Cruise day 4 – St. Thomas

St. Thomas is one of the U.S. Virgin Islands.   So when we were arriving at St. Thomas from the Bahamas, we entered the U.S. soil again.   Everybody on the ship was required to go through the U.S. immigration check shit before we can land in St. Thomas.   We were requested to get ready for the check last night.   The speaker started to announce the information again quite early this morning.   So we didn’t sleep in as we usually would do.   We went to deck 2 for the check,  the line for U.S. passport holders was quite long while for us, non-U.S., the line was shorter.   The check was routine and very quick. 

Benefited from the early waking,   we showed up on a busy street in St. Thomas around 10 o’clock.  Ron learned from the daily paper that there was a free shuttle bus which would go to downtown,  the bus stop was shown very close to the dock, so we didn’t take the cabs which were waiting right beside the dock.   We went around the place which was supposed to be the shuttle bus stop on the map twice.  No sign of bus.   We had to go back to the dock and took the cab. 

The cab can fit 20 persons or so.  It was like a pick up truck, but with rails and seats in the back.  We waited for a while until the cab was full.  Then we headed to downtown.   The roads were narrow, traffic was a bit crazy (If I am allowed to say that, I guess compared to Shanghai, this traffic was just nothing).   Soon, the cab arrived at a very crowded tiny plaza, with lots of simple sheds on the road side.  People were selling T-shirts, cultural clothes, bags and other miscellaneous things in those sheds.  I didn’t believe that was downtown, thought this might be one of the stops.  But after I saw all of the passengers had taken off, I guess that was it.  The driver pointed that we should turn right and go one more block.  Alright, followed his instruction, we saw a long street with lots of small stores right beside each other on both sides.  Some of them were decorated very nicely.  We went into the first one on the corner.  Very bright store, not sure the brightness was from the store lights or from all the shining exhibitions there.  Jewelry, stones and watches…  We saw the huge globes which Ron always wanted to put in our library.  They have different sizes there.  We admired them a bit but didn’t really think we were ready to convey a huge expensive commodity to Canada from this trip.  We went to the next store.  On the road, a ragged guy gave us some name card and pointed us to some store which would have 80% discount on the diamonds.  We took the card and said thank you to him,  but didn’t bother to look at the name of the store.  There was only jewelry in the second store.   In fact, most of the stores were just selling jewelry.  Normally I would enjoy jewelry window shopping,  but there is a term called visual fatigue.   I guess I got infected by that, strange.  But really nothing has ever caught my attention since I received my engagement ring.  :P  We had an excursion booked at 12:00.   At 11:30, we found a cab on the street and headed back to the ship.   On the cab, I saw most people that went through and out of the stores were tourists.   St. Thomas is very famous for shopping for luxuries since it is a tax-free place.    

Our excursion in St. Thomas was called sail boat racing.   Ron picked all our excursions in this cruise before the departure when we were still in Waterloo.   He booked those excursions with limited seatings which also sound interesting in case we won’t be able to get in later.   Anyway there were about 10 people for this race.  We were divided into two groups.  Ron and I were in the blue team.  Besides us, there were an old couple and an Asian looking middle-aged guy (I think he speaks perfect English) in the blue team.   There were three sailors on the boat.  It was the first sailing boat I was on but I would say it was a very nice one if only there was a nice kitchen and bedroom in the cabin.    Ron told me that this boat was designed for racing, so efficiency and speed were most important.  Oh, well, sailing…. that is just something far more beyond the imagination of a girl like me.   Ron was so into it.  He told the captain that he actually took a boat course to learn how to drive a boat.  I was worried that I couldn’t follow the instructions very well and would make our team lag behind so I told the captain that I wouldn’t be a part of the racing and I would just watch….

They started to practice, basically the work was tugging the rope and releasing the rope at a very quick speed to move the sails based on the wind direction.  It was a very strenuous job.   As the youngest work force in the group, I felt bad that I just sat and didn’t help.  It was said that telling the wind direction was the most difficult part.  Only very experienced sailor can do this job well.  And I had the impression that they can actually tell the wind direction by the color of the waves, amazing, but I am not sure whether I heard this right or not.  Anyway, the captain took charge of discerning how to move the sails, and instructed group members whether to tug or release the rope on either side.   During the whole sailing, most of the time, the boat was tilted badly either to one side or the other side.  At the first time that the boat was tilted nearly 60 degree,  I was so scared and felt the gravity was going to pull me down to the water.  I was looking for something I could grab on the boat.  One sailor noticed my anxiety and showed me that I should put my feet against the raised edge in the middle of the floor.  Alright, that helped a lot!  I found everybody else has done that already… I missed something once again!  During the race, the Asian looking guy got sea-sick and started to vomit.  Then the old guy got sick and left his position.  So only one old lady and Ron were still useful in our team.  Ron indeed worked very hard.  At the end of the race, one of the sailors shook his hand and called him brother.  Do sailors call each other brothers?  What do they call female sailors? I guess it would be sisters.  That sounds like a family.

After the race,  we were guided to a little shop near the dock where we saw our pictures which were taken on the race boat.  We bought one of the pictures in which Ron was steering the wheel and I was leaning against him. :D  But that was not a  cheap picture at all.

We were tired and hot.  We went back to the stateroom, cleaned up and had a rest.  The ship wouldn’t leave St. Thomas until 11:00PM.   Ron was interested in seeing some camera store nearby and he also said he wanted to buy me some jewelry in the trip as a souvenir.  I told him that I didn’t want any jewelry in short term.  But both of us know that is a little white lie.   So after a bit of rest, we disembarked the ship and amazingly found all the shops near the dock were all closed.  It was just around 7:00PM.  Well, as a tourism city, considering most ships would stay late, that clearly was a very bad move.

We didn’t want to go farther away from the dock, so we just headed back to our room.  I spent some time on the balcony alone.  In the dusk, from the view of our balcony, St. Thomas was quiet.  There were no skyscrapers, hardly any tall buildings.  Only sparkling lights in the trees,  from there I heard the very familiar sound made by the cicadas.  As one fell, another rose.  The exact same wonderful music accompanied me in the summers of my childhood.  At that moment, it brought back memories.   I wish I could just make time reverse, but I know even if I could, I wouldn’t feel the same anymore.  Mommy’s little girl has grown up,  that is just the way it is.   When we were in Kingston, Ron showed me around his neighbourhood where he grew up.  He pointed out to me several houses he lived in before.  I always envy him since I know I will never find the nice little neighbourhood I lived in before in Shanghai.  They are long gone.