We just got back from an absolutely wonderful vacation on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. What a great trip! St. Thomas is a beautiful island, and the beaches and the water are just amazing. It has places that are just perfect for doing absolutely nothing at all but sitting on the beach and watching the clear, blue water. It also has great shopping, many great places to eat, plenty of water sports to choose from, and dozens of places to go for day-trips. Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard that there are places there that are not perfect, and some places you don’t want to go at night. But let’s be honest: that’s true about many vacation spots (Jamaica and Mexico spring to mind) as well as most big cities. As with any place you go, you just have to use a little common sense. The bottom line is that if you’re looking for a fun, relaxing place to visit that also gives you the option to enjoy a variety of activities, St. Thomas should be on your short list of destinations.
First off, St. Thomas is not all that expensive a vacation destination (depending, of course, on what you’re used to and from where you’re traveling). For instance, renting a beach house on the Jersey Shore for a week can cost you between $1500 to $2500 per week (at the low end of the scale). North Carolina rentals were starting at about $1500 per week, and required an eight hour car trip. For that price, you get a pretty basic, pretty empty, typical rental-type property that, with any sort of luck, is within spitting distance of the beach. Amenities are often slim to none. (One such bare-bones rental on the Jersey Shore ran $1,600 per week and included nothing but a roof over your head, air conditioners in the windows, and mattresses upon which you could put the sheets and blankets you brought from home.)
In contrast, in St. Thomas, for $2200 for a week, we rented a fully-furnished, fully-equipped villa. It was air-conditioned, had its own 10' by 20' swimming pool, included linens, towels, 3 bathrooms with showers, beach chairs, snorkel gear, rafts, and, most importantly, a fully stocked kitchen that included an ice maker in the fridge and the all important blender for making the requisite frozen rum drinks that you absolutely must drink while on the island. (It’s the law, you know.)
The reality is that a trip to the Caribbean is not that much more expensive than a trip to the Jersey Shore, or the Outer Banks (at least from the Northeast). The main differences between a vacation on the Jersey Shore and on the Carribean shore is in getting there. For St. Thomas, you’ve got to plan for airfare and a rental car. The first is obviously necessary because it is a bit of a swim to St. Thomas. I highly recommend the latter so that you can get around and explore. (Driving in St. Thomas is quite the adventure all by itself. But I’ll get back to that.) If you search carefully, save your money, plan ahead and book far enough in advance, you can get decent rates for both.
(By the way, it is far cheaper to travel to the Virgin Islands in the summer if you want to cut costs. Sure it’s hot. But its summer, and if you’re going to the beach anyway, it’ll be hot everywhere -- Jersey Shore, the Outer Banks, Florida, wherever. The advantage it that, while you’re paying in-season summer rates on the mainland, the rates in the Virgin Islands (both St. Thomas and St. Croix, where we stayed last year), are discounted because summer is their slow season. (Traveling to the Virgin Islands in the winter is what the rich folks do -- which is why we travel in the summer.))
About airfare. I’m a pretty persistent cuss, so I searched all of the travel sites and then went back and searched all of the airline sites as well. Then I did it again, which brings me to my Travel Tip Number One: Don’t rely on just one search or one service. Search, search again, and then come back the next day and search again. Start looking at least 60 (and maybe 90) days in advance. Also, always check the airlines that aren’t listed on the travel sites (like JetBlue and Southwest), just in case. (JetBlue, for instance, currently has roundtrip travel from JFK to Orlando (our next vacation destination) for $180 per person, roundtrip (depending on day and flight). That’s about $120 cheaper per person than any other airline.
For St. Thomas, the best price I got, by far, was directly from American Airlines. American had a direct flight from JFK to St. Thomas. Granted, for us Joisey-ites, flying from JFK is a bit more of a hassel than flying out of Newark, but we were saving over $100 per person going out of JFK, plus, we eliminated a two-hour layover in San Juan. Putting all of that into the mix, JFK was no longer quite such a hassle for our group of six (the missus and me, our youngest, our oldest and his girlfriend, and “Aunt” Joanne).
(One more note on airfares. We added my oldest son and his girlfriend to our trip about two weeks after we originally booked our flights. The original fare was about $425 per person. Two weeks later, tickets on the same plane had jumped over $30 per person. Then, about three weeks before we left, “Aunt” Joanne was considering adding her niece, but the fare had jumped again -- to $588.00 per person! This leads us to Travel Tip Number Two: price and compare, do it again, but then book it so you can lock in a good fare.)
Anyway, we wound up buying our e-tickets directly through the American Airlines’ website. (Personally, I’m not a big fan of American or the service on that airline, but they did get us there and back at a reasonable rate, so I was able to deal.) This brings us to Travel Tip Number Three: don’t forget to bring your e-tickets to the airport and keep them handy. When you do, you can use them for curb-side check in, if its available. It’s quicker than waiting in the lines at the counter.
Our departure day finally arrived. Given our 8:00 a.m. flight, we used our savings on the airfare to book a car to take us to the airport (with our friend Nancy picking us up in her extra-large, Sam’s-Club-economy-size SUV on our return). We got to JFK at about 6:00 a.m, were checked in and at the gate by 6:20 and, with our direct flight into St. Thomas, were drinking rum runners in the Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas by 12:15 p.m.
Before I go on, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that there is a down side to traveling to the Caribbean in the summer. It’s a little thing they call “hurricane season” in the tropics. (Yeah, I know. There’s always a catch.). You should keep in mind when you travel to the Caribbean that July and August are the beginning of the hurricane season. Now, in the past, we’ve had no storm problems when we’ve traveled by the last week of July. This year, we pushed our summer vacation to the first week of August, and sure enough, we were monitoring Hurricane Irene develop in the Atlantic during the latter part of the week (Irene missed the Islands anyway, and meandered off into the mid-Atantic). But, you should be aware. If you’re a worrier, Travel Tip Number Four is: buy trip insurance to cover last minute changes of plans.
Back at Cyril King airport, with our rum drinks in hand, we were waiting near the car rental counter for our contact from the villa rental agency. Yes, you read that correctly. The rental agency provided us with a contact person to lead us to our villa. That sounds very nice, until you understand precisely why the provide a contact person. It turns out that the roads on St. Thomas are so winding and narrow, and actual street signs and house numbers are so few and far between, that the company meets you at the airport and escorts you to your house to make sure you find it -- the first time. There isn’t a second escorted tour to the house, so we paid very close attention to the route as we followed our guide, Jeff.
Our rental agency was McLaughlin Anderson, and I cannot recommend them highly enough. They have rental properties all over the Caribbean and, if you are at all interested in getting a taste of a rental home on the islands, check out their website:
www.mclaughlinanderson.com. They are good at what they do, they are very helpful and accommodating, and the different places they offer look positively amazing.
Anyway, after securing our minivan at the airport (and with six, squeezing all of us, plus a week’s worth of luggage, into anything less than a minivan was just not going to happen), good old Jeff from McLaughlin Anderson escorted us from the airport, through Charlotte Amalie (the capital city) and along the mountainous roads of St. Thomas to our villa on the northern side of the island.
About the roads. My grandmother had a saying about the country roads near my parents’ house where I grew up: “These roads are so crooked, they’d break a snake’s back.” The roads in St. Thomas made those roads look as pin-straight as Interstate 70 through Kansas. For instance, Route 35, out of Charlotte Amalie, has two separate 180 degree hair-pin turns going up the side of the mountain and one more going down the other side. Combine those turns with roads that are just barely wide enough to let two cars pass each other, add a few open-air-taxi drivers who are always hustling their oversize vehicles up and down the hills, and mix in the fact that people drive on the left side of the road, and you’ve got quite the driving adventure.
Nevertheless, we bravely forged ahead. We followed Jeff out of the airport and, after a 30 minute jaunt up one side of the mountain that is St. Thomas and down the other, we arrived at our villa.
I’ve got to tell you -- it was a little slice of paradise. Crosswinds -- the name of our villa -- is built on the side of a cliff and overlooks the Carribean Sea. This is the view from our deck:
The house was fully air-conditioned. (This is important, by the way, if you don’t want to rely on the trade winds to keep you cool. Some villas have no air conditioning at all, some have only the bedrooms with air-conditioning, and some are fully air-conditioned. If you’re thinking about renting your own villa (which I recommend), make sure you check before you commit, because it does get hot during the day.)
To get to the house, we parked in the drive along the side of the road. We then opened the gate that led into what I can only describe as a tropical rainforest. There were palm trees, and hanging vines, and assorted tropical floral and fauna all around us (we saw lizards, iguanas, and hermit crabs scurrying up and down the slope nearby). Just inside the gate was a wooden landing, with a staircase leading down to the house (58 steps down, by the way). It looked truly exotic and almost surreal when we first saw the house below us. (I should mention that exotic and surreal are not so much at the top of my list when lugging 6 suitcases and 6 carry-ons in the tropical heat. But I digress.)
The house itself was absolutely beautiful. Entering the front door was like stepping into one of those pictures of a vacation home you see in a travel magazine and wonder what it’s like to visit. Only, we were really in this one.
The main living room was huge, with glass sliding doors straight ahead, looking out over the sapphire blue sea. The scent of . . . something . . . flowery and green and fresh filled the air as we toured the house. There was a huge dining area, decks all around, overlooking the sea, and vaulted ceilings inside with tropical ceiling fans spinning lazily above our heads. The house had three bedrooms, including a detached guest cottage (about two-thirds of the way down the stairs, with its own kitchen and bathroom). Outside the glass sliders, down a dozen stairs, there was the beautiful pool with beach chairs and tables on the deck around it. The three bathrooms in the main house included one with an al fresco shower.
The house was wired with four cable televisions, which was truly a god-send with the mix of folks, and their eclectic tastes, we had traveling together. There was a Bose sound system, with a set of speakers hooked up by the pool, together with a selection of music (including some laid back steel drum music that we played almost all day long). There were DVD players, and VCRs, and a variety of movies. There were board games and books. The kitchen was fully equipped (including, as mentioned, the all important blender), as was the laundry room. We also had once-a-week maid service and a manual, provided by the agency, with the phone number for the agency’s concierge service, and contact numbers for water sports, restaurants, and a variety of other services, many of which would travel directly to the villa to accommodate our schedule.
Now, I don’t care what kind of place you book for your vacation: you don’t get this kind of stuff at any hotel or resort or rental property that I’ve ever been to, at least not at this price. Heck, I used to be happy if our beach rental didn’t require a good hosing down before we moved in.
We were all thrilled that we had the luxury of stretching out and napping on the couch, or the beach chairs, or a raft in the pool, and then blending our own pina coladas, taking them down to our own deck with our own private view of the sea, and drinking them all day (or all night) long. I loved the prospect of our outdoor shower, where I eventually wound up watching hermit crabs scrambling up the rocks as I showered. This villa was a travel destination all its own.
The convenience of the villa rental, in addition to how nice it was, was that we had our own kitchen and barbecue grill. This gave us an added element of freedom because we weren’t confined to the hours of operation of some on-site restaurant at a hotel. We weren’t subject to exorbitant snack-bar prices, and we didn’t have to pay sky-high room-service costs. We were free to buy what we wanted for snacks and meals and were able to eat them when we wanted. We didn’t hesitate to take advantage. After we got settled, we shopped and stocked the fridge with rum, cold cuts, burgers, chicken, eggs, bread, some rum, fruit, muffins, hot dogs, chips, snacks, and a little rum. Did I mention we also got some rum? (Hey, with no duty on Cruzan rum (which is made in St. Croix), we absolutely had to take advantage of the prices, didn’t we?)
Anyway, with our full kitchen, we were able to have a leisurely breakfast each day, grill some burgers, dogs and chicken for lunch, make sandwiches for snacks, and keep our sodas, water and mixers nicely chilled. Plus, we were able to save our pennies for some pretty nice dinners.
Yes, yes. I know. There’s a whole school of thought that says that, while on vacation, you shouldn’t be cooking, or cleaning dishes, or mixing your own drinks, or worrying about your towels, or exerting yourself in any way more than necessary to order your next drink from the bar. For those who think that way, obviously a villa is not the choice for you. But if you’d like to move into a place and experience it, and control your own destiny with respect to where to go, what to do, when to eat, and where to relax, a villa rental is the way to go.
Anyway, I cannot say enough good things about our place. And sitting in a lounge chair on the deck around the pool, rum runner in hand, calypso music playing in the background, and the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below, I could not have asked for a better vacation spot.
We probably would have been content spending the week at the house. We really did want for nothing, with the pool right there and everything we needed at our finger tips. But we figured we’d better see what St. Thomas had to offer, so after we unpacked, we ventured out to Red Hook, on the eastern end of the island.
The trip to Red Hook, like trips to anywhere on St. Thomas, certainly got the adrenaline pumping. The cars on St. Thomas are standard US cars, with the steering wheel on the left. However, they drive on the left, as the British do. So, you’ve got to recite a little mantra as you’re driving: keep your shoulder on the shoulder. The temptation to drift over to the right lane is strong -- not that the roads are wide enough that you could actually consider them as having “lanes,” per se. You can, however, inch over to one side of the road to allow on-coming traffic to pass -- you just have to remember to inch to your left, not your right.
The rental car agency provided us with a nice map of the island, with most of the major roads identified. They have such maps all over, too -- in This Week In St. Thomas, a weekly publication put out by the island to advertise the week’s coming events (and many of the local merchants and service-providers as well). You can also get maps in any number of pamphlets and publications you can find in most stores.
The maps, however, don’t really help with detours, as we discovered when we tried to take Route 42 from our house to Red Hook. We came upon a large “Road Closed” sign, with a detour arrow pointing into some residential neighborhood that was in a direction that seemed to be directly opposite the way we were trying to go. Now, being from Jersey, which is also known as the “Land of the Unmarked Detour,” I was more than a little concerned about my chances of navigating the detour through an unknown and unmapped neighborhood. However, as we paused at the detour sign, a local in a small 4 x 4 pulled up and asked where we were going.
“Red Hook,” I volunteered.
“Follow me!” yelled our samaritan, and off he went.
With no other options, I followed close behind. As I did, I noticed something I’d not seen since my days of living in the midwest -- they had actually marked the route of the detour with signs and arrows pointing in the direction that you had to take to get around the construction work. (I made sure to get photos to send to the New Jersey Department of Transportation.)
As we emerged from the residential neighborhood, our samaritan pointed towards Red Hook and then took off in the opposite direction. We waved our thanks, and followed the road into town.
Red Hook is a bustling little community with stores, restaurants, and businesses all over. It is not, however, a pretty place. It’s hectic and semi-industrialized, with car and truck traffic everywhere. That’s because this is where you can catch the ferry to St. John (the third US Virgin Island). From Red Hook, you can take either a car-and-truck ferry, or you can park your car and take a passenger ferry. Because this is the shortest ferry route to St. John, there is a lot of truck traffic onto the ferry boat. In addition, many, many people park their cars along the road into Red Hook in order to take the passenger ferry to St. John to visit the beaches there. In fact, as we drove in, we saw cars parked on both sides of the road for at least a mile before we got to the ferry dock. As you might expect, this parking situation narrowed the roadway even more than it already was. But, because I was becoming more adept (or at least more confident) at maneuvering through the obstacles that make driving on St. Thomas so interesting, we simply plunged ahead.
Since it was late afternoon, we were able to find parking in the lot next to one of the strip malls. As we parked, we actually ran into Jeff, the fellow who guided us to our villa. He was absolutely shocked (happily so) to see that we were not only on the road so soon after our arrival, but that we’d actually made it to Red Hook from the villa. We asked him what place he recommended for a quick bite to eat, and he pointed us to Duffy’s Love Shack.
Duffy’s is a parking lot bar. Yeah, exactly: it’s a bar set up in the parking lot. It’s not really in building, actually. It’s a roof, with a bar, kitchen area, and tables underneath the roof, all in a parking lot next to a strip mall. We learned that this was Duffy’s second location on St. Thomas; the owners rebuilt in Red Hook after the original St. Thomas location in Charlotte Amalie was wiped out by a hurricane a few years back. (There’s also a Duffy’s on St. John as well). We figure the parking lot motif was adopted to minimize the loss in the event of another direct hit from a hurricane.
While it doesn’t look like much from the parking lot, Duffy’s is actually a very nice place. The people there were very friendly and the list of frozen concoctions at the bar was quite impressive. Plus, Duffy’s apparently has cornered the market on island-themed glassware because they have a speciality glass for almost every drink on the menu. If you order the drink, you get to keep the glass. So, I had my Pirate’s Pain Killer in a skull-shaped mug (that now sits proudly on my desk, holding pens and reminding me of the Carribbean sun). My youngest got a glass of Sprite in a parrot-shaped glass, and my oldest got some blend of liquors in a tall glass emblazoned with a blond in a bikini.
The drinks were delicious, icy cold, and a perfect taste the islands. The food was good, too, with a mix of typical pub-type fare (burgers, wings, and the like) together with island-inspired meals, like clams and conch fritters. Kinda looks like we were having a good time, doesn't it?
The food was all tasty, well-prepared, and we ate well and drank heartily before grabbing our torches and heading back to camp.
Upon our return, my youngest and I suited up and hit the pool. (Hey, I was surprised he lasted as long as he did before throwing himself in the water!) We then chilled that evening, baking some snacks in the oven and hanging out in the living room, enjoying the fact that we were sitting in the middle of a tropical forest, experiencing a little piece of paradise.
Before turning in that night, after everyone else had fallen asleep, I stood on the deck, just enjoying the sound and the scent of the sea. In the distance, I could see a thunderstorm approaching across the water. That was truly an amazing sight, watching the jagged bolts of lightning flash down from the sky as the storm approached us across the sea. No Hollywood special effect could ever capture the sheer immensity or breathtaking mystery of a thunderstorm on the ocean. Watching the clouds roil, seeing the lightning strike, listening to the thunder roll, and smelling the rain approach is a sensory experience that is unique and powerful. Listening to the rain pound on the roof of the house as the storm passed by was the perfect way to close out our first day.
We spent most of the next day -- which was beautiful, bright, sunny and hot -- just hanging around by the pool. However, we knew that one of the world’s prettiest beaches (according to the tour books) was only minutes away. So, that afternoon, we loaded up our beach chairs and towels and headed for Magens Bay.
The books weren’t lying. The beach was amazing. Powdery sand; crystal clear water; palm trees by the shore, offering shade; the sun setting over the bay. It was glorious. We walked into the water and, as we looked down, we could see schools of tiny fish flitting around. Around us, we saw green mountain vistas in every direction, and a variety of boats anchored here and there across the water. It was a magnificent sight. This is our view of Magen's Bay:
The serene beach setting was completely relaxing and, for me, just sitting there and soaking it in was enough to complete my day. There were, however, plenty of options for activities, had I been of a mind to partake. Rafts and windsurfers were available for rental, as were kayaks and snorkeling gear. They also had beach chairs and umbrellas, but we had our villa-supplied chairs, so didn’t need to rent. Besides, because it was the end of the day, the shops (which are right on the beach) were beginning to close down. We were content to enjoy our own chairs, and our own rafts, and finish out the day in the beautiful blue waters of Magens Bay.
That night, which was Monday, we were looking for a nice place to eat. However, we discovered one of the downsides of vacationing in the low season -- some places are closed for the summer, and others take Monday’s off. I consulted my Frommer’s guide as well as the book left by the agency and finally found a place that was both open and recommended -- Hook, Line and Sinker.
There’s not much to say about this place, except that it lead to the creation of Travel Tip Number Five, which can be summed up in two words: climate controlled. When traveling in the Carribean, especially in the summer, these two words should be your watch words. After a long hot day in the sun, your restaurant should be climate controlled. (There are exceptions for those open air restaurants right on the beach, where you can catch a breeze of the ocean, but generally, “climate controlled” is a very important concept.)
Hook, Line and Sinker is not climate controlled. Even though it sits right on the harbor in Frenchtown (which is next to Charlotte Amalie), where you might expect a breeze off the water, the place was hot as blazes. Combine that with very slow drink service (sweating bullets while waiting for a glass of ice water does not put one in a fine frame of mind for dining), and food that was disappointing, and you have a not-very-fun meal experience.
We shook it off, though, and on our return to the house, made plans for the next day. We planned on visiting Coral World, which is right next to Coki Beach, on the northeast corner of St. Thomas. Coral World is an aquarium/nature preserve-type area. The owner built what can only be described as an underwater “tower” the base of which sits on the floor of the sea, about 15' below the surface, and has windows all around that look out on the coral reefs. You can see all of the fish and other sea creatures swimming around, and you get views of hundreds of different kinds of fish that you otherwise would only ever see in the movies or on tv. Schools and schools of a wide variety of fish swim by the windows, which is really something to see if you’ve never had the opportunity.
Coral World also has an activity that is a cross between snorkeling and diving. Do you remember those old movies in which the undersea diver put on the big heavy suit and the helmet that looked like an inverted fish-bowl, with the air-hose coming out of the top? Well, Coral World has perfected a helmet like that that people can simply put on, while wearing only their bathing suits, and then walk across the sea bottom (using weighted shoes, of course) in order to walk among the fishes. They have a marked trail along the reef, under the water, that the guests can walk along. We were all looking forward to doing it. However, as luck would have it, the compressor system was apparently under repair and the activity was not open while we were there. We had to make due with a little snack under the trees, sharing company with the dozens of iguanas that populate the place.
The iguanas are quite interesting. Ranging in size from two to three feet long, they no longer have any fear of the people who visit Coral World. They live on the grounds and have free rein to roam wherever they want, and roam they do. They stand in pathways, making the more timid choose alternate routes around them. They walk right up to the tables in the food court area, looking for scraps. If you clatter a chair on the concrete in an effort to frighten one off, he will cast you an almost disdainful look, as if to say, “Yeah, buddy? If I was three feet longer, we’d see who was clattering chairs around here.” It was more than a little nerve wracking to have a three-foot long iguana standing about three feet from my chair, waiting for me to drop some crumbs for him.
We eventually saw all there was to see and Coral World, and headed down the road about a hundred feet to Coki Beach. It is smaller than Magens Bay, though the water is just as clear. The main difference was the snorkeling at Coki. Given the proximity to the reef, there is an abundance of fish in the water -- literally hundreds of them -- that all swim within an arm’s length. The rainbow of colors, and the wide variety of fish, is something that I’d never seen before in person. Seeing a fish swimming before you that you’ve only ever seen before in a book or an aquarium was enough to bring a child-like sense of wonder to a jaded suburbanite.
This, by the way, is why I travel. Moments like these -- the colorful fish swimming between my legs, the iguanas watching me eat, the thunderstorm from the night before rolling across the ocean -- all freshen your perspective on life and help you appreciate the preciousness of what you’ve been given, and who you share it with. You don’t see things like this or experience the thrill of a new discovery every day; you’ve got to get out there and try new things and go new places. Our first two days at St. Thomas were filled with moments of wonder and new discoveries.
We enjoyed Coki for a couple of hours before deciding to leave to get ready for dinner. It wasn’t, of course, a unanimous decision. Once our youngest gets into the water, it is very difficult to pry him out. We did eventually manage to drag him to shore and back to the van for the adventurous trek back to the house.
As we drove back, we passed (for the third time) a sign for a restaurant called The Old Stone Farmhouse. It wasn’t listed in the Frommers’ guide I had, but we’d seen the advertisements in one of the local advertising magazines, and it was mentioned on the Island Guide television channel as well. When we got back to the house, I looked up the ad again and saw the two all-important words: climate controlled. I immediately called them up and booked us reservations.
The Old Stone Farmhouse became our favorite restaurant. It’s in a 250-year old stone plantation house (St. Thomas used to have many sugar plantations) that’s been entirely renovated and converted inside. It has beautiful hardwood floors, candle-lit tables, and muted colors that impart a sense of elegance as you enter. Even better, it was pleasantly cool after a day on the beach.
As you walk in, you enter through a full bar, which serves both frozen island drinks and traditional cocktails. My wife said her cosmopolitan was among the best she’s ever had, and my margarita (on the rocks, not frozen, with salt, thank you) was nicely tart and refreshing.
We learned that the chef studied under Emeril. He had some very interesting selections on the menu that, while limited in number, were varied in style, taste and substance. There was an array of appetizers, from mussels to sushi. They had some unbelievable entrees as well, including a filet mignon dish, a rum roasted duck, a chicken dish, and a tilapia that was exquisitely prepared and one of the best pieces of fish I’ve ever tasted. In addition, for some of the less adventurous eaters in our group, the chef was willing to prepare the filet and the chicken without any of the seasonings or sauces he ordinarily served them with. This was particularly helpful for our youngest, who loved his “plain” roasted chicken and potatoes.
We were also advised of the chef’s “tasting menu,” which was a dinner that could consist of 4, 5, or 6 courses (at the diner’s option). You could advise the chef of your likes, dislikes, and allergies, and he would prepare a surprise dish for the table for each course, from appetizer to dessert. The four-course menu started at $55 per person. (Yes, it was just a bit more expensive than eating at Duffy’s.) You also had the option of adding a wine to each course of the tasting menu. The chef would match a particular wine to each course for an additional $30 per person. We were tempted, but because our tastes are all over the board (and because the whole table had to participate), we decided not to try the tasting menu. We did see a table of four enjoying several colorful-looking courses of food. (Our hostess was sworn to secrecy as to the contents of any particular course, which only added to the air of mystery.)
The food we did order was scrumptious. Our youngest gobbled up all of the shrimp in the appetizer that he and I split, so I’m assuming it was quite tasty. The chicken received rave reviews, as did the filet and, as I mentioned, my fish was outrageous. The atmosphere was pleasant and relaxed. The service was impeccable. I’ve got to say that this was one of the nicest restaurants I’ve ever been to, with some of the best food I’ve ever enjoyed in my life. This dinner was another of those memorable “moments” that you treasure for always. We decided then and there that we would return to the Farmhouse for our last dinner in St. Thomas.
The next day was kick-back-and-relax day. The missus and Aunt Joanne had scheduled massages for 1:00 p.m., with the masseuse traveling to the villa with her table and other equipment. I’m not a big massage person, so I was content to catch up with the crazies on the Jerry Springer show and hang out in the pool with the kids. We grilled up some food around lunch time and, while the massages were on-going and our youngest was practicing his cannon-balls, I took our oldest and his girlfriend into Charlotte Amalie so they could shop.
The shopping area is right along the waterfront and consists of over 500 stores and shops that carry everything from jewelry to liquor to t-shirts to electronics to paperweights. There’s also an open-air vendor area (like a flea market) where folks set up tables of . . . anything, actually, from hand-carved walking sticks to typical touristy t-shirts. I dropped the two of them off with plans to pick them up at about 4:00, after the massages were done. We had figured we could pick them up and get in an hour of speed shopping before the shops closed up at 5:00.
As I dropped them off, I discovered what it is that keeps the businesses booming in Charlotte Amalie. Cruise ship passengers. As I was driving drove down the mountain towards town, I had seen a huge cruise ship over at the docks in Havensight. The schedule of cruise ships is posted each week in This Week in St. Thomas, and when the ships are in, the streets are particularly congested and the stores are quite crowded, with “specials” being offered to passengers of the particular ship or ships that happen to be docked at the time.
The downtown shopping area is really quite a spectacle, with people scurrying from shop to shop, dodging the ubiquitous cab-drivers (who ask everyone they pass whether they need a cab), and lugging duty-free liquor with them as they try to complete their tour of stores before they have to return to their ship. (This, by the way, is why I’m not a big fan of cruising. We took a cruise once, years ago, without realizing that, when they say you’re going to the Bahamas, you’ve actually got about 8 hours on the island but then you’ve got to be back on board the ship. For me, I’d rather be IN the Bahamas rather than just stopping by.)
From our subsequent conversations with some of the cruise ship passengers, we learned that they had about 10 hours to experience St. Thomas. To me, the cruise-ship version of a visit to St. Thomas was like one of those Detours on the show The Amazing Race. You know the one, with Phil Keoghan voicing over: “A Detour is a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons. In “Shop”, you get to experience the central shopping district in Charlotte Amalie, with all of the amazing values and duty-free shopping you could ever hope for. In “Swim,” you take a local open-air cab to the nearby Magens Bay beach, where you can experience the crystal clear waters of the Carribbean. Neither task is physically demanding, but you won’t have time to do both.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t know how people do that. We were in St. Thomas for a week and barely scratched the surface of things to see and do. Barn-storming an island like that is just not my cup of tea.
Anyway, the scene downtown is truly something to behold. The buildings are all two- to three-stories tall, and are strung along both sides of Main Street for about a mile. They also extend about two blocks off of Main Street to the left and right as well. Main Street itself is one way, and is just wide enough for one car to pass. Streets and alleys (some only wide enough for pedestrians) intersect Main at various points, with intersecting alleyways connecting those streets and alleys to form a veritable maze of shops, stores, bars and restaurants. Sprinkle in hundreds of people trying to find their best deal and dozens of cabs and cars wending their way through the crowds, and you’ve got downtown Charlotte Amalie on cruise ship day.
After I dropped the kids off and headed back up the mountain, I figured that I had a few minutes before the second massage back at the house would be complete. I decided to do a little exploring. In one of my guide books, I’d read that Hull Bay beach, which was further west along the northern edge of the island than was Magens Bay, had surf that was large enough for surfing competitions. I’m a big fan of surf, and I was actually entertaining the idea of taking a surfing lesson or two (something I’ve always wanted to do). So, I headed off in the general direction of Hull Bay.
I’d thought the roads were challenging between Charlotte Amalie and Magens Bay. Those roads were nothing compared to the roads to Hull Bay. I hadn’t thought that it was possible, but these roads were even more winding, more hilly and more narrow.
Hull Bay, it turns out, is a small little beach at the end of a road off Route 38. There’s a little open-air restaurant and bar, along with a rental shack. However, there wasn’t a ripple on the water, and not a wave for as far as I could see. So much for my dreams of hanging ten.
Upon my return to the villa, everyone was in the final stages of preparing for speed shopping downtown. I changed out of my bathing suit, grabbed my sneakers, and we headed back over the mountain. We spent the next hour or so shopping and exploring and eventually hooked up with the kids by the gazebo in the park. They had purchased some hand-carved wooden items, including bowls and walking sticks. They’d purchased so much that the craftsman had thrown in a colorful little . . . um . . . fertility idol, which consisted of a naked man, carved out of wood, holding a wooden barrel around him. The barrel is removable and, when you remove it, the naked man . . . um . . . springs to attention. They decided it probably wasn’t a good idea for them to keep the fertility guy, so, of course, we have it now, displayed in our bedroom. We’re hoping that its effect doesn’t extend beyond the borders of St. Thomas.
As we lugged our purchases back to the van, we happened to pass The Green House, a pub-type restaurant right along the water. Unlike the Hook Line and Sinker, this place actually caught the breeze off the harbor. We decided to stay there for dinner, despite the fact that it wasn’t “climate controlled.” (It didn’t hurt that we arrived during happy hour, during which the special was two-for-one frozen drinks. Sometimes, two-for-one frozen drinks trumps climate controlled.)
The food was actually quite good. Of course, it wasn’t on the scale of The Old Stone Farmhouse, but for satisfying fare along the lines of Duffy’s, Bennigans, and TGIFridays, we were quite pleased with The Green House. (The Green House also trumpets the fact that it was survived nine hurricanes. This fact is commemorated on their rum runner glass, of which I am now a proud owner. I’m such a tourist sometimes.)
Back at the villa, we decided to stage our own water olympics in the pool as our evening’s entertainment. We took a boogie board from the store room near the pool and floated it on the water. The object was to jump from the deck to the boogie board and ride it as long as you could. Our numerous attempts at surfing across the pool resulted in uproarious laughter and, fortunately, no cracked skulls. The evening’s second event was a game of pool volley ball, during which my wife and I discovered that we are officially “old people.” We know this because my oldest’s girlfriend gleefully divided the teams into the “young people” and the “old people.” Happily, we fogeys were able to prevail. Of course, our victory resulted, in part, from my oldest’s inability to balance in an inner-tube and spike a beach ball at the same time without ingesting large quantities of pool water. After rescuing our young rocket scientist from the grasp of the killer inner tube, we retired to the comforts of our respective beds in order to rest up for our trip to St. John, which we had planned for the next day.
Well, some of us were resting up for the trip. Our oldest and his girlfriend elected to stay behind. I’m sure that decision was due, in part, to the fact that the girlfriend tends to get a little motion sick, so a ferry trip across the sea was not high on her short list of fun things to do. I’m also sure that part of it was due to the fact that they were getting the use of the whole house -- and the pool -- and the al fresco showers -- all to themselves, and all day long. (Hey, wouldn’t you want that opportunity as well? I was trying to figure out how to pull that one off with my wife!)
We wanted to go to St. John for a number of reasons. First, it is supposed to be the prettiest of the three US Virgin Islands. (Most of it is, in fact, a protected national park). It’s supposed to be very friendly and very laid back as well. On top of that, the shopping was supposed to be very good, too (at least as good as St. Thomas). Finally, we’ve been listening to the country singer, Kenny Chesney, for a couple of years now. He has a home on St. John, and sings of Cinnamon Bay, which is off St. John, and mentions hanging with the locals at the Quite Mon pub in one of his songs. So, naturally, we had to check that out as well.
We were up and out the door by 9:15 a.m. The ferries leave from Red Hook every hour on the hour, so we figured we had plenty of time. We got to Red Hook at about 9:45, but, as I mentioned earlier, parking near the docks is a problem.
We decided to try the fenced lot just opposite the ferry dock. After maneuvering through the field of cars scattered across the hillside, and contemplating trying to get the minivan up a hill that would give a mountain goat pause, I reluctantly headed toward the exit, resigned to the fact that we’d have to park a mile away, down the street. However, before we exited, the guy managing the lot waved me over and pointed to a narrow little spot behind his shack, between a car and a stand of palm fronds. Looking at the space in the low-lying area, I could see mud all around, and I knew it was going to be messy. I got everyone out of the car and told the guy to lead on. He pulled his truck out (which had been blocking the entrance to this area) and, somehow or other, I shoe-horned the minivan into the spot. I was able to just get my door open, avoided most of the mud puddles, and handed the guy a five dollar bill for the parking fee. We got to the dock with five minutes to spare.
Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy. I had my drivers’ license with me, as did Aunt Joanne. However, my wife was traveling light that day and had not brought her purse. As a result, she had no id (nor did our youngest). This, we learned, was a no-no.
There was a security guard checking ID’s at the dock. My wife explained that she hadn’t brought her ID or passport. “Oh, that’s a very bad practice,” the security guard chastised. We apologized, and I showed my id as I handed over the tickets for the three of us and explained that we were a family traveling together. The guard was still reluctant to let my wife on board and also casually stated that she might not be able to get back without her ID. I asked if she would definitely be barred from coming back, and the guard gave me a semi-shrug as she continued to check our tickets. I finally told her, “Alright, just give me all of the tickets back, because if she’ll have trouble getting back, we’ll just go get her ID.” At this point, the guard changed her tone and said, “No, no. She’ll be alright. She should just travel with her ID.” She then waved us through.
I guess this whole episode shouldn’t have surprised me in this age of heightened security, but it hadn’t occurred to either of us that an ID was necessary to go from one US Virgin Island to another. To me, it was like needing your ID to take the ferry from New Jersey to Manhattan. Don’t get me wrong: I do understand the point. However, I’m not sure what the security guard was trying to accomplish. I don’t have a problem if you bar us from the ferry because we don’t have proper identification. I don’t have a problem if you let us on after hearing our explanation. I do, however, have a problem with little mind-games, veiled threats and power plays, like “It’s a bad practice to travel without ID,” and “Well, you might not get back even if I let you go.” On top of that, they didn’t even check IDs on the return trip, so what was the point of that little scare tactic, really?
Anyway, before I go off on a rant, back to the ferry. The trip to St. John was nice, smooth, fast and completely uneventful. There are some wonderful views of the various islands, and the sea breeze was invigorating. I could have spent the whole day on the sea, let me tell you.
As we approached St. John, we could see the difference. St. Thomas is very developed and is fairly well populated. St. John, even on the Cruz Bay side where we were docking, is greener, cleaner, and less congested. Of course, there were the ever-present open-air taxis offering rides and tours, but we were planning on hitting the shops and finding the Quiet Mon Pub, all within walking distance, so we passed on the rides.
As a side note, all of the guide books say that Trunk Bay Beach, on St. John, is a must-see on the island. One book even states that going to St. John and not visiting Trunk Bay Beach is like visiting Paris and skipping the Eiffel Tower. In fact, many of the folks on the ferry were wearing their bathing suits and carrying beach towels, so apparently a number of people do take the ferry and then a cab to the beach. If you’re more of a beach-goer and less of a shopper, you might consider doing the same.
For us, though, we elected to skip the Eiffel Tower and headed off to Mongoose Junction, which is a mini-plaza filled with a variety of shops, from leather goods to clothing stores. Among the things we found was the St. John’s version of the classic “hook bracelet,” which is an island tradition. According to local lore, the hook bracelet was designed to take the place of a fisherman’s wedding ring. As I understand it, the theory is that a ring can get caught on netting, or in lines, but the hook bracelet, because of its design, will simply unhook if it’s snagged. The hook also is worn in a way that determines whether your heart is available, or if it is taken. (I know. This works against the “wedding ring” theory, but I’m just reporting here.) If the hook faces up the arm, towards your heart, it’s taken. If the hook faces out, down the arm, your heart is available.
We discovered the hook bracelets last year, on St. Croix. There, the Cruzans have their own unique take on the classic “hook” closure (that in the traditional bracelet resembles a mini-horseshoe.) The St. Thomas version has the classic hook. St. Croix’s version is closed by a “cruzan knot,” which is spun from gold or silver and is placed through the hole on the other end to close the bracelet. The St. John’s version of the hook closure replaces the traditional hook with a hook that resembles a cross between a fish hook and the letter “j”. (This design is my personal favorite.) From our wanderings, it appears that the traditional hook bracelet is available on each island but, as far as we were able to determine, the St. Croix and St. John variations are unique to their respective islands. We checked the jewelry stores and the merchants’ markets on the street and it appears that, to get the St. Croix and St. John variations, you’ve got to visit each island. (Unless you want to cheat, and shop for them on the internet.)
Having finished our shopping, we started asking around about the Quiet Mon. Not surprisingly, we weren’t the first to ask about the pub, and were were directed right to it. It turns out that the Quiet Mon is a little six-stool bar, situated upstairs adjacent to Woody’s Seafood Saloon.
It was really a cool little spot, with pictures of a wide variety of celebrities and athletes adorning the walls. According to one local, in addition to Kenny Chesney and his new wife, Renee Zellwigger, Tom Selleck and Alan Alda are among the celebrities who’ve recently enjoyed the local color at The Quiet Mon.
It’s got a very limited menu, consisting mainly of hot dogs and chips, as well as about a half-dozen beers on tap. There’s also a corner that’s a cyber-cafe, where you can access the internet, and several tables for just hanging out. It was all very comfortable, very low key, very friendly, and exactly the kind of place you’d expect to find a famous celebrity in the wee hours, when he or she might be able to get a moment’s peace. The Quiet Mon was one of my favorite stops.
From there, we had a quick lunch at The Lemon Inn, and then headed back to the ferry dock for our return trip. As I mentioned, we boarded for the return trip without incident, and were back at the villa before 5:00.
On the way, we decided to check out one of the restaurants we had considered trying -- a place called the Banana Tree, which was in the Bluebird’s Castle Hotel, on Bluebird’s Hill (which is not to be confused with Blackbeard’s Hill, only a half-mile away). The hotel itself was kind of drab and dreary, but the restaurant seemed kind of nice. Only -- no climate control. We debated whether to try it, but it seemed rather pleasant out, and there was a breath of air up on the hill, so we decided to come back for dinner. It was not a great decision.
Upon our return for dinner, whatever breeze had existed was gone. It was hot, humid, and oppressively hot. Once again, drink service was slow (though not as bad as the Hook Line and Sinker had been). On top of that, some of the specials they had printed up were no longer available, a fact not revealed to us until after we’d ordered them. To top it all off, we were regaled with the performance of Larry Lounge Singer throughout the meal.
Do you remember Saturday Night Live from the late 1970s, when Bill Murray first started and did his parody of a lounge singer’s act, singing the Theme from Star Wars. This guy made Bill Murray look good. Imagine the cheesiest vocals you can, performed with a little Casio keyboard and a rhythm box, with the emphasis on all the wrong syllables and the tones off just a hair. This guy was worse than that.
I wish I could tell you more about the singer, or the meal, or the restaurant, but somehow the details of that evening have been mercifully erased from my memory by some instinctive, self-preservation mechanism. Candidly, I do not remember what I ate, what Larry sang, or how long dinner took. I do know that the drive down, on empty stomachs along the curvy roads, with everyone loaded up with their best cologne, followed by sitting in the sweat box that was our dinner table, left my wife so queasy she couldn’t even order a meal, and left my youngest so nauseous that he lost his dinner when we returned to the house. Thursday night turned out to be an early night at the villa.
All that was forgotten in the dawn of the following day. I started that morning -- our last full morning on the island -- as I had done each day; with a cup of coffee on the deck, watching the sun climb into the sky and listening to the surf pound the rocks below. Our plans for the day were simple -- return to Coki Beach for jet skiing, snorkeling and swimming. My oldest and his girlfriend, along with Aunt Joanne, wanted to go jet skiing, and my youngest (who’s too young to drive his own jet ski) wanted to snorkel. So, off we went.
The three of them got jet skis together and tore off across the bay. Aunt Joanne was in her glory, having always wanted to try jet skiing. She and the kids looked like they were having a blast as they sped off. Having been jet skiing a couple of times, I know that it is a lot of fun. However, this day I was planning on sitting on the beach, floating in the water, and watching the fish swim by with my wife and youngest son.
Towards that end, we walked across the road to the beach and rustled up some lounge chairs and umbrellas to complement our beach chairs and rafts. We also discovered that they sell extra-large dog biscuits at one of the stands, which you can use to feed the fish. The biscuits stay relatively hard in water, making it easy for the fish to grab hold of without the biscuits turning into a pile of mushy gunk in your hands.
My youngest was thrilled. He grabbed two biscuits and headed off for the reef. For the next two hours, all I saw was his butt and his snorkel sticking out of the water. The rest of him was below the surface, feeding the fish. I ventured out after a while and saw that he was engulfed in a giant school of fish of all shapes and sizes. It was amazing to watch; he had the patience to simply hang there in the water, breathing through his snorkel while extending a piece of biscuit towards the fish. The fish swam right up to him and nibbled pieces out of his hand. I’d never seen anything like it. I’d also never seen him hold so still for so long in all of his life. But he wanted to make sure all of the fish got some, and he knew that if he moved around too much, they wouldn’t come near him. So he hung there and patiently fed the fish, and watched them swim around.
Our jet skiing trio joined us after a bit, and we spent the day lounging in the sun, munching on snacks from the snack bar, feeding the fish, and passing the time with some of the folks from that day’s cruise ship, who’d found their way by taxi from the dock in Charlotte Amalie to Coki Beach. They had to leave for their ship by 3:30. We, on the other hand, got to close the place down as the sun slowly sank from the sky, and our afternoon complement of frozen pain killers was slowly exhausted.
We finally, reluctantly, left the beach so that we could make our reservation at the Farmhouse. It was tough to leave, knowing that it was our last time in the Caribbean this year. But the good times do have to come to an end at some point, and our vacation was now officially winding down.
Going to the Farmhouse that night was almost like going home. Although the wait staff was entirely different this night, they treated us like family, and we had another wonderful meal. We even met the chef when we were done, and thanked him profusely for the fine food he prepared. I watched him work the room as he left our table; he was acquainted with several folks there that night. I can understand why; with the quality of dishes he prepared, I would most definitely be a regular at the Farmhouse.
On our return to the villa, we made it a point not to pack. I guess that was our way of extending the vacation through the end of the last full day.
The next morning -- another beautiful one -- we began the packing process, and the trek up the 58 steps with the luggage, for our journey back to the real world. One of our last tasks was gassing up the minivan before we returned it. When I’d picked it up, I’d been given the choice of pre-paying $65.00 for a full tank, or filling it myself before I’d returned. Not yet used to gas that costs almost three bucks a gallon, I’d scoffed at the $65 price and decided to gamble that we’d be able to come in well under that by the end of the week. However, the morning we left, the best price I found was $2.94 a gallon (!!). At that price, the gas pump was making a lot of noise and not pumping very much gas at all. As the numbers rolled past $40 into the $50 range, I began feeling as if I was playing some kind of warped slot machine. “No sixty-five,” I found myself muttering. “No sixty-five.” I watched and waited, and watched some more as the numbers finally stopped flickering -- at $63.00. We had a winner!
As you might expect, the process of checking in for the return flight was madness. The walking sticks the kids had bought at the flea market did not fit in any luggage, so they were wrapped in a bicycle bag, taped up tighter than skin to a grape and stowed in the cargo hold. The security screening was ridiculously slow and painfully haphazard; they waved our youngest through without either parent, and then made both of us stand and wait, leaving a ten-year old in the limbo land between screened and unscreened passengers. Somehow, I was waved through with a glance from one guard while the guard next to mine, despite the fact that we were all obviously traveling together, insisted on opening my wife’s suitcase. I mean, I’m all about the security procedures -- believe me, I’m a white-knuckle flier as it is, so anything to make the process safer is fine with me. But there is a difference between common-sense security procedures and arbitrary, indiscriminate chaos.
But I don’t need to go into that for now. Suffice it to say that our time on the island was worth all of the hassles we faced on the way in and on the way back. If you’re looking to relax, kick back, and experience a place, you’ve got to seriously consider a villa rental, and St. Thomas is as good a place to start as any. It’s close, it’s not too expensive, it’s pretty darn safe, and it’s a lot of fun. I highly recommend it.
