St. Thomas

We had a wonderful few days in St. Thomas recently. St. Thomas is part of the U.S. Virgin Islands so while you have the beauty of a tropical paradise like St. Lucia, you have better roads, a more prosperous economy (for now anyway) and the typical tourist strips you’ll find along the Eastern seaboard with lots of little boutiques (supposedly selling at good prices but I’m not convinced) and limited public access to beaches.










We were invited to St. Thomas by our friends, and former roommates from last year, Carl and Sue Ross. Their son Chip owns shares in a vacation home company and he was unable to use the four days he had reserved in a spectacular villa in St. Thomas. We jumped at the chance. Norm took a couple of days off from school so that we could fly to the island.

You’d think that flying from one Caribbean island to another would be simple but that’s not necessarily so. Liat is the Caribbean airline we usually fly on. It has the smaller Dash-8’s that fly from one island to another, but not necessarily using the most direct route. To get to St. Thomas we had to land on several islands first… Dominica, Antigua, St. Kitts and St. Marteens and on the way back, we added two more stops… Anguilla and Barbados. The island hopping took about 5 hours each way.

We have memorized the safety message from the crew, we are well versed in how to open the emergency door, we know you have to run to line up for the plane because there is no reserved seating, and we know that the stewardess will spray some type of deodorizer on the carpet at the start of each flight. Something they say they are required to do for safety reasons. .





The villa we stayed at in St. Thomas was amazing. It was an entire compound built on several levels and divided into four separate buildings. You had to go outside to get from the bedroom to the kitchen or from the living room to the games room. The views were spectacular. We could see at least ten islands from the house.




One of the buildings was home to the Honeymoon suite with its private balcony, king size bed and glass shower facing the Atlantic Ocean.








The main building in the center had the kitchen, dining room and large living room.



The kitchen counters and backsplash were made of granite. All o the appliances were top of the line, including the two ovens, double dishwasher and separate ice-cube making fridge. It was a kitchen to die for. Sue and I really enjoyed the little bit of cooking we were able to do. The cleaning staff came in every day so we didn’t even do the dishes.



The fourth building had three levels of bedrooms, each with its unique character and spectacular view. Then of course there was the usual pool, Jacuzzi…you know the usual stuff you’d find in a mansion in the Caribbean. ;-)










Despite our luxurious quarters, Norm still wanted to get out and explore the Island. So
we spent a good part of our second day there driving around. Our first walk on a beach led us to this lovely iguana. They are numerous on the island and very tame. This one was about three feet long.










This is a picture of Magan's Bay. Magan's Beach is one of the more famous beaches on the island and apparently one of the top beaches in the world. .













On the third day we drove into town and took a ferry to St. John Island.




It’s a 30 or 40 minute ride. Most of the Island is protected so there is very little development. There are several white sandy beaches that looked very inviting. It was a cloudy day though so we didn’t feel too bad about not bringing our bathing suits.




And we got to experience an earthquake while we were in St. Thomas. It happened on the Sunday. It was 6.1 on the richter scale. The epicentre was about 150 miles north of the Island of St. John but we got a pretty good shake. The quake was in the ocean so it didn’t cause any damage anywhere.


Sorry for the delay in posting this. Norm was busy and I was sick. I’ll be quicker with the next one.

Oktoberfest En Kweyol

We had an unusual event to attend this past weekend. It was the first ever Oktoberfest Festival in St. Lucia. But to make the event unique to the Island, it was called Oktoberfest En Kweyol…that’s the patois way to say Creole. It was promoted as an event to kick off Creole Heritage Month.




The entry fee was $4.00 U.S. which included a sample of beer. Since Norm doesn’t like beer, I had to sacrifice and drink his share. There were several different kinds of beer from around the world including Edelweiss, Pelforth Brune, Paulaner (which is apparently the original Oktoberfest Ferman beer) and Guinness. I tasted three different kinds and they were all good.





I tried Guinness for the first time and was quite surprised at how dark it was. This gentleman was kind enough to give me a Guinness key chain as a gift.












These girls were having a great time selling Piton merchandise. Piton is the locally brewed beer that is very popular here.











Several bands played throughout the day. This is the number one drum band in St. Lucia.







There were free bandanas for participants. We managed to find some shade so that Norm didn’t have to wear his.








As with every other festival or event in St. Lucia there was great food on hand, including pig tail soup. But where, oh where, was the Oktoberfest sausage.