Day Twelve - St. Thomas.

Today’s port of call was the delightfully named Charlotte Amalie, the capital of St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.This island is principally known for its shopping but as this was a Sunday many of the shops were due to close at lunchtime. Sylvia and I decided to hit the town early to see what was on offer which involved a short bus ride.
St Thomas has a history of being a haven for pirates with one of the most famous ,Blackbeard, having built a lookout tower in the town. Now a tourist attraction this was to be the first port stop of today.
The castle is reached from the town by the “99 Steps”.

When you have climbed these 99 steps (actually there were 103!) you still had a steep incline to navigate before reaching the gate of the castle. Inside one of Blackbeard’s pirates told the tale of the buccaneer and his twelve wives and how he came to a sticky end.

Apparently when he was killed he was beheaded and his body was thrown into the ocean, where it proceded to swim around the ship three times before sinking. A true story witnessed by our story-teller!

While at the castle we met a group of tourists from Taiwan who were busy taking pictures of each other and everything else with their large very expensive cameras. They were excited to hear that we lived in Wales as they would be visiting later in the year and enquired when it would be hot. I did explain that the rain was slightly warmer in the summer months.

Leaving the castle behind us we descended the steps and returned to the town.

Here we met the modern day pirates enticing the passing innocent tourists into their shops to part with large amounts of money.Actually we managed to escape reasonably unscathed as Sylvia was not attracted to any of the jewelry on offer.
We returned to the ship for a leisurely afternoon on board where I sat on the balcony reading and falling asleep.

Tonight we had a lovely meal in the speciality steak restaurant, the Crown Grill, to celebrate Win & Jim’s fortieth anniversary. A fantastic meal with fantastic friends.
We will be at sea for the next two days and I will attempt to give a taste of the areas of the ship I have not mentioned together with a couple of anecdotes about some passengers we have met.