Monday, April 8, 2019

Reliving Water Island

We’re back from the Virgin Islands, and it’s a Monday.  I’m dealing with it, but man, this time yesterday I was waking up in an entirely different world.
Sally and I flew out of JFK.  With that we got a cheaper flight that went direct, but I have to be honest and say that the airport itself was a pain in the ass.  Considering the number of people and planes they process on a day-to-day basis, they do a decent job, but there’s still no getting around the fact that 8.5M people live in New York City and maybe 25M live in the greater NYC metropolitan area, and that’s a lot of folks.  Add in tourist traffic, and yeah y’know, it was a whole deal.  We must’ve walked a mile and a half from security to our gate and from the gate back out to the street when we got back. 
Sally at JFK waiting for our flight.
That airport is amazing.
I finished up last week’s Dissecting the Coverage on the flight and then watched Bumblebee.  I’ve no idea what you thought of Dissecting the Coverage, but Bumblebee was fun.  Very much in the vein of the old 80s Transformers cartoon.
We stayed at the Virgin Islands Campground on Water Island, just off the coast from St. Thomas, USVI.  Staying in the US kept things simple logistically, and knowing that the islands had gotten hit hard by the hurricanes two years ago, we wanted to add our tourist dollars to the local American economy.  Water Island turned out to be quite a little paradise, though very remote.  We caught a shuttle to the Crown Bay Marina and then had to catch a ferry out to Water Island.  Our host then picked us from the dock and drove us the last half-mile in his truck. 

On the ferry out to Water Island.
Arrival!
Sunrise from the campground.
Water Island doesn’t have any infrastructure.  There was one tiny general store built into a cargo ship container down by the ferry dock, and there were a couple of little outdoor restaraunts down by the beach, but that’s it.  All in, it was less infrastructure than you’d see at a U.S. Army brigade command post during a field problem.  You could put everything out there onto a couple of trucks in a matter of hours.  Moreover, the island itself had no gas stations or traffic lights or even really roads.  Most people puttered around on golf carts.
Think about it like this: St. Thomas is about the same size as Manhattan Island.  Against that, Water Island is like Roosevelt Island or maybe Governor’s Island.  It’s a mile or so long and a half-mile wide--at most.  Water Island sits on the ragged edge of civilization; if you go any further, you’re off the map.
This was perfect.  We were on a secluded island with spectacular views.
Staying at the campground wasn’t like “camping”.  It wasn’t even really “glamping” except in the sense that they had a communal kitchen with a picnic table and a bunch of outdoor furniture out under a permanent awning.  We rented the suite, which had a bedroom, a small kitchenette, and its own bathroom, but most of the spots were little canvas-sided wooden cabins that shared a communal bathroom and shower facility.  They have eight or nine spots out there, so when it’s full, I imagine it can get pretty crowded.  When we were there, though, we only saw two other couples, and they both left halfway through our stay.
We went snorkeling on our first full day.  Wound up swimming with sea turtles, seeing brain and other kinds of coral, and enjoying ourselves quite a bit.  We didn’t take a lot of pictures, unfortunately, because we took a sailboat out there, and it was very windy--plus the boat had a tendency to heel in the wind--and we were afraid of losing both our phones and our hats.  But we met a bunch of cool folks, and we generally enjoyed ourselves.  Had some of the obligatory rum punch on the way back.  Captain Morgan’s has a facility out there, and that rum punch was everywhere.
Down at Yacht Haven Marina while waiting for our snorkeling adventure.
At lunch after snorkeling.
Brain coral!
At the aquarium.
From the top of Water Island, looking down at one of the estates.
We went across St. Thomas to the Coral Center on our second full day.  This was where my wife’s adventurous side took over.  We didn’t take a cab out there; instead we rode the local “safari” bus and walked the last mile-and-a-half.  This was quite an adventure, most especially because the bus lines aren’t particularly obvious or well-marked.  With the help of some of the locals, however, we got there safely enough.  Saw a guy in a food truck selling conch on the walk to the center and stopped for lunch.  That was cool.
The coral center proved to be a big aquarium.  It’s a tourist spot, obviously, but it’s also the home to a bunch of marine biologists and college-age interns doing work to preserve and regrow the reef.  We met a sea lion, saw more of the reef, and had some popsicles, then we headed down to Coki Beach, which was right around the corner.  More rum punch ensued, and it turned into a very nice, sun-drenched afternoon.
We spent our last day-and-a-half on Water Island, driving around a rented golf cart and generally exploring.  I spent part of that day shooting one-minute practice videos for As For Football.  The videos themselves didn’t actually have anything to do with football, but I’d like to do some one-minute pre-game notes and post-game wrap-ups this fall, and that one-minute format proved to be a lot harder to manage than it looks.  We spent quite a bit of time down on Honeymoon Beach that day, and then we went looking for some small brain coral fossils for our kids down on Limestone Beach that evening.

The trek back was long.  It’s not easy to get from the ragged edge of civilization back to Stratford, Connecticut, but you’re reading this because I made it and am on the train back to work even now.  
St. Thomas was a blast, though.  Highly recommended.
Coki Beach.  Gonna miss this life.
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