Escape to St. Thomas…..from the never ending Northeastern downpours of the Summer of 2008
By Gabi. Filed in St. Thomas |
After our adventurous vacation to France this summer, having maneuvered a 50 foot boat through 64 locks on the Canal du Midi from Beziers to Castelnaudary, having explored the quaint villages of Maher’s A Year in Provence, and having partaken in France’s Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, it was time to relax.
Not so fast! First 3 weeks of tackling endless “around the house projects” were to be done, before we were going to be able to really relax for a week , camping on an island in the Lake George Narrows. Oh yes, boating, reading, and soaking up the sunshine.
During our “house projects” weeks we began to notice, daily showers and thunderstorms passing through our region. Four days before our anticipated “days of relaxation”, we decided to consult the weather God about the 10 day forecast. The internet Weather Channel had a very repetitive forecast, without foreseeable change for the next 10 days…..afternoon showers and thunderstorms, from 30-80% chance.
Camping on Lake George is a great experience, especially sleeping on the boat, waking to a quiet morning swim on the lake, barbecuing, and sitting in front of an evening campfire, roasting the marshmallows for “adult” s’mores. For those of you deprived of the Girl and Boy Scout experience…s’mores are a treat of campfire roasted marshmallows squished between two graham crackers, lined with milk chocolate pieces. The “adult” version, exchange milk chocolate for a heavenly dark chocolate of choice…voila…an adult experience!
But camping in the rain, everything drenched, anxious about a “blitz” striking a tree, falling and crushing the boat, is not the relaxation we were so long anticipating.
Time to revise the relaxation plan. With access on the internet to hundreds of alternative destinations, we were looking for a place to unwind, to charge up the batteries, a place, that doesn’t have to be explored, a place we can just exist…..maybe swim, snorkel, and just be one with the surroundings. We had some Air $$$$$’s left from an untaken flight,
and we decided the fish in St. Thomas, where we had been certified as divers many years ago, were calling us again. We wanted to see, if the reefs were getting healthier or sicker,
than we remembered them from our last trip there in 2002. We wanted to do the St. Thomas of summer, not the getaway destination of the NYC crowd of winter. We’ve been to the Caribbean in summer before and always liked the tranquility of the islands at this time of the year. Yeah, I know it can be hurricane season, but the only disturbance on the horizon was a small tropical depression.
We knew we wanted to take St. Thomas at our own pace, as if we were living there, even if it was only for a week. So a condo was booked, where we could eat, swim, snorkel, sleep, read, daydream, whenever we wanted, without having to leave, if we chose not to.
Even though we could have returned to one of our many previous abodes, we decided to venture to a new location, which was advertising summer rates. We had not heard of the place but decided to be adventurous.
Point Pleasant Villas (www.PointPleasantVillas.com) was booked for our sojourn.