though, was Jack Scanlon, the middle-aged manager of a cement plant. That was because he was a day sailor, the only person there who had any but a passing interest in sailing. He owned a twenty-four-foot sloop that he kept at the marina adjacent to the West India dock. When I told him I was planning to learn to sail, hoped to buy a boat of my own one day, he invited me to join him on a day cruise after the holidays.
St. Thomas is a small island, just thirty square miles. Annalise had already seen some of it, but we explored it all together, one end to the other, in a handful of day and night excursions.
Some of its attractions appealed to both of us. The views from atop Crown Mountain and the Drake's Seat overlook, of the sixty-odd reefs, islets and islands that ring St. Thomas, and on clear days, of the British Virgins and some of the Puerto Rican archipelago. Coral World, an underwater observation tower where you could see all sorts of exotic marine life and coral formations. Blackbeard's Castle, atop Government Hill—a sprawling, three-hundred-year-old, cannon-guarded fortress that had been turned into a luxury inn and restaurant. Annalise liked it for the cuisine, which was among the best on the island. I liked it for its architecture and its history. Local legend had it that Edward Teach, the pirate known as Blackbeard, used the five-story masonry tower as a lookout post for the merchant ships carrying rum, cotton, and spices he later ambushed. I felt a certain kinship with the old buccaneer, and his supposed use of St. Thomas as a safe haven amused me.
But for the most part, Annalise's and my tastes differed. She preferred Market Square, the remodeled Danish warehouses along Dronningens Gade that dispensed all the duty-free goods, the palm-fringed beaches at Magens Bay, Coki Bay, Secret Harbor, and Sapphire Bay, and the raucous nightlife. I preferred the marina next to the West India dock, with its slips for two hundred luxury yachts, and the working waterfronts at Red Hook and Frenchtown and Sub Base harbor where you could hire charter boats or catch ferries or buy fresh fish and shellfish or watch the pelicans and flamingoes on their fishing rounds. The narrow, winding, old-world streets of Frenchtown. The bluff above Nazareth Bay, where you had the best view of St. John three miles across Pillsbury Sound. The ancient French cemetery on Harwood Highway with its decaying walls and rusted iron gates, its gnarled old trees and peeling whitewashed tombs.
And the sunsets.
Christ, the sunsets.
They impressed me more than anything else. Annalise was alleady starting to take them for granted by the time I got there, but I never have. They still stir me, even after twenty-seven years. Bright gold, dark gold, burnished copper, old rose, fiery orange, lavender and pink and saffron and deep purple . . . all the colors and some gradations and combinations you can't imagine until you see them. Plus thousands of intricate cloud shapes and formations to reflect the colors and the dying light. Most travelers will tell you that Caribbean sunsets are the most spectacular in the world; I don't see how anybody can dispute it. Doesn't matter where you watch one—backyard terrace, restaurant patio, mountaintop, deck of a boat at sea, even through an open-air window in a back-island cafe like Jocko's. Each is unique, and nearly all of them are magnificent.
Our different tastes weren't a problem in those early days. We'd come down here to enjoy ourselves, do whatever made us happy. It wasn't necessary to agree on all our pleasures, to share them in lockstep. There was plenty for us to do as a couple. So why shouldn't we each have time to ourselves, some private space of our own?
Annalise was thrilled and a little overwhelmed by her present on Christmas morning. She cried when I slipped the diamond wedding band on her finger, the first of the two times I ever saw her shed a tear.
I seemed to have
St. Thomas is a small island, just thirty square miles. Annalise had already seen some of it, but we explored it all together, one end to the other, in a handful of day and night excursions.
Some of its attractions appealed to both of us. The views from atop Crown Mountain and the Drake's Seat overlook, of the sixty-odd reefs, islets and islands that ring St. Thomas, and on clear days, of the British Virgins and some of the Puerto Rican archipelago. Coral World, an underwater observation tower where you could see all sorts of exotic marine life and coral formations. Blackbeard's Castle, atop Government Hill—a sprawling, three-hundred-year-old, cannon-guarded fortress that had been turned into a luxury inn and restaurant. Annalise liked it for the cuisine, which was among the best on the island. I liked it for its architecture and its history. Local legend had it that Edward Teach, the pirate known as Blackbeard, used the five-story masonry tower as a lookout post for the merchant ships carrying rum, cotton, and spices he later ambushed. I felt a certain kinship with the old buccaneer, and his supposed use of St. Thomas as a safe haven amused me.
But for the most part, Annalise's and my tastes differed. She preferred Market Square, the remodeled Danish warehouses along Dronningens Gade that dispensed all the duty-free goods, the palm-fringed beaches at Magens Bay, Coki Bay, Secret Harbor, and Sapphire Bay, and the raucous nightlife. I preferred the marina next to the West India dock, with its slips for two hundred luxury yachts, and the working waterfronts at Red Hook and Frenchtown and Sub Base harbor where you could hire charter boats or catch ferries or buy fresh fish and shellfish or watch the pelicans and flamingoes on their fishing rounds. The narrow, winding, old-world streets of Frenchtown. The bluff above Nazareth Bay, where you had the best view of St. John three miles across Pillsbury Sound. The ancient French cemetery on Harwood Highway with its decaying walls and rusted iron gates, its gnarled old trees and peeling whitewashed tombs.
And the sunsets.
Christ, the sunsets.
They impressed me more than anything else. Annalise was alleady starting to take them for granted by the time I got there, but I never have. They still stir me, even after twenty-seven years. Bright gold, dark gold, burnished copper, old rose, fiery orange, lavender and pink and saffron and deep purple . . . all the colors and some gradations and combinations you can't imagine until you see them. Plus thousands of intricate cloud shapes and formations to reflect the colors and the dying light. Most travelers will tell you that Caribbean sunsets are the most spectacular in the world; I don't see how anybody can dispute it. Doesn't matter where you watch one—backyard terrace, restaurant patio, mountaintop, deck of a boat at sea, even through an open-air window in a back-island cafe like Jocko's. Each is unique, and nearly all of them are magnificent.
Our different tastes weren't a problem in those early days. We'd come down here to enjoy ourselves, do whatever made us happy. It wasn't necessary to agree on all our pleasures, to share them in lockstep. There was plenty for us to do as a couple. So why shouldn't we each have time to ourselves, some private space of our own?
Annalise was thrilled and a little overwhelmed by her present on Christmas morning. She cried when I slipped the diamond wedding band on her finger, the first of the two times I ever saw her shed a tear.
I seemed to have
Similar Books
