It has been two years since Scott and I have been to the Caribbean and we are so excited about our upcoming vacation. We are headed to the US Virgin Islands in a week and this trip has had many revisions thanks to covid-19. Originally we were flying into St. Thomas to get to the British Virgin Islands LAST April 2020. Sadly, our charter was the first to be cancelled thanks to the pandemic. So we moved the trip to February 2021, in hopes we would be able to get there. Then in December, we knew February was not looking good, so we moved it again to April 2021.
Unfortunately, the quarantine rules were too restrictive for a 7 day vacation, so we moved the trip once AGAIN to February 2022 and kept our flight to St. Thomas. None of us have ever been to the US Virgin Islands, so this will be a new trip for us!
Island Hopping in the Caribbean
Scott and I are traveling with our friends Ben and Maria, who we have the charter booked with. They will arrive a few days before us and leave before us. We’ll be visiting St Thomas first, staying on the Redhook (east) end of the island. After a couple of days, we’re headed to St. Croix and then we’ll finish our trip on St. John. We’re flying to St. Croix on a puddle jumper and we’re taking the ferry to get to St. John.
Snorkeling & Relaxing by the Pool
I’ve booked a few sailing & snorkeling trips for us during our stay. We’re also planning on doing some more off the beaten path explorations of the three islands, so be sure to tune in to those episodes and blogs. Since we haven’t been on a Caribbean vacation (or any vacation for that matter) in two years, we do plan on spending a few days relaxing by the pool. My favorite thing to do while sitting by the pool, is reading books about getting off the grid. We know it will happen some day! I have three new books that I’m excited to read during our trip.
Escape from the Ordinary
Written by Julie Bradley, Escape from the Ordinary is about a couple that retires early, sells everything and sail around the world. Looking at their route, they visited Europe, Africa, Caribbean, Eastern US, French Polynesia, New Zealand, Australia, Asia and the Maldives (just to name a few! The preface also mentions their battle with raging storms (which is my biggest fear), so I’m excited to dig into this book.
French Silk on Water
Written by Patrick Hill, French Silk on Water is a story about a couple from British Columbia, who decided one day that “Life is Short – Do it Soon – Do it Now”. So they rented their home, bought a sailboat in the Great Lakes and made their way to the Bahamas. Boating down the Great Loop is a bucket list of mine. I’ve already started this book and one thing that jumped out at me, was they joined a yacht club, so they could use sister yacht club moorings. For the most part, that plan has worked, with a few exceptions. This is an easy ready and it has been fun to read about this journey on the Great Loop.
Off the Grid
Written by Captain Mark J. Reinhardt, Off the Grid is a story about how he quit the rat race and now lives for free aboard a sailboat. I wonder what will be our trigger to finally do the same? People often ask us why we don’t and the answer is, we need to be debt free before we can do that. Baby steps. The summary mentions that he was tired of the endless work hours and never-ending debt, so he decided to live rent free off the coast of Key West. I’ll be curious to find out what he did about his debt, because it never goes away. Maybe he’ll have some tips for us?
The Countdown is On!
With only twelve days until we leave, you can bet we are counting not only the days, but the hours! Scott and I have always wanted to live in the US Virgin Islands, so we are excited to see if it is what we imagined. Be sure to follow our journey on social media (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) @BoatingJourney for an inside peek to our trip.
As always, thank you for following our journey! Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and watch for our upcoming episodes touring the USVI. Until next time!
Cheers,
Scott and Ally
