The next morning up at dawn with a little food in our bellies we are heading for the tropics. Landing on St. Thomas reminds me so much of flying into Jamaica. At one moment you are convinced that the pilot is landing in the sea and miraculously land appears under the wheels of your plane. The island is a collection of foliage covered mountains. The green astonishes you with its vibrancy but the day is colored by grayish clouds that filter the sunshine and tone down all the colors. The frenetic taxi drive to the ferry dock shows us a coastal town, shops, cars, people, shabby and pristine, old and new, all juxtaposed by the sea. I learned a lesson on this trip, never let someone else even a local tell you where you want to go if you haven’t asked for directions. We ended up on a ferry to West End, Tortola; a pleasant place but not where we had intended to go. Our arrival in West End necessitated an interesting taxi ride to Road Harbor where we could watch the ferry that we had intended to ride arrive three blocks from our hotel. Oh, well!

Maria’s by the Sea was all that I expected and more; clean comfortable, directly on the water with friendly staff and a breeze from the ocean that made you love life. Road Town is not a huge metropolis or laid out by a maniac but when you arrive on Easter Friday and don’t know where you are or where you are going and you are hungry and sweaty, it is daunting. We found a small restaurant, Nexus, where they agreed to serve us a meal (after taking pity on us since we begged). Sam and Dominic became obsessed by the wild life, namely, the Banty roosters and hens that acted as if they owned the island. While waiting for our meal of chicken roti( probably the reason for the inspection), a very suspicious and small chicken stalked into the restaurant and gave us the eye. We were not intimidated and enjoyed our conch fritters and other fare before making it back to our own roost for the night. We enjoyed our only night of air-conditioning on the islands and waking up to the bright unfiltered Caribbean sunshine made us eager to find our boat.

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