On Island Time, Part Two

In February 2017, we traveled from Denver to Saint Thomas for a much needed and well deserved vacation.  Facebook has been thoroughly saturated with photos chronicling the beauty, joy, and fun we had.   This is an alternate look at our time on the island- the smelly, the wet, the creepy, the funny, the bizarre, broken into several parts.

Days 0.5 and 1 can be found here

Day Two- We rise rested and mostly refreshed.  I stay in bed for a bit while Andrea takes a shower, and then we sit on the patio for a bit and just watch the boats out on the water.  Andrea goes back in to the condo to refresh our drinks and is confronted by a guy coming in the door.  It seems that her earlier shower has resulted in a bit of a flood for the unit below us, and he is the Property Manager and needs to check it out.  He gives the bathroom a cursory look, tells us he's turning off the water and then proceeds to head into a crawlspace between the upper and lower units where the sound of power tools slowly starts to make its way up to us.

We hang out for awhile, uncertain as to what to do next. The Property Manager pops back in to tell us they are going to try to make a stopgap repair and that he'll call us if he needs to come back into the unit, no need for us to stick around.

And so it was that I headed out into the Caribbean sun fully two days since my last shower.

We made our way to the Sapphire Resort for lunch.  After lunch we walked along the water line, opted to stop at the beach bar for a drink and promptly immersed ourselves in what turned out to be a great beach scene.  We ended up staying the rest of the afternoon, swimming and enjoying the sun and the fun.  The bar had an amazing cover band that included a steel drum player.  I listened to my first ever steel drum solo and fell in love with the sound, the creativity, and the talent of the musician. People watching quickly became the name of the game; I reveled in not being the fattest guy on the beach, in watching the newlyweds, the locals, and the aging beach bum that looked for all the world like Jeff Spicoli had turned 55.

We got back to the condo about 5:30.  The first thing I did was check the kitchen sink.  Nope.  No water.  I pulled out my phone to call our contact for the condo and saw I had a message from the guy I was about to call telling me that the the emergency fix had been deemed successful and that we should be good to go.  I called him to explain the situation with the water and he was suitably apologetic, promising to call the Property Manager to get the water back on ASAP.

This brought to mind a couple of questions.  First, the PM had told us he'd call if he went back into the unit. The lack of a call from him could mean that he'd simply forgotten or that he'd not needed to go back in.  But, if the latter was the case, and given the fact that the water was still off it certainly seemed likely, then how did they know the fix that they'd come up with had been successful?  I shrugged this off as Not My Problem, and anxiously awaited the return of water to the condo.

We headed out to a neighboring resort for dinner, finding the turn on our first attempt in a vast improvement over our performance the prior evening.  We checked in at the security shack and when we asked where we should park were told something that sounded for all the world like, "Parkeda parkeda parkeda park."  We smiled and nodded our complete understanding and willingness to comply and headed down the hill to the resort and parked in the first lot we found.  The car was still there after dinner so I guess we did OK.

They were showing a movie on the beach that night, Matilda, one of Andrea's favorite movies.  We sat front and center and enjoyed a movie with dinner.  I've seen snippets of Matilda over the years of course, but I don't remember ever actually paying attention to it.  My impressions after watching it this time are very fundamental- Matilda is a young Carrie.  Oh sure, she's cute as a button now, but wait until she hits High School with those powers combined with hormones.  Also
, the relationship between Ms. Honey and Matilda should probably have resulted in jail time or at the very least a visit from social services.  No means No, Ms. Honey!

We got back to the condo around 9:30 and went to bed soon after.  The water?  Still shut off.   64 hours and counting since my last shower; thank God for the ocean.

Day Three-   Still no water.  I text the PM telling him what's up and he responds back with an apology and more importantly the location of the water turn on valve.  We head down, Andrea crawls through some bushes, and the water is restored.  Now comes the dilemma.  We have another beach day planned.  Do I take a shower real quick before we go or do I bathe in the ocean again, followed by a shower at the end of the day?  Giving logic and general hygiene a hearty middle finger, I opt for the latter and we head out to Megan's Bay.

Its a lovely beach, the water is perfect, with fish swimming around you and nary a boat to be seen.  It is quiet and peaceful.

It is also a little bit boring.  After a couple of hours we head out and make our way to Coki Beach.

Here we find a place that is far more hopping.  The crowd is older, mostly 50 somethings with a couple of notable exceptions.  There's a DJ playing some 90's dance music- think Cotton Eyed Joe, Haddaway, The Real McCoys, at club volume. and there are some 60 something grannies literally grinding each other as they laugh and listen.  The fragrance of herb perfumes the air, and everyone is having a good time.

Andrea goes to take a dip and I take a picture of her.  When I looked at it after I took it I realized I captured more than I'd intended, but upon showing it to Andrea she just shrugged and observed that there was eye candy for her on the beach as well, nodding to a Bro on a towel maybe 50 feet from us. Being a good sport and partner, I obligingly took a picture for her when she headed back into the water for another swim.

The unedited shot showing more than I'd intended

Andrea's Beach Bro

We were approached a couple of times by people selling stuff, thank goodness it was nothing like Mexico where the assault is constant and even my wife learned, "no, gracias" after professing a startling inability to speak Spanish.  As we were packing up, a tall, hefty islander with very kind eyes that didn't seem to align with what he was looking at approached us and asked if he could show us something.  He proceeded to plop down on the sand and, using what by all appearances was a pencil lead no larger than a grain of rice drew our picture.  It was one of the most amazing experiences; this was no caricature, nor was it a true portrait.  It was what he saw when he looked at us, and I think it captures our essence better than any photo could have.  When we asked him how much, he said, "well, some people give me five, some give me ten."  We gave him $20 and spent the remainder of the trip trying to protect a piece of poster board from destruction.

Not a real caricature, nor a portrait.  Just what he saw.

Allow me a moment to speak to you about Doritos.  Has there ever been a more perfect snack?  We ate two Family Size bags in just shy of a week on the island.

We head to the store after the beach, pick up some steaks and mushrooms for dinner and put on Scrubs for a little bit while cooking.  The Corona is going down smoothly (and, really has been all day), and before I know it it is after ten and I am nodding off.

88 hours since my last real shower, but who's counting at this point?

Being on Island Time is different.  It is the sound of the waves and of a ceiling fan lulling you to sleep, the scratching of a palm tree against a window in the middle of the night, and the stunning silence that first night when you return home.

On Island Time, Part One

In February 2017, we traveled from Denver to Saint Thomas for a much needed and well deserved vacation.  Facebook has been thoroughly saturated with photos chronicling the beauty, joy, and fun we had.   This is an alternate look at our time on the island- the smelly, the wet, the creepy, the funny, the bizarre, broken into several parts.

Day 0.5- Up at 6, at my desk before 7.  As the day progresses, my interest in all things work begins to wane, then dissipate, and finally disappear when I log out a little after 4.  It's then time to get all the last minute stuff done and head to the airport.  Our flight leaves about 11:00 PM.  I'm already wishing that one of the last minute things that I'd done was take a shower, but I'll survive.  In the meantime, it is a red-eye flight into Fort Lauderdale.  We fly out on Spirit, which offers Big Front Seats for many of their flights.  We forgo them- its only 3 1/2 hours, right?  We get on the plane and get to our seats which are reminiscent of those found on military aircraft.  I have just enough lateral movement to shift from cheek to cheek and my legs aren't hitting the seatback in front of me though, so I'll be fine.  It's not like I sleep on planes anyway, right?  As midnight comes and goes, I've tried dozing a little, given up, and started watching a movie.  I've been awake for 18 hours now and I've walked about 6 1/2 miles- gotta love the concourses at DIA for getting your steps in!

Day One- We stumble off of the plane at 5:30 in the morning in Fort Lauderdale with nary a plan of what to do next. Andrea will insist that this is my fault, that somehow my "I want a vacation where we have no activities planned and we can do what we want" mantra has extended to what to do with an 8 hour layover.  I in turn will deny that that was my intent, but nonetheless, there we stood.  Our options basically came down to Find A Hotel or Do Something Else.  We opted to start with Do Something Else, but eventually turned to Find A Hotel, a turn that proved fruitless as none of the hotels we went to were keen on giving us a room at 6 in the morning for a few hours.  Something Else then morphed into walking the Boardwalk at Hollywood Beach, eating breakfast as the sun rose, drinking Yuengling at 9 in the morning, and watching the waves.

Watching the sunrise at Hollywood Beach, Florida

While drinking the aforementioned Yuengling, I observed four twenty-something girls in swim wraps sit at a table in front of us.  From the looks of them, they'd been out pretty late the night before, and may have been in varying stages of hangover recovery, a theory somewhat substantiated by their ordering of mimosas. This was evidently a new experience for one of the girls who upon receiving her drink, lifted the fruit garnish, looked at it quizzically, actually uttered the statement, "is this an orange?", and then smelled and licked it as if attempting to prove her burgeoning hypothesis.  In the meantime, Andrea had called Spirit and arranged Big Front Seats for the next leg of our journey as after we'd landed we entered into a spirited debate over whose back was more sore after sitting on the bus seats we had for the first leg.  I contend that my inability to do anything more than shift from cheek to cheek and maybe loll my neck back on occasion resulted in more stiffness than her sleeping head down on her plane pillow but in the end we called it a draw.

This is Yuengling, the nectar of the Gods

We head to the airport with sufficient time to allow for the security lines at FTL only to be pleasantly surprised that there is no line.  With a surplus of time we mosey over to a Cuban restaurant in Terminal 4 for some congri.  We sat next to a couple that was headed to Paradise with us but were in a loud, animated state of distress fueled by a healthy consumption of strong drinks.  I'll save you the gory details save for one snippet prefaced by a bit of back story.  In a nutshell, dude had just discovered that he had cancer.  He was assured that survival was probable, but he needed to balance the need for chemotherapy with the need to get to St. Thomas and was trying to manage the stress of the news, the potential impact to his vacation, and his increasingly hysterical companion.  At one point, he told her, "I just want to go to St. Thomas, spend some time in the sun, drink, and get laid before I have to deal with all of this".  Her response was somewhat discouraging.  "You are a dental hygienist, and you are at risk for having AIDS.  I need you to get tested before we do anything".  His response, if any, is unfortunately lost for the ages, and I hope that he had an OK vacation and is now on the road to recovery, even if it is with a bad case of blue balls.

We fly to St. Thomas in relative comfort, find our bags, get our car, buy three bottles of rum at the airport- "all the stores will be closed by the time we get there", and make our way to our condo just as it is starting to get dark without forgetting to drive on the left.  Although it smells a little musty from having been closed up for awhile, an odor reminiscent to me of a set of Lincoln Logs I has as a kid, the condo is as advertised- clean, open, and bright with the ocean literally feet away from the balcony. We drop our bags and head out in search of sustenance. We make our way to the Ritz resort right next door but in a fit of confusion decide it isn't the place for us- this stemmed from me gasping at the $40 pasta that I saw on the menu evidently.  We head out, looking for another resort, and drive right past it. Another resort, same result.  We finally say fuck it and head out for Margaritaville, which we promptly drive right past.  At least this road is wide enough to permit course correction, and we finally arrive to find a fairly empty restaurant with a fairly fancy menu for a place owned by Jimmy Buffet.

Notably, there is nary a cheeseburger to be found, so I settle on a $30 plate of pasta.  We're duly informed by our server in a sing-song Caribbean accent that it is happy hour, and if we buy one round, the second round is free.  But!  If we order two rounds then the next rounds are free as well! While in hindsight, this seems quite obvious, at the time, it was bewildering, perhaps because of the way she explained it, perhaps because by this point I'd been awake for something close to 38 hours straight, likely a combination therein.  Actually, come to think of it, it confused the hell out of the server as well.  I had 3 beers and should have had one more coming (buy 2, get 2 free).  It took her a good ten minutes to arrive at the same conclusion.

As we eat, I see platter after platter of cheeseburgers heading into the bar.  This turns into a bit of an obsession that drives many of our meal decisions for the remainder of the trip.

Bellies full, we head back to the condo, and proceed to be thoroughly unable to find the correct turn to get where we need to go.  On the island, street signs are rare at best; this combined with an absence of street lamps and a dead cell phone can make finding where you are going a challenge. After making a few passes, Andrea finally spots a sign for advertising Tootsies, the strip club in the town closest to where we are staying.  "I remember that sign!  We're close!"  Sure enough, maybe 200 feet later, there's our turn.  Thank you Tootsies, your sign became our landmark for the remainder of the trip.

We get back to the condo, do a little unpacking, and exhausted, collapse into bed.  Showers can wait until the morning; I've now been awake for about 40 hours straight, I've walked almost 18 miles since I have last slept, and its time to.....

zzzzzzzzzzz


Being on Island Time is different.  It is plugging in the name of a place that you want to go into the GPS, waiting for the 3G signal to catch up, seeing that your desired destination is 7 miles away and will take you 35 minutes to get there, and saying, "cool".