Well, we finally made it to St. Thomas. My wife and I were cruising on RCI Navigator of the Seas and visited St. Thomas on Feb. 15th. I took along all the advise I received from this board and found it most helpful during the shopping portion of our visit. The view of the bay from the harbour is truly beautiful, so I took the appropriate amount of pictures and video to depress our friends back home who could not come with us. There were 20 in our group that did go on this cruise, and for most of us, it was a first.

Several of us guys did the BOB excursion which took place from 9:00 - 12:00 at the cost of $135.00. It was definately a unique experiance and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, your underwater time last for only 20 minutes. The location was a bay at Buck Island along with other snorkel excursion boats. The lack of pretty coral in the area(except for fire coral which we were warned NOT TO STEP ON) was somewhat disapointing, but there were plenty of fish to view. This excursion is NOT for anyone who has a tendancy towards clustrophibia; 2 people could not do it out of the aprox. 30 on the boat. You were welcome to use snorkel gear(provided or bring your own), to keep yourself busy while others went BOBing. The Capitan and crew were first rate.

My wife went into town in the morning with some of the other wives to browse and shop and after the excursion was over I went back into town with her. Apparently she had spotted a ring she liked! I was of course shocked! I bought a brightly colored shirt just in case anyone wasn't sure if I was a tourist or not, and she bought a lovely diamond ring from Cardows' who we had heard so many positive things about. The ring was nothing extravagant but the staff was very helpful regardless. We will definately shop there again. Unfortunately, today my wife noticed that one of the diamonds in the ring fell out sometime in the last 24 hours and since I have been unable to locate the recipt anyware amongst the mess of our luggage, I guess I'll have to call Cardows' to see if there is any way they can locate a copy of the recipte. I'm not holding out much hope though. Good thing I bought some CRUZAN RUM to drown my sorrows! I guess every cloud has a silver lining! Thanks again Islander, Island Paul, and everyone else who helped to make our short visit enjoyable. We will be back!