes later that the ship’s excursion to St John was canceled due to adverse weather conditions confirmed our decision for us.
This is what passes for a cab in St Thomas.
Disembarking around 8:30a, we headed directly to Morningstar Beach ($6/person cab fare). That the cab didn’t wait to fill up with other passengers was surprising, but we didn’t question our luck. Ten minutes later we were on the narrow strip of gold-sand beach that is also used by Marriott’s Frenchman’s Reef Resort.
That’s the Marriott resort at the far end of the beach.
We quickly settled into a couple of chairs on the deserted beach. Taking advantage of the overcast, I strolled the short length of the beach a couple of times. It felt good to have the surf wash over my feet as I walked. Later, I joined Mui in watching MSC’s Poesia come into Havensight, just around the beachhead from where we were.
The guidebooks say that this is a good beach to watch ship's coming
into port. They’re right on the money.
We found the beach to be quite peaceful. For several hours, we were one of two couples enjoying the sand and surf. Even when people from the resort started streaming onto the beach about mid-morning, it never got very crowded. Maybe the overcast kept people away. There was enough sunshine peeking through the clouds to remind us that we were in the Caribbean, so no complaints from us.
Our chairs are just past the building with the blue awnings.
The guy in charge of collecting the fee for the lounges/umbrellas ($25 for the set), told us that the beach was slowly recovering from the ravages of this year’s hurricane season. All in all, it was a nice beach (though rocky at the entry point into the water, but sand-bottom after that). The water was a lot cooler today, so except for a few short dips, I stayed dry.
looking back down the beach from the resort.
Mui took his mask and snorkel and went out to the point a couple of times, not expecting to find much of anything as Morningstar is not known for its snorkeling. He was pleasantly surprised and reported back that it was the best snorkeling of the trip (except for the turtles) … parrot fish, red snapper, three baby squid amongst his finds. Darn; we should have brought the underwater casing for the camera with us.
We left the beach at noon and returned to the ship for lunch. Had we known that the sun was about to come out — and stay out — we would have remained at Morningstar for a few more hours.
Ahh! So much better when the sun shines and the colors pop.
After a light meal at the Horizon Court, we went back out again to see if I could find a few Christmas gifts in the shops at Havensight. Then, it was back to the ship to relax on the veranda until sailaway.
this photo and a t-shirt is all that we came back with
from our foray to the shops.
We leave MSC's Poesia and Silversea's Silver Spirit behind
as we depart St Thomas for our next port.
Marriott's Frenchman's Reef Resort.
(Morningstar Beach is just beyond the spit of land.)
glimpse of Morningstar Beach as we sail away from St Thomas.
St Thomas is now but a dim outline on the horizon. I’m caught up with our day on the island, so a little reading is in order now … maybe a glass of wine. More later …
Later …
For the second night in a row, our table was still occupied when we arrived at the Da Vinci Dining Room. We tried to sneak back out for a stroll around the Promenade Deck, but Franco caught us and took us to the table we ate at last night. No problem.
Mui: fruit cup with macadamia nuts; red & green mesclun leaves with escarole and sunflower seeds; baked black cod with stir-fried vegetables and rissole potatoes.
Me: shrimp cocktail; cold yogurt and cucumber soup (blech … Mui’s version is much better); fettuccine Alfredo (if you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a pasta kind of gal).
Dessert: banana-coconut sorbet and chocolate fudge ice cream … the latter was to-die-for-delish, but we were good and didn’t ask for seconds.
After dinner we went to the Princess Theater for tonight’s show, featuring Ray Coussins, once pianist to Frank Sinatra. The place was filled to the rafters, so our seats didn’t remain empty for long when we left after the second song. Coussins has his bevy of adoring fans on the ship, but I’m afraid I’m not joining the ranks.
Tomorrow is another new island for us — the Dominican Republic. My pre-cruise research strongly suggested that exploring the city of Santo Domingo was a better option than going to a beach. So, we plan to go into town and see where our feet take us.
Next Up … Video: St Thomas
