We had a visitor today ...

He didn't stay long - maybe because he saw me coming at him with a broom.  It was a little disconcerting, however, to see him slip out under the closed side of the double door.  May be time to think about new weather stripping or something ...

There are some animals here that you just don't see at home - or at least not in the same situations.  The guy shown above was small, probably about 6 inches long.  There are also ground lizards that are 12 inches or longer.  Then there are the iguanas:

 

A youngster



An old guy hanging out with some friends near the sand volleyball court

Then there is the herd of goats that wanders the island.  Here are some of them in the price club parking lot:

Not everything is weird or ugly or reptilian.  We'll be getting our own hummingbird feeder after watching all the birds flitting around our neighbor's feeder and resting in the seagrape tree by our balcony:

It's really fascinating to watch the hummingbirds - and I probably spend way too much time doing so :)

We've even seen a couple of deer, tho I haven't been able to get a picture yet.  I'll post one when I do!

What we learned last weekend

The St. Thomas airport is small. It has 11 gates, one snack bar, and one runway.  This we knew. 

The only direction that the large planes can land is from the west toward the east.  Since the runway is only 7000 feet long, a west wind above a certain speed (10 knots?) makes it dangerous  - or impossible - for the jets to land.  Apparently, this doesn't happen too often.  But, last Friday and Saturday, thanks to Hurricane Igor, the winds were blowing strongly from the west.  This is what we learned.

Why did this matter to us?

Parker was supposed to spend a long weekend with us.  She flew to Miami on Friday morning and was waiting to board her 4:30 flight to St. Thomas when she started to hear about problems with the earlier St. Thomas flight.  That flight circled for quite a while, then was diverted to Puerto Rico.  Parker's flight was eventually "delayed" until 7:45 Saturday morning.  We were all, obviously, disappointed that her visit would be shortened, but made arrangements for her to spend the night at a hotel in the Miami airport and looked forward to Saturday.

She texted us at 5:45 a.m. to let us know she hadn't slept thru her alarm and jumped into the shower.  We checked her flight status on-line - and it now showed "cancelled."  Bob got on the phone and found out that the winds were still causing problems, and Parker had been rebooked onto a Miami-St. Thomas flight on Sunday!  All of Saturday's flights were oversold, and the airline wasn't even sure that those flights would be going. 

Parker spending a day & 2 nights in Miami, then less than 24 hours here was obviously not exactly the weekend we had planned.  So, since she was already up & showered, we got her on an early flight back to Chicago, and she was there by 10:30 a.m.  What a bummer ...

Some basic info

St. Thomas is in the US Virgin Islands - so we're still in the USA.  That means that everyone speaks English (tho the native dialects can be hard to understand) and that we get mail thru the US Postal Service.  It also means that if you call us from your cell phone, there are no roaming or international charges - it's just like calling us when we're in Texas.  So, call!  If you need either of our cell numbers or our land line, just send me a email.

St. Thomas is on Atlantic Standard Time and doesn't go on Daylight Savings Time.  Right now, we are on the same time as the Eastern time zone (1 hour later than Texas), but when the time changes, we will be 2 hours later than Central time, so please consider that if you want to call in the evening. But you can feel free to call early in the morning!

One thing that is not like the mainland is the driving.  In St. Thomas, you drive on the left side of the road, even though the steering wheel is also on the left!  The roads are narrow and winding and often have no stripes.  Other than in the downtown area, there are few sidewalks and no shoulders.  Most of the roads climb up & down the mountain-sides, so there are sharp turns & switch backs.  As an indication of the situation, the fastest speed limit sign we've seen is 35 mph.  If all that isn't enough, where there is any space on the side of the road, you'll probably find cars parked - whether there is enough room or not.  It should come as no surprise that most of the cars here have several dings, dents and scrapes.  Bob is pretty comfortable driving, but I've only driven once so far.

That's all I can think of right now.  Let me know if you have questions about anything else!

Background Story

Bob has been traveling between Dallas & St. Thomas, USVI, almost weekly since February of this year.  This is another consulting assignment, with a difference: this one will last 2-3 years at a minimum, and in the future he will only be able to return to "the states" every 4-6 weeks.  Obviously, it made sense for me to join him.  Since this is not permanent, however, we haven't really moved.  We have our house in Plano and are renting a furnished condo on the island.

It goes without saying that St. Thomas has great beauty, especially the beaches.  We had only been here before as a stop on a cruise, and that was fun.  Living here, tho, is not quite so idyllic.  While we are in a relatively safe area, there is a big crime problem, and drugs and gangs.  With little industry, many of the natives seem to face a hopeless future and resent the "whites" who they see only as tourists wanting to be served or as newcomers who want to change everything.  We've found that a geniune smile and friendliness can help, but it can be a little discouraging. 

It's also very expensive to live here!  Everything you buy has to be shipped in, mostly from Puerto Rico or Miami, so that has to be factored into the prices.  Electricity is ridiculous, so we do all we can to limit our usage: no a/c during the day being the biggest adjustment.  And the water supply is limited, so we conserve there, too.  We're living green! :)

Of course, it's not all bad.  The temperatures are consistently between about 79 and 91 during the summer.  It rains a little every day, so it stays green.  Our condo is right on a bay near the yacht club, and we enjoy watching the boats & boaters.  It's also just a short walk to the nearest beach.  It's not one of the more beautiful beaches, but there's sand and water and palm trees and lounge chairs, so it'll do when we don't want to go far. 

Bob, of course, will be very busy with work, but I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing just yet.  I had volunteered in the office at our church at home for a couple of years, so the missions group there tried to find me some contacts here without any success.  While I continue to work on that, I thought I'd do a blog as a sort of journal of our stay here: adjustments, surprises, difficulties, etc.

Hope you enjoy reading along!