usvi-on-line
Trip summary or report or whatever
Trip summary or report or whatever
This is more of a trip summary than a report. We had two weeks in paradise and in the interest of brevity and a desire to avoid boring everyone I’ll try to keep it short.
This year we traveled down on a Friday and stayed in Charlotte Amalie for the evening. We stayed at the Crystal Palace and had a very nice stay. What everyone has said about Ronny Lockhart is true. He is a wonderful and charming host. He is gracious without being sickeningly so. He asked my wife why such an attractive woman was into tall ugly men. I think he was talking about me. No matter, we’ll probably stay there again. You hear that Ronny? We had dinner at Cuzzins’, which is run by cousins of Ronny according to Ronny. I would gladly recommend the restaurant to anyone. Local flavors with a nice mix of local and tourist patrons.
The nice part of staying at the Crystal Palace on Friday night is: 1) There are no cruise ships or few in harbor on Friday night. You have Charlotte Amalie almost to yourself. 2) Ronny picks you up at the airport. No cab. 3) The Crystal Palace is about three or four blocks up from the waterfront and a short walk in the morning to catch the ferry. We dawdled in the morning and caught the 11AM ferry. We had lunch at the Banana Deck, picked up our car, our groceries and headed up to our place.
Over the next two weeks our basic daily schedule was get up, have some kind of breakfast, make up a small lunch, go to a beach, snorkel, have lunch, snorkel again, find a place for happy hour and a snack, return home, have a light salad, read and fall asleep. Some times we would hike into a beach, sometimes we would just drive up to them. I hiked the whole Ramshead trail with our snorkel gear thinking we’d stop off at the Blue Cobblestone Beach and snorkel from there. Instead we hiked back to Salt Pond Beach and snorkeled back to the Blue Cobblestone. I still haven’t figured that one out.
We chatted with a lot of people, some new to the island, some old timers. We all have our own special way of enjoying St John. We celebrated Demitrius’s birthday at the Banana Deck and I introduced myself to Ruth at St John Spice. It was also at St John Spice that I had a real St. John celebrity moment. I am proud to say that I just stood there mouth agape and did not pester him for an autograph or did anything that would have made my wife cringe and try to act like she wasn’t with me. But I did see the man himself. Kenny Chesney? No, no, no. Charles Deyalsingh. Trinidad Charlie himself. My hot sauce hero.
Finally, my best friend passed away from Parkinson’s this December. He had been coming to St John for the past twenty years. He and his wife introduced us to the island. They had always invited us to stay with them for the second week that we would have never been able to afford otherwise and we never turned them down. They stood in as my daughter’s grandparents for her wedding on Trunk Bay four years ago. He loved the place as we all do. So with his widow, we sprinkled his ashes here and there all over the island at all of his favorite places. So, wherever you are when you’re on the island and have that sort of moment, you know the one that makes you come back every year if you can. The one moment that you really can’t describe to anyone else except to those people who’ve been there. Say hi to Dick. He’s probably there with you as we all are.
Now it will be another whole year before I can go back. Thank God for this forum.
This year we traveled down on a Friday and stayed in Charlotte Amalie for the evening. We stayed at the Crystal Palace and had a very nice stay. What everyone has said about Ronny Lockhart is true. He is a wonderful and charming host. He is gracious without being sickeningly so. He asked my wife why such an attractive woman was into tall ugly men. I think he was talking about me. No matter, we’ll probably stay there again. You hear that Ronny? We had dinner at Cuzzins’, which is run by cousins of Ronny according to Ronny. I would gladly recommend the restaurant to anyone. Local flavors with a nice mix of local and tourist patrons.
The nice part of staying at the Crystal Palace on Friday night is: 1) There are no cruise ships or few in harbor on Friday night. You have Charlotte Amalie almost to yourself. 2) Ronny picks you up at the airport. No cab. 3) The Crystal Palace is about three or four blocks up from the waterfront and a short walk in the morning to catch the ferry. We dawdled in the morning and caught the 11AM ferry. We had lunch at the Banana Deck, picked up our car, our groceries and headed up to our place.
Over the next two weeks our basic daily schedule was get up, have some kind of breakfast, make up a small lunch, go to a beach, snorkel, have lunch, snorkel again, find a place for happy hour and a snack, return home, have a light salad, read and fall asleep. Some times we would hike into a beach, sometimes we would just drive up to them. I hiked the whole Ramshead trail with our snorkel gear thinking we’d stop off at the Blue Cobblestone Beach and snorkel from there. Instead we hiked back to Salt Pond Beach and snorkeled back to the Blue Cobblestone. I still haven’t figured that one out.
We chatted with a lot of people, some new to the island, some old timers. We all have our own special way of enjoying St John. We celebrated Demitrius’s birthday at the Banana Deck and I introduced myself to Ruth at St John Spice. It was also at St John Spice that I had a real St. John celebrity moment. I am proud to say that I just stood there mouth agape and did not pester him for an autograph or did anything that would have made my wife cringe and try to act like she wasn’t with me. But I did see the man himself. Kenny Chesney? No, no, no. Charles Deyalsingh. Trinidad Charlie himself. My hot sauce hero.
Finally, my best friend passed away from Parkinson’s this December. He had been coming to St John for the past twenty years. He and his wife introduced us to the island. They had always invited us to stay with them for the second week that we would have never been able to afford otherwise and we never turned them down. They stood in as my daughter’s grandparents for her wedding on Trunk Bay four years ago. He loved the place as we all do. So with his widow, we sprinkled his ashes here and there all over the island at all of his favorite places. So, wherever you are when you’re on the island and have that sort of moment, you know the one that makes you come back every year if you can. The one moment that you really can’t describe to anyone else except to those people who’ve been there. Say hi to Dick. He’s probably there with you as we all are.
Now it will be another whole year before I can go back. Thank God for this forum.
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NoWorriesMom
- Posts: 150
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:45 pm
- Location: Boulder, Colorado
