Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

We arrived on St. Thomas on Wednesday afternoon to beautiful 80 degree weather.  Since we are only here for a few days, we wanted to maximize activity time but not feel too rushed.

On Wednesday night, the beach bar near our hotel was hosting a carnival night.  The food was a West Indian buffet, and we enjoyed the entertainment – a steel drum band made up of local school children, a stilt walker and some music.  We downshifted quickly to “island time” while waiting about an hour for our table.  Don’t feel bad for us – we were drinking piña coladas.

A Moko Jumbie (stilt walker) dances with children at the beach bar

On Thursday, we rented a car and drove around the island.  Everyone says St. Thomas is really crowded.  We didn’t think it was that bad – maybe it was because our expectations were set in advance, or maybe it was because there were only 2 cruise ships docked on the island that day.  We got acclimated to driving on the left side of the road, and off we went on a tour of the island, complete with wrong turns and a little bit of getting lost.  During the day, we went to Magen’s Bay beach, which really is a beautiful beach:

View of Magen’s Bay from the hills above

We also stopped for lunch at a place in Red Hook on the eastern end of the island.  Lunch was good, but my favorite part was the iguanas that hung out near the restaurant:

This guy was huge! Including the tail, he was probably 4 feet long.

Driving around the island was a beautiful and relaxing way to spend the day, and a good way for us to get oriented.

– Meredith