St. Thomas sailing itinerary...

Here is my itinerary for my November trip to St. Thomas.

With all the delays plaguing American Airlines these days (don’t ya just love a good pilot’s slow-down?), I chose to use Delta SkyMiles for the trip.  And since you can depend on Delta to routinely screw things up in Atlanta, I chose flights that allowed for a two hour fifteen minute layover.  That way, when the plane from Tampa to Atlanta is 90 minutes late because a cabin steward slept in or they can’t find a widget to fix the whatchamacallit or the captain breaks a fingernail, I will still be able to catch my 9:44 flight to Charlotte Amalie.  That means that I have a 6:00 am flight out of TPA… good times!  As one of my ex-military friends likes to say, I’ll be getting up at “oh dark hundred.”

I arrive in St. Thomas in the early afternoon and will grab a cab to the East End for my one night stay at Two Sandals by the Sea Inn.  Two Sandals is a four-room B&B that overlooks the American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook.  I prefer small properties to the big hotels.  Traveling is all about the experience and I have found little inns and B&Bs to be more hospitable and interesting than large hotels.  You’re more likely to get the real scoop on local happenings, the best places to eat and the must things to see from the proprietor who has a vested interest in both your return and strong recommendation.  Ferries leave from the American Yacht Harbor Marina for St. John and the British Virgin Islands.  Two Sandals is also very close to Secret Harbor Beach so I will have plenty to keep me busy until 3:00 pm the next day when I join the other students for six days of intensive instruction aboard a Blue Water Sailing School vessel. 

The next six days will be spent applying all the material I’m reading for my American Sailing Association 101, 103 and 104 certifications.  Getting through all this material before I depart is going to be challenging because all of my reports and tasks at work need to be completed before I get on that plane.  All totaled, the material in the Sailing Made Easy, Cruising Made Easy and Cruising Fundamentals comes to 390 pages, not including glossaries, tests, check lists, etc.   I should have signed up a month earlier so I would have more time to digest all this information.  I even have a length of rope at my desk so I can practice knots while I work.  There is so much to learn and know.  How the hell did Columbus get here and back so many times?

Anyway, I end the week at mid-afternoon on Friday, November 9.  I am tentatively booked at the Villa Santana, a small inn on Denmark Hill overlooking Charlotte Amalie that was the home of Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna in the 1850s.  During one of his several exiles from Mexico, the man who defeated the likes of Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett during the 13-day battle of the Alamo is rumored to have stolen a substantial amount of Mexican silver to build his stately home.  Although the great house was destroyed by a fire 1986, all of the outbuildings including the kitchen, watch tower, the library, a wine cellar and his attaché’s quarters have all been converted into what looks like a very quaint inn.  I have reserved La Torre (the watchtower) for a price considerably better than most of the hotels on the island.  Villa Santana looks to be located to most of the major landmarks of Charlotte Amalie and I have located a scooter rental place that delivers, so I will have some flexibility in getting around.

I hope the last few days will be relaxing, because it will be my last vacation for the year.  I usually take five vacation days around the President’s Day holiday so that I get a full ten days off in February, but that will be three months after my St. Thomas adventure.

The next three weeks will be filled with studying and other preparations.  I picked up a pair of open-fingered sailing gloves today and I need to make sure I have plenty of sun block, extra pairs of glasses, sunglasses, quick-drying shorts and other items necessary for a week aboard a sailboat.  The weather should be pretty nice since we will be at the tail end of hurricane season, but I have to be prepared for anything.