

I realize that it's Saturday. Saturday, July 3rd. The Saturday of a three day weekend. I'm not sure why you're reading this, but bless you.

I am bound and determined to finish telling you, Biscottis, about the sailing trip, before I forget it all.

Now that I've gotten the whole 'I hate boats the way Maida loves whateverthefuck is hiding under my strawberries that's requiring her to DIG THEM ALL UP' thing out of the way, let me continue with the actual stories.

Crockett and I got in Tuesday afternoon and didn't meet up with Cap'n Dave and Rachel and Baby Cap'n until Wednesday night. In the spirit of me-being-the-one-who-plans-ahead, I made reservations at this little place called Galleon House in Charlotte Amalie.

I picked it less because I found it to be the most charming or the best deal and more because it was the only place I was able to reserve using a major travel website. Charlotte Amelie is America, but not AMERICA America (you know what I mean, don't lie) and so picking a place that wasn't recognized by the Internets seemed unnecessarily risky.

It turned out to be freaking adorable. When we first got to our room, I strongly associated it with a patio that they'd built walls around and put a bed in. Outdoor tiling on the floor, palmyfrondythings hanging into our balcony - basically the kind of tropical fabulousness you want your first night in town. Had it been several nights, I probably would have enjoyed a little more poshness, but there was a pool, breakfast, and a showoff lizard.

Also, gunshots. No, really. Somewhere below the hotel.

Charlotte Amalie is not just a hotbed of lizard gang activity. (In retrospect, I can't believe I didn't figure it out earlier. Look at how shifty that guy looks! I'm pretty sure that blue is actually his gang color.) Charlotte Amalie is a major port for cruise ships, and most of the activity during the day is focused around the up to 8 ships that come into town with up to 6000 people each. That's an entire city that descends at 9 am and leaves at 5 pm.

As much as Crockett and I would have loved to hang around and make cruisey friends, we decided to catch our ferry to Road Town. Which, since it's like TWENTY MINUTES AWAY, is clearly a different country, requiring passports and declarations and body cavity searches and very uncomfortable interrogations that involved shining lights in our faces and asking us why we'd ever consider going sailing since anyone looking at me could see that I would clearly be seasick*.

After that, we needed painkillers.

Of course, I had to break through a haha sexism is so FUNNY barrier before I could get mine.

After this, I pretty much had to take a nap.

#4's are strong.

Not cause I'm a lady. They just are.

*The only part of this that happened was the passport/declaration part. The British Virgin Islands people were very nice.

P.S. You may notice that all the posts that I wrote now say they're written by biscuit rather than emmanation. People call me biscuit, so I decided to make the change. Well, some people. Ok, two people, but I'm embracing it. Biscuit it is.

Can we speak about swimsuits for a moment?

When Crockett is out of town