A weekend in the sun

We spent last weekend at The Palmilla House on St. Thomas. It was a really good time, even if St. Thomas is a fairly dirty place, which may be what makes it real. It seems to me that the island is completely designed around ushering cruise ship passengers with blinkers on through guided tours or keeping people in resorts that are attached to particular beaches. There are indeed some gorgeous spots on St. Thomas, but do not venture beyond those because you will run into insane traffic, overflowing dumpsters, and dead cats killed by marauding iguanas.

And so it was that we spent two of the three full days that we were there on neighboring St. John. Don't get me wrong, St. Thomas is nice, and we had some good times at Magen's Bay, which was extremely close to our house, and Sapphire Beach, where we first went snorkeling, but in the end I think that St. John just has more to offer.

Snorkeling was by far my favorite activity; I'm not much of a beach-sitter. Before the trip, I had bought a waterproof case for my little digital camera, with which I had a great time. I think the picture to the left makes for a great desktop picture (click on it to download the full-size version), but the picture gallery below has loads more. If that is not enough for you and you would like to access the full-size versions of all pictures and videos that you see linked here, you can download everything (480 MB!) here.

St. Thomas

I also managed to take some fun little underwater videos, of which I'll post two here. The stingray was certainly the most exciting underwater creature I encountered, and there is another video of him (her? it.) here, but the schools of fish were also fun; I especially like the little blue guys below, but here and here are some more.





There were, of course, some interesting species above water, too. The most interesting of these was certainly the one shown in the video below. He would spontaneously do pull-ups (or push-ups or sit-ups), then complain about the adverse external conditions that prevented him from doing more. In this, he reminded me of the male crested anole, also known locally as the tree lizard. Whether he did this to warn off competing males, attract females, or protect his drinking grounds we may never know for sure.



Let me then give the last words to Grayson (who else?), who summed up our trip somewhat more eloquently than his sister, who was not given the proper instructions, to be fair:



Well said.

One more thing. . .

The Economist reported Wednesday on a potential merger that would have far-reaching implications. With Ash Wednesday behind us and Lent in full swing, this may not be the best time to seal the deal, but it's never to early to start thinking about the future.