ST THOMAS, US VIRGIN ISLANDS – Wednesday, November 7

The foundations of St. Thomas’s fortunes started in the 1670’s by the traders of the Danish West India Company. The original settlement on the site of Charlotte Amalie provided a welcome watering hole for Caribbean merchants and pirates, including Edward Teach (died in 1718), better known as Blackbeard – remember this the next time you watch one of the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Black Pearl pirate ship!

Although we didn’t see the Black Pearl – we did pull into port right beside the beautiful Queen Mary 2. As you can see by the photos, we did “hold our own” size wise and didn’t let her intimidate us. There were 5 other cruise ships in port at St. Thomas the day we were there!

We shopped and chatted up the locals - always on the alert for history or a story about “spirit dancers” we were told about Mockojumbies – spirit dancers of the Caribbean (Google the term for interesting stories).

The high point of this port of call was a wild ride over the mountain to the other side of the island to the St. Thomas Yacht Club. There we had a great lunch dockside and met Bill Canfield, Manager of the club. He presented us with a STYC burgee with the promise that we would send one of ours from LYC.

While we were having lunch a gentleman came up and asked if we were from the Clear Lake area. It was Terry Hudson who sailed his 43 ft double-ended pilot house sailboat down to the islands 8 years ago and never left. We had a great visit and can add another “small world” story to our never-ending list!