March 5
Brian (bf) and I left CT at 5 a.m. and drove to JFK. Couldn’t find a parking space at long-term parking. We were one of about 20 cars whizzing around. Finally we went to the front gate to tell them the lot looks full. They directed us to C-section and we parked. Took the tram to American. Before I left I posted on the forum that I was leaving on American at 8 a.m. Juliann posted, me too! So I told her what I was going to be wearing and to say HI, she did, that was nice. Grabbed something to eat and then boarded the plane. I was amazed at the number of under 2 year old babies were on board. I think there were about 10 on the plane and about 7 in back, front and side of us. No problem; we had about 10 minutes of crying and that was it. Actually, I liked it; it is nice to watch cute kids to pass the time on the plane. Changed into our shorts on the plane and hit the ground running, grabbed our free little rum punch, got the bags, and took at taxi to Sapphire. We passed the new cemetery the are making, I was wondering where all the others are, I’ve only seen one little one on the island. The driver said they bury families on top of each other.
Met Mom and Mike (ex-bf), they are still friends at the lobby. Heard the same thing she says every time, “You made it). She bought a unit there last month, A-207, wow is it nice to be close to everything! We usually stay in F building near the marina. I lay down since I was having some very weird upper intestinal pain for 2 days, it finally went away the next day thank God, maybe it was stress. Brian and Mike took the dingy to Red Hook to get groceries. We have a 40 ft houseboat at American Yacht Harbor. Mike and Mom built it about 10 years ago. It doesn’t move, but is great like a long room on the water with awning windows, nice and breezy. Brian, Mom and I are moving down this fall to give it a shot. My two cats will have to learn to be housecats. A neighboring boater said her dogs were going crazy when they saw two cats swimming by the other day. Some other boater’s cats like to jump off and swim to shore. Hope mine don’t!
Brian, who loves to cook, and made a nice dinner of Chicken, etc. and some yummy fudge from Marina Market. I went right to sleep, while the rest of the gang watched TV. I woke up when I heard loud music thumping from above us, I thought someone was playing the radio too loud, and thought I will complain tomorrow. Um, NO it was the band at the pavilion, they have music on Sat. nights. Since we usually are in F building I wasn’t used to that.

March 6
Brian and I snorkeled from the beach around the point to the right and ended up getting back on shore at the pool. Never did that before, but it was really calm that day. Got our chairs under the seagrape trees and chilled. A native, forgot his name, who sketches you for whatever you want to pay him, asked, “Can I earn a cigarette from you?” I said sure. I said are you going to draw me? You drew my mother and me last year. He sat next to us for a while, then said, well, bye. Ok, not earning that cig I guess. It’s ok, we had big hook noses in the last picture, didn’t look anything like us. We enjoyed a Voodoo Punch at the Sunday beach party and then went to Molly Mallone’s for dinner. Onion rings were great as usual, conch fritters good, and quesadilla was yummy. Got our Cold Stone ice cream and went to bed early.

March 7
Up early around 6:45 as usual on the island, and took the ferry to Cruz Bay. I was really upset to see the little burger stand gone, it was so islandy with it’s bright colors, now there is a big building they are going to put shops in, I don’t like it. Stood in line at Subway for about 10 minutes, while the girl making the subs carefully placed her knife in a tuna sub as she folded it and cut it and bagged it. I was like, you have got to be kidding, close it, cut it, and bag it!!!!!!! The, I think French lady owner, didn’t say a word, if I owned it I would be like move your *ss! Ah. Island Time, got to love it.
So, we went to Trunk Bay for the first time. I have been coming to the islands for 15 years. Nice beach, rented a chair for $7. I looked up and said, I hope a coconut doesn’t fall on my head, they were little though. No chance of one falling. Brian went for a walk, and I relaxed. Then I said, Hi Howey, didn’t get to Skinny’s to ring his bell. I told my brother too since he was going later in the week. The waves were a little big today and we were having fun. A 10-year-old kid and Brian were having a ball, by the end of the day there were about 20 of us acting like kids, Brian had fun. Took our showers, (oh I forgot to say I really liked Trunk Bay because everything was about a 30 second walk from the beach, at Cinnamon you have to walk up a big hill to get a soda.) Took a cab to Cruz Bay. I wanted to check out Woody’s since they have a great website with pictures of each week. It was too small, and hot so we went to Duffy’s, which was too loud, music wise not people wise. So we ended up at The Beach Bar. I had a Lime Coconut frozen drink, which was good. Took a cab to Caneel Terrace Restaurant and were seated at the best table, the farthest out on the sidewalk closest to the beach. We went to the Grand Buffet only on Monday nights. OH YUM! $65 a person, but if you only went out to dinner once on your vacation, this is it! They had shrimp cocktail, grilled shrimp, king crab already cut in half, grilled lobsters, salads, cheeses, oysters, steak, pasta, all desserts, ice cream. It was great. We fed the local cat three shrimp and some crab, he slept good that night with a full belly. So we waddled our way up the path to a safari open aired taxi waiting with three couples in it. I asked if they were staying there, they said yes we are going to Ten Tables? for dinner, I said get out of the truck! I said go to the buffet, which they promptly did, after giving the drive a $10. When we got to Cruz Bay, the driver yelled at Brian, but we said sorry we had to tell them how good it was. My mother and I took the bed tonight and Brian had the pull out couch. Not a good night, I was up about three times trying to kill a mosquito that would buzz by my ear every time I was almost asleep. Finally Mom got him in the bathroom, and then Brian was up at about four in the morning. He had too much sleep the last couple of nights.

March 8
Today we took the dinghy around to Coral World. We anchored out since there are lots of snorkelers here. Brian and I put our masks on and hit the water. Didn’t drop any Pirate treasures this year. J I learned my lesson after the bashing I got after my last trip report. Brian swam to the boat to wait with Mom while I got three hot dogs from Uncle Buddy’s. They put them all into a container and I swam them out. We cruised around Allen Alda’s island that he bought I guess back when they filmed Four Seasons at Hawksnest. Brian asked, do you think there are any goat on the island? I said No, how would they get out there? About 20 seconds later we spotted a mom and her two kids on a cliff, then a big black dad with horns. I guess they swim. We then took the dingy over to Blackbeards beach to paint the inside. While it was drying we swam out to a half sunk sailboat with the mast and one pontoon sticking out of the water. I held on to a rope while Brian pulled me up out of the water about a foot, I let go and the rope with its little loop went up about 4 feet. Mom floated out a big piece of wood and Brian was on the boat cutting the end of it to fit into the loop to pull the line down from the mast so we could us it for anchor line on our houseboat, when the wood broke and Brian cut his left index finger bad. He wrapped it up in a piece of sail and had lots of fun swimming back to shore while trailing blood. No shark! Hurray!! We said come on lets go to the emergency medical place in Red Hook. He didn’t want stitches because it hurts, you can’t go swimming and when the nurse said it is $85 to $150 just to have a doctor look at it, he refused. Mom said can’t you just take a look to her; she said we aren’t supposed to. But if you were to drink your drink with your other hand and I just happened to see it…… She said go get peroxide and band-aids. We then went to shore and got on the dollar bus to go downtown. Got about ¼ mile down the road and got pulled over by a cop. He gave the driver a $50 dollar ticket for picking us up, I guess he can only pick up a bunch of people at a time, or a at bus stop. Sorry! Got our cigarettes for $16 a carton. I was standing outside the store and saw a rat in the alley, not too bad. It was like a light tan big mouse, not an ugly black rat you think of. I told my brother how they came over on ships back when and they brought mongoose to eat them, but one is nocturnal and they never met, but the mongoose ate all the snakes on the island. He laughed and said that isn’t good, snakes eat rats. I said to a native I just saw a rat, he said are you crying over the rat? I said no, he said you smoking weed? I said no. Then I informed him my eyes were sunburned. Happens ever year, even if I only go to the beach in RI for one day in the summer. My doctor said she has never seen it before, lucky me! L We ate at Senior Pizza and went to bed.