Pelican hard at work

Welcome to Red Hook, St Thomas. Though our original intent was to anchor/slip in Long Bay Charlotte Amalie, we wound up in Red Hook instead. Quite fortuitous having visited both places now. Red Hook is a village compared to the city of Charlotte Amalie, but it’s much more manageable and has most everything we need.

We had always planned on taking a slip for at least one night and then moving to an anchorage. The slips at American Yacht Harbor are only $75 per night, and include showers, trash disposal, water, and fuel. If it were only Trip and myself we’d anchor out, but sharing the dinghy among four people would get to be a logistical nightmare fast, so we’ve taken the luxury route and stayed at the slip. It’s proven to be quite nice as any of us can come and go as we please.

American Yacht Harbor

There’s a grocery store just across the street that has 90% of everything I could possibly need for provisioning that’s not much more expensive than what I’d find back home. Laundry service does pickup and delivery right to your boat (only $65 for 5 huge bags of laundry – I am not complaining). The chandlery is well stocked. There’s a couple of boutiques, not that I’m shopping much these days. There’s a coffee bar one flight up from the marina office where we sip iced coffees and watch the sun come up over St John in the distance. Yet another flight up is the Island Time Pub where we’ve had our best meals on the island – pizza to order and fresh salads.

Secret Harbor

Secret Harbor beach is just a 5 minute cab ride or 20 minute walk. Though the resorts were pummeled pretty badly by the storm and won’t reopen till March 2019, the restaurants and beach bars are open again, so the beach is a nice place to while away a hot sticky afternoon.  Trip & I finally went swimming & snorkeling.  Heavenly!

Just beyond Secret Harbor is Cowpet Bay. Same situation with the resorts being closed but the restaurants open, so we did a traditional Thanksgiving lunch in a lovely restaurant sitting right on the beach.

Thanksgiving in Cowpet Bay

The only problem was that we couldn’t get cellular service to the other side of the island to get a cab back, so it looked like we were going to have to walk (hot and sticky until the sun goes down). Lucky for us a passing truck offered a ride, so Trip hopped in the cab and Lawrence and I got an exhilarating downhill run in the bed of the truck back to town.

We took safaris (jitneys) to Charlotte Amalie one day and I think we all found that to be enough. The cruise ships have returned and the town isn’t much more than a duty free shopping trip. The streets are very pretty, however, and you can get a sense of the history. It’s simply a shame that it’s all stuff I can buy at home – nothing local that’s tempting to pick up as a souvenir of our time on the island.

I think we’ve tried every bar in this area at this point, so it’s a good thing we’re getting close to shipping our crew out and taking off ourselves this weekend.