Sailboats! (Day 1)

Finally, again only a month late, I will post about a vacation!

For as many years as I have known J, he has taken a week every February to go on a sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands.   Last November he invited T and I to join him.  A  week in the Caribbean in February?  Yes please!

Day 1 -- St. Louis to St. Thomas
We were off to a rocking start when T called to say that the gate to his parking lot wouldn't open, so I would need to drive to the airport.  No problem.  We made it in plenty of time for our early flight, which took us to Charlotte. 

A bit fuzzy, but at the airport!

A few things about the Charlotte airport: 1) love the rocking chairs; 2) they may have more restaurants per square foot than any other airport I've been in (including Bojangles'!); 3) same with Starbucks; 4) same with charging stations; 5) a bathroom attendant?! and 6) so much sunshine (although maybe that's just compared to the still-dark, normally-gray St. Louis that I left behind).  Really, if you weren't stuck in that weird traveler's limbo, it wouldn't be a bad place to be!

From there we were St. Thomas-bound.  It was a bit of a long flight, but I don't remember quite how long because I slept a significant part of the flight.  I shut off my phone and disconnected from the world.

The little airport at STT didn't have jet bridges, so we got our first dose of fresh ocean air as soon as we stepped out of the plane; that was shortly followed by a shot of rum inside the airport terminal.

Our hotel for the night definitely fit into the "budget" category.  It was a place called The Galleon House.  However, we had a clean room, a little balcony from which you could see the ocean, and just getting to the hotel certainly made you realize that you were in the islands: to get to our bungalow, you had to climb 134 steps from the street (although there's a place where the cabs can do drop-offs that cuts off about 50 of those steps).  And it's not a just any staircase -- it's one of these twisty, windy, outdoor island staircases, where at every landing there's a little walkway going off this direction or that.

 Our pool, and looking across the hill

The view from our balcony

We went ever farther past our hotel -- now not just going up stairs, but up, down, around, and back up again -- to get to dinner at the Sweetwater Cafe.  T got jerk chicken skewers as an appetizer, and we both got grilled mahi mahi with mac and cheese as a main course.  My additional side was fried plantains, which I LOVE.  J got the seafood medley pasta, and he was kind enough to share a few bites.  It was all quite tasty, and we enjoyed the ocean breezes coming up the hill.

St. Thomas at night

After dinner T and I went for a stroll down the main drag along the harbor, but all the shops were closed and we didn't want to wander too far from the busy street, so we didn't see much besides the usual weekend revelers.