Yes, we are still here!  You would think we’d have cabin fever by now, but we are enjoying it.  We caught up with Anne and Chris, off the sailboat Blue Runner.  Last time we saw them was at Ocean World in Dominican Republic.  They are working for Blue Water divers for awhile before they go cruising again. We all had dinner at Fat Turtles.  It was nice to see them again, and hopefully we can get together again before we leave here.  Also, on Superbowl Sunday, we were watching the game at Fat Turtles, (they had a huge blow up screen on the lawn) and we ran into Kristen and Hans from the sailboat Whisper.  We knew of them from their friends Jacumba, and heard them on the crossing from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico.  It was nice to finally meet them.  They stopped by our boat later and we gave them our other generator.  It wasn’t working for us, but we hope Hans could get it running. 

Other than that, we have just been hanging out, waiting for good weather.  It’s not bad weather in the sense of a lot of rain, just a lot of wind, and outside the harbor, high waves.  Yesterday we went to the Frenchtown Deli, in Frenchtown for great deli sandwiches.  Every night, we head into shore so the kids can play football.  Sounds kind of tame, but we are enjoying ourselves. 

One thing we find very interesting is the earthquake activity around here.  If you go to www.weatherunderground.com and put in Charlotte Amalie, it lists earthquake activity.  Everyday since we started watching it, there has been an earthquake in the BVI or Puerto Rico.  They aren’t that strong, ususally 3 to 4 in magnitude, (although about a week ago there was one near Ponce, Puerto Rico at a magnitude of 5), but I find that very interesting.  Living in the city, you tend to forget the earth is truly alive.  You see the trees, the grass, the flowers, and you know there are living things growing from the earth, but most people don’t think about the earth itself, down deep, moving and alive.  I think it’s fascinating, but maybe that’s just me!!

Tomorrow we hope to be in St John’s if we can get good weather.  We’ll have more pictures then.

On Friday we did the walking tour of Charlotte Amalie.  We walked forever, and did a bit of shopping.  The highlight was the “99 Steps” leading to Blackbeard’s Castle.  Here we had some great views of the island as well as Alegria anchored peacefully in the harbor.    It also included a tour of the smallest K mart I have ever been in.    Sunday we will watch the Superbowl at Fat Turtles in Yacht Harbor Grnade, then probably one more day here to get some supplies.  The wind has really been strong, but our anchor is secure!!!  The weather is forecasting for high seas still, but we will be staying close to the island, so they won’t bother us. 

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!