December 17-19

St. Thomas, USVI

The next morning was a rough one.  The kids were fighting, we were tired, and we were leaving for Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, in rolly seas.  I made blueberry muffins on the way but that wasn’t such a bright idea, because being down below on a rough trip, with the oven heating our spacious 150 square feet of living space to “sauna” level, is a recipe for, no, not blueberry muffins, but disaster.  We made it through, and arrived at Yacht Haven Grand without much further ado.

I laughed when we pulled into the marina.  Our 47-foot sailboat was almost invisible next to the megayachts that lined the docks.  We were told to pull into a spot next to the gas dock house.  I kid you not, no one even glanced our way the entire time we were there.  I don’t think anyone noticed our boat was even there.  We felt like Alice in Wonderland, because our boat had seemed so big just 20 minutes ago!  Now we were in this alternate universe where our boat could fit on the swim platform of one of these boats!

We tried to look cool as we unloaded bags of dirty laundry and garbage and hauled them down the dock (these yachts all have their own laundry rooms.  And their own laundry staff).  We couldn’t hide our excitement at getting to take a shower on land, though.  We annoyed the gas dock attendant by requesting diesel.  We filled up our one 54-gallon tank with 36 gallons of diesel.  The dock guy didn’t look like he would get off his stool for less than 1000 gallons.  The boat next to us holds 50,000 gallons of diesel.  Fifty.  Thousand.  Gallons.  JUST the diesel fuel on the boat next to us was worth more than our entire boat and everything on it.

Just to feel super, extra cool, we snuck off to Kmart to do our Christmas shopping for the kids.  Kmart is the nicest store here and “almost” resembled a Kmart at home.  It certainly wasn’t as “nice” and didn’t have as much, but we made due and reminded ourselves that being together was our gift to our children this year.

Back at the marina, we were surrounded by yachts of legendary status.  I quickly got out my camera and started taking pictures up and down the dock.  My dad is a big fan of the Power and Motoryacht Magazine Top 100, which lists the longest 100 yachts in the world each year.  Lo and behold, number 38 was our next door neighbor!  Phoenix² is 286 feet long and debuted on the list last year.  It is a beautifully executed yacht and we had the opportunity to talk to one of the crew members on the dock.  No, even I couldn’t score us a tour.  The crew member we spoke to doesn’t even know the name of the owner of the yacht!  There are 30 people on the crew when the 2 helicopter pilots are aboard, and this does not include the personal chef that accompanies the owner (there are 2 chefs aboard just for the crew).  There are 15 staterooms for crew members and each room has two beds.  Each bed has a television at the end of it that gets every television station, 5,000 movies, and just about every song ever recorded.  At this point, I was starting to wonder if they had a need for a deck swab.

The gangplank for Phoenix² had to be 25 feet long and was lit up with miles of rope lighting.  Next to the gangplank was something that looked like a microphone stand.  It had a little box at the top with a button.  Can you guess???  It is the doorbell!  “Ring for Service” and the bell will sound somewhere within the yacht, probably to a dedicated doorman or something!

The kids and I spent some time at the marina’s pool.  They loved the waterfall and I loved the peace and quiet with my snacks, my Coke, and my magazines.

The next morning, we woke at 0730 and saw that the crew was having separate men’s and women’s workout sessions.  A trainer was leading calisthenics for the women on the top deck while the men were doing sit-ups on the lower deck.  Yes, seriously.  Even the crews of the other megayachts were standing on their decks and staring.  Of course, that might be because of the scantily-clad swedish hotties.  Apparently, the main requirement for being a yacht crew is being drop-dead gorgeous, preferably with an exotic accent.

 

 

The kids sitting on the dockline of Nirvana, another megayacht.

 

The reason we had come to St. Thomas was to meet our friends Eric and Ilene and their two boys Max and Jack.  If you have been following along with our journey, you might remember that we visited the Weintraubs in Port Washington, on “Day One” of our year-long adventure!  How wonderful that we get to see them again as we approach the half-way mark.  The Weintraubs were in town for one day while on a cruise.  Being the megayacht that we are, we happened to be docked right next to the cruise ship terminal, so they just strolled over and we took them for a lovely sail over to Christmas Cove.

The Weintraubs are also sailors and we enjoyed talking about our journey with them on the way over.  Ilene’s first question for me was, “Do your kids ever fight?”  I know, I know.  I realize that my rose-colored depiction of our trip might mislead readers to think that its all rainbows and unicorns down here in the Caribbean.  Our days are so full and our experiences have been so vast, that when I sit down to write, I am forced to leave out many aspects of our day-to-day life.  I have a blog post planned to discuss “Parenting on a Boat”, but suffice it to say that our kids are still kids.  They bicker with one another from time to time.  They say they’re bored (can you imagine my reaction to that one?).  They forget their manners.  And they have to be reminded 400 times to (insert anything here that has to do with personal hygiene, schoolwork, or cleaning their rooms). We have, however, seen significant change and growth in all three of them, and I am interested in delving into that in a separate post.

The kids enjoyed jumping off the halyard, snorkeling, and playing all over the boat.  We had an al fresco lunch and found ourselves out of time much too soon.  On the way back to Charlotte Amalie, Reese showed the kids how to make her famous hors d’oeuvres and we all daintily scarfed them down.  We bid the Weintraubs adieu as they made their way back to the cruiseship before it blew its horn.