We moved from Water Island, closer to Charlotte Amalie. We are anchored in the harbor outside of Yacht Haven Grande.  Tristan is in heaven here.  Yacht Haven Grande is home to some of the biggest private yachts in the world.  Right now, Rising Sun, the 450 foot long yacht belonging to Larry Ellison is docked here, and 100 to 200 feet boats are pretty much the norm.    Right next to Yacht Haven is the cruise ship dock.  Everyday, so far, there has been at least 3 cruise ships docked, sometimes 4.  If that doesn’t keep your interest, every few hours a seaplane lands or takes off in the harbor not far from us.  It can’t get any better for the kids.  One cruise ship is anchored so close to us, we joke we could run a cord to the ship for electricity.  If we were in the Dominican Republic, ten people would have beaten us to it!!

There is a coffee shop that offers intermittent free internet service, so we can occasionally get online.  I must say we really like it here, and we have only been to one beach, and not even the best beach.  We have been trying to find the best place to watch the Superbowl on Sunday.  The only downside to this anchorage is the wind.  At times some really strong wind gusts shoot down the mountain into the harbor, but our anchor is really secure.  Tomorrow night, the weather report is for high wind gusts through the weekend, so we’ll probably stay here through Monday.  That’s fine as we still haven’t explored downtown Charlotte Amalie.  We did some shopping at the Havensite mall. The prices are really good and Dan was able to get a good deal on a new camera lens.  As far as a new computer, it looks like we’ll have to mail order it.  We did set up a mailbox so we now have a mailing address here, and today we are going to try to open a bank account.  There should be a story there!      

  We are happily anchored off of a beautiful beach called Honeymoon Beach, on water island, a small island next to St Thomas.  It’s a small beach, with coconut trees, turquoise water, a small beach restaurant serving really good food and most importantly kids, lots of kids!!  Saturday was a little slower than Sunday.  On Saturday nights, Heidi’s restaurant sets up tables on the beach and has candlelight dinners.  Sunday is the big family day.  The harbor was filled with boats.  Tristan and Tessa had a great time playing with the other kids.  They split their time between the rope swing, the surfboard, playing tag, and whatever else they could think of.  This is probably the most kids they have gotten to play with in one place, (except for the park in Ponce Puerto Rico) and they made the most of it. Most of the kids lived on St. Thomas and come over to spend Sundays at the beach.  Most are from families that gave up the cold weather living in the States to make a life here.  I can’t say that I blame them!!

  A band played later that afternoon.  I use the term “band” here very loosely as it consisted of two guys with guitars, playing over a recorded song track.  They were ok, but the lead singer didn’t even know all the words to most of the songs he was singing.  These weren’t obscure songs either, mostly 80’s rock songs.  I can’t understand how if you are billing yourself as singers, and you have pretty much all the music done for you, can you not take a few hours and learn the words?  Everyone seemed to enjoy it though.  About five o’clock, someone got a grill going.  Every Sunday, one of the two bars on the island sponsors a potluck.  They provide the meat, and you bring a side dish.  I went up to the guy who was doing the grilling just to confirm this, as there was some great looking food coming off the grill, and he said yes, meat was free, just bring a side dish.  Well, I didn’t have a side dish, and I noticed about 40 people helping themselves to food off the grill, and only about 6 side dishes.  I’m no math major, but I can figure out 40 people and 6 side dishes means not everyone brought a dish to pass.  And, I never saw a covered dish come from any of the people who had recently shown up in the overcrowded dingys.   I figured we were good to go, and handed the kids a plate.  Dan, my rule man, was at first reluctant as he was going with the side dish rule, but gave in after seeing the ribs and some kind of roast, on the grill.  Well of course, this didn’t sit well with the aging sailor manning the grill (who only took the grilling job for the promise of free drinks) and his less than enthusiastic wife, who spent the next few minutes looking at me and grumbling.   Did I care?  Not a bit!  I am my father’s daughter:  if there’s free food, I’m there!!  So as the sun slowly set, we leisurely made our way back to Alegria, contented but tired after a full beach day, and a good Boston Butt roast.