Just got back last night. Wow what an adventure. On the flight into St. Thomas I asked one of the flight attendants if she new of a really
cheap place to stay in St. Thomas. She said she would see if she could find any info for me. About 5 minutes later she told me she had found a guy that lived there and he would come back and talk to me. So a little later a guy named Tom came back and sat beside me and said he lived there and asked my plans. I told him of my hope to find a boat to stay on and would pay or do
work for the oppertunity. He said he had a friend that had a boat yard and he could probably arange something. We talked for a little while and i got a litle
funny feeling about him, but I thought I would see were things went. A few minutes later the stewardess brought an older lady from
Holland back to talk to Tom. She needed a place to stay. She came to crew on a
catamaran, but it was going to be a day late in getting there. He said he had a place she could rent for the night. Tom went back up front and Elizabeth (lady from Holand) and I started talking. From Tom's demeaner nether one of us were too comfortable with him. When we got to the
airport, Elizabeth was getting things sorted out, she was apprehensive and asked me not to leave her. I told her I wouldn't and I when to look for Tom. He was waiting in the parking lot. He asked where Elizabeth was. I told him I would go and get her. He said "no get in the truck, lets leave her". I told him no and went in to talk to her and he took off. So we stood there trying to figure out what to do next, as niether one of us had much money. She suggested splitting a hotel. Since it was about 11 pm and the last taxi was about to leave, I didn't see any other options. So we took a taxi to Bunker hill and split a room for $65 apiece. The next morning she took the
ferry to meet her catamran, and I walked to On
Deck and asked if the knew of any one looking for crew. They said no and sent me to talk to someone else, and so began a whole day of going from here to there talking to people with no luck. So after walking all over town and talking to I don't know how many people, I decided to take the
ferry over to
water island and camp on the beach for the night. On the ferry over I met a guy named Jeno and told him of my grand adventure. He thought for a minute and said he had a
Morgan 38 at Honeymoon beach (on
Water Island) that he had been reworking and I could stay on it if I wanted. Perfect, exactly what I was look for. So we went to his place and I met his girlfriend. We had supper and stayed up and talked to 1 am. The nest day I went to work with him for half a day (we are both carpenters) and then at lunch he got me set up on the boat. He lent me a kayack to access the boat. It was a real blast. I had never kayacked before. After I got the hang of it, I kayacked all the way around Water island. One day I kayacked over to Crown Bay Marina and back. I bought some snorkel
gear and snorkeled for the first time. So my days were
cleaning the boat, kyacking, snorkeling, or laying in the
cockpit enjoying the view. Definitly one of the best weeks of my life. Tuesday morning Jeno came with the
dinghy and took me to Crum bay, and I walked from there to the
airport.
The icing on the cake was that the night I left we got the worst
winter storm in 25 years, 3 inches of ice and 5 inches of snow. The
power was out for five days. But I was warm and happy!
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions