Our group stayed at the Wyndham Margaritaville Vacation Club on the east end of St Thomas, near Red Hook. There isn’t much around where we stayed, so the four of us headed into Charlotte Amalie (the capital) to check things out and do a bit of shopping.
Before I get too detailed about touring St Thomas, I do want to address some comments we have gotten on YouTube and social media. Some people have asked us “what does a trip to St. Thomas have to do with boating?” Great question! Our channel and blog were created so that Scott and I could document our journey on how we learned to boat, buy a boat and eventually liveaboard a boat in the Caribbean.
With the pandemic and high demand for boats, it is near impossible to find a liveaboard right now. We have to be patient and wait for the market to settle down. In the meantime, we’re doing everything we can to spend our time on the water. For this trip, remember it was supposed to be a bareboat charter that got transformed to land due to the pandemic. Hopefully that answers everyone’s questions.
Once you arrive in Charlotte Amalie, you’ll notice that parking is very limited. We finally found a parking lot with a 2 hour limit, which was free. In hind site, I wish we would have researched Charlotte Amalie a bit more, as we completely missed out on a tour of Fort Christian!
Jewelry stores galore
Walking down Dronningens Gade we came upon jewelry store after jewelry store. It was Saturday around 10:30am and some stores were not open yet or at all. Everyone was practicing safe covid protocols and they were very friendly. One jewelry shop owner, also owned the Belgium Chocolate store!
The morning we headed out, I realized I could not find my watch anywhere. Now I was on the hunt for a new one, but really did not want to spend money on one. (Luckily, I found it a few days later).
Surprisingly, there were chickens running around loose everywhere in the USVI.
Heading up to the Mountain Top – Literally
When we were done shopping, we headed up to the world famous lookout spot The Mountain Top. This is not a road to take lightly! Google navigated us, while Ben stayed “Left” and got us to the top safely!
This infamous souvenir store is HUGE and also sells the world famous banana daquiri! You can read the history here. This has to be one of the largest gift shops we have ever visited. Be sure to watch the YouTube episode for the full tour!
Scott and I shared a banana daiquiri and headed out to the lookout patio and the views were absolutely stunning of Magens Bay Beach.
It was wild to see Jost Van Dyke and Tortola and be so close (yet far away). At least now, we have some perspective on the distance for our charter next February.
I was surprised to see so many fruit trees growing everywhere too. At the top of the mountain there was a mango tree right in front of our car.
Relaxing on St. Thomas
We had only been on St. Thomas less than a day, yet we had already done so much. After traveling 16 hours to get there, I needed some time to relax and soak up some sun. Our resort had two pools, one of which had great views of Water Bay.
The four of us wrapped up the day on St Thomas with a delicious meal at XO Bistro in Red Hook. I highly recommend this restaurant, but be sure to make reservations.
The next day, we head to Cokie Beach for a fun day. Tune in next week for a tour of the beach! As always, thank you for following our journey. You can follow us on social media @BoatingJourney #boatingjourney and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for future episodes. (video link below)
Cheers, Scott and Ally
