A Real Job, A hurricane, and A New Home

Divi St. Croix was one of many resorts built by a man and his friends from Sryacuse, NY. They were a hotel and time share resort chain. They had time share exchanges within their own company and throughout the world via II or RCI. This was my first knowledge of time shares and I thought they were a marvelous idea and I couldn't wait to get my own someday. Well, I'm still waiting but I will have one some day. Resales can easily be bought now at great bargains. I'm waiting until I have the time and the money to commit to using it each year.

Karen Cryderman was the Divi manager over all of the OPC managers. She had the perfect job. She lived in St. Maarten and got to travel to all of the Divi resorts on a regular basis. They were located in Barbados, Aruba, St. Maarten, St. Croix, Cayman Brac, Bonaire, and Antigua. She hired me as the St. Croix OPC manager and I was given my own office and turned loose to build my team. She was to come back from time to time and check on my progress.


I got to work right away and hired a few OPCs in various locations. One was at a car rental store, another was at a hotel and I had a booth at the airport where we handed out a free sample drink of rum punch to the new arrivals. Although I had never actually done the job myself, I knew what it took to get the job done and could explain it to them well enough that they seemed to do well and the tours were coming in.



I was enjoying my new job and doing my best to maintain a professionalism in everything I did. I dressed nicely and sent letters to businesses asking for an opportunity to meet with them and place an OPC on their property. I sent one to my former employer at Mile Mark and she seemed surprised and impressed that I could go from a bikini clad beach bum to a marketing manager just like that. Even though I had mispelled her name, I was granted permission to place some literature on their hotel property but they did not want an OPC. I understood, not everyone did and they had good reasons.



My job got me out and about the island. I saw and talked with many people. I enjoyed the freedom I had as my own boss and making use of my time as I needed to on the job. I was thrilled to have a salary. I had moved into an apartment in town on the top of the hill for a while with a roommate named Ted. We didn't see each other much at all and he seemed very shy, never having much to talk about. I had only lived there for about a month when my sister Mindy told me she wanted to come down and live with me so I began looking for another apartment that we could share and each have our own rooms.

This turned out to be a three bedroom condo in an area called Welcome. It was a tri-level and the owner was a man from Maine named Doug who travelled quite a bit and was really never there much at all. He had the back of the unit for himself and Mindy and I would share a bathroom upstairs where we each had our own rooms. These rooms were empty which meant I had to find some beds. I asked around at the Divi hotel where I worked and was lucky to find that they were replacing some and I could get them for free and they were in good condition. They turned out to be the only furniture we got for our rooms.

The only time I recall Doug being in St. Croix he had brought a friend who was a commercial diver and told me stories about how he dove for remains of the Challenger explosion and worked on the Titanic expedition and others. I thought all that was fascinating. He gave me a wet suit which I still have and my daughter has worn but outgrown already. He said it was given to him and he gets lots of free gear, all the time. I was fascinated about his career and excited to have a wetsuit to keep me warmer when I went diving. It was nice. Here is a picture of me in it. I liked the way it fit tight but it was really almost too tight.

I had learned to dive for free while I worked for Mile Mark. They offered the course to all of their employees. I really enjoyed it. My instructors name was Bonny, who was great, and I got an employee price on all of my gear. The only things I bought were a mask, snorkel, and fins because I could rent the rest any time I went diving. I ended up getting all the other gear eventually and I still had my original mask and snorkel up until a few years ago when my daughter, Shannon, and I went to St. Croix for a visit and I left it on the back of the car when we rushed off, after snorkeling, to catch a boat. I was so dissapointed. I still miss it.

At work I had begun a project to have a large tropical bird painting made for the back wall of our inhouse OPC desk in the lobby of the hotel which, I thought, needed some color. I was busy setting up my office and had been preparing to begin training sessions with my staff. They were few but I was trying to add a couple of news one each week.

My sister, Mindy, came down and she got a job right away working with Mile Mark Charters in their store on the waterfront. She enjoyed working there and was having fun meeting people and soon began dating one of the men who worked with her named Gary. He was from New York City, very nice, and good looking too. He was also a gentleman.

September 15th, two days before Hugo, I was at my office and a couple came in with resumes asking about working OPC. Their resumes were incredible, they had both held many jobs and been to college. It was a strange experience for me to consider hiring them for they were so much more qualified than I for the job I, myself had. I told them they were more than qualified but they needed to check back with me in a week or so after this hurricane had passed because I had no idea what state the island or the resort would be in. The Divi resort didn't reopen for ten years after Hurricane Hugo.

We all knew the hurricane was coming and people everywhere were preparing. I remember seeing it on The Weather Channel at work and knowing that it was coming our way. I had the feeling that it was going to be a major event and things would not be the same afterward but I could never have predicted just how it would turn out. There was a charged energy about everyone. The grocery stores were busy and everyone who could leave did. The tourist, most of them who had planned to stay, got on the plains and got out. A few were still there and I'm sure they regretted it afterward.

My car had gone in the shop to get the radiator repaired, thanks to my little sister who had had a little accident. I had rented a car to use while mine was being fixed and I was glad I had it now because I had a lot of running around to do to prepare for the storm. I drove out to the airport to collect the rum punch that I kept there for my OPC to hand to the new arrivals. I knew, somehow, that it would not be there after the storm. The airport check-in and arrival area was open air/outdoor and very typical Caribbean.

I also went by the home of a retired couple who I had just met and talked to about working OPC. They lived in a mobile home park not far from the airport. I liked them and they liked me. I was concerned about them staying home during this storm. They were not worried. They believed God would take care of them and, it turned out, He certainly did. I revisted them in the week afterward and their home was the only one still in it's place and almost undamaged. They had debri all around them and the twisted and coiled metal of another's home piled right up to their wall but they were perfectly untouched and rejoicing.

I bought some groceries, thinking we would only need to have enough for a few days, until the regular flights returned and things were back to normal. I had left my office neat and ready for my return but put things up a little higher, just in case. There were other things I did that I don't recall but I remember being so tired from all the preparations that I was able to sleep through most of the storm which passed during the night of September 17, 1989.

Mindy and Gary were at the condo with me. Our landlord was not on the island. The condo had louvered windows that we could not close tight. I wondered about that, fearing that we would get too wet when the winds picked up. I was thankful for them after the storm when I realized that they had kept the pressure from imploding our unit by allowing some air in and out. Several others in our complex were not so fortunate and lost everything. It was through these louvred windows that we got our first glimps of the storms destruction the morning after when we awoke. The first words we muttered were, "OH MY GOD!"

The storm had started to blow in all day on the 16th and got worse as the day went on. We were as ready as we thought we needed to be by dark and settled in as the winds were blowing sheets of heavy rain at us. We had some water and lots of rum punch, flashlights, batteries, a radio, Doritos, corned beef, and a few other canned foods. I parked my rental car out in an open grassy area to protect it from falling branches, etc. The next morning, it was still there but had been turned sideways by the wind. Fortunately, there were no damages to it at all. I kept it for too long however, because the dealer I had rented it from was not there after the storm and the remainder of their cars had been stipped and looted in the days following Hugo. I thought I had done them a favor and I also had no way of contacting them. She still charged me full price for the two weeks I had it!

The island world as we knew it had changed over night. Things would be different.

A boat was sent over from St. Thomas three days after the storm. I heard about it on the radio and went down to take a note for someone to call my dad collect. They did and he was very relieved. I had talked to him during the storm on Sunday night but he didn’t know if we were ok until Thursday.

We were ok but the island was totally wrecked and most of the businesses were looted. Mindy and I got out the day after to see if we could find more food and found our local market roof torn off, windows all busted, the doors wide open and 30 or so people in there taking everything they could carry. It was strange. We went in anyway and looked around for things we thought we could eat. We saw the owners, an Asian couple, standing by the disheveled check out and offered to pay for our food but they said to just take it. I felt so sad for them and hoped they had good insurance.

About a week after the storm, the U.S. Marshalls came down and took over and many workers from the states came and started rebuilding the telephone and electric systems. Construction workers were everywhere. The only businesses doing well were the bars and restaurants. We didn’t have much to do or any place to go.

My boss Karen came by one day. I was in my bathrobe and offered her some rum punch. She started crying. She had been driving around the island looking for people she knew and most all of their homes were destroyed. She was surprised to find us ok. She told me to get out of there and come to St. Maarten with her on the Sea Dancer, which was, at that time, part of the Divi Resorts . She had come over with its crew to assist the hotel. I declined but if I had I would have met Steve that day. I just couldn’t leave everything then. My money was in the bank and it was not opened yet. My car was still in the shop.

I got Mindy on one of the first planes out so she didn’t have to stay and deal with the mess. I thought I was protecting her in some way. I wanted to stay and try to keep my job somewhere within the Divi system. I still owned a car and it was almost three weeks before I could get my money out of the bank.

I had to stand in line for a couple of hours to call Karen and ask her if she could get me a job anyplace else. She checked with her boss and they arranged for me to go to Barbados for a couple of weeks. There I stayed and met the people there who did what I did on St. Croix. I was bored and lonely but it was a nice place. I think people started to get suspicious that I was trying to steal a job though and they asked me to leave. Karen told me I could go to St. Maarten and stay at her apt and use her car.

My ticket took me through Antigua where I had a pilot friend that I had met in St. Croix. I got lucky and saw him at the airport. He invited me to stay a few days with him. I did and while I was there I checked on getting a job at the new Divi resort that was being built but they were not hiring yet. I went water skiing in the cove and busted my knee on the ski. It has never been the same since. I went on to St. Maarten where I stayed in Karen’s apt and drove her little, European car to the beach everyday. I just went to the beach for about three weeks. I really didn’t know what to do with myself. I was as tan as I could be. I had a deep dark red/brown topless tan. I wish I had a photo of me then. When Karen saw me her jaw dropped and she could not believe my color. I didn't know I could get so brown.

The day after Karen returned, she took me over to the Sea Dancer to meet the crew and see what they were doing that Saturday. As it turned out they had a free day because their guests got snowed in someplace. I met Steve that day and we all went to the beach. We spent the whole day and evening together. It was a lot of fun and very memorable.

Now that I had met someone I found a job at a bar but it only lasted a day because I got a job on the Sea Dancer with Steve. I would take the place of a girl who wanted to get a break for a few months. It was temporary but just where I wanted to be.

The Mountains or The Beach?

I was a rare and strange thing on the island of St. Croix. Not becasuse I was a single, young female but that I had come alone and from, of all unheard of places, Arkansas! Even more amazing and almost unbelievable, to so many of the “Yankee tourists” I met there, was the way I talked. The story about my one way ticket told in Arkie vernacular is especially entertaining, hillarious.

Fortunately, I have the ability to camophlage my accent. I'm something of an accent chameleon so I was able to turn what I heard from others right back at them and they had no clue that I was really a twangy southern girl from, what's that place again?, ArKansas? Our converstations could be normal and I didn’t have to experience people laughing at me becaue I was so funny. I had a good attitude about it however, and laughed with them.

I learned quickly that many people come to St. Croix from New York, New Jersey, and the North East US because this is where the bulk of their touism marketing was targeted and, apparently where there were plenty of people with the kind of money it takes to vacation in the Caribbean. I had never met people from that part of the country. I didn’t know anything about them except that there were obviously a lot of them.

I knew only a few people, growing up in Little Rock, who traveled. Some of my friends had family ski vacations or went to Mexico but my family did not. I always wished for travel but never knew where I really wanted to go until I was on my own and realized I could go anywhere I desired. When I thought about it I knew that I wanted to get to someplace warm and live on a beach or spend a lot of time traveling the tropics. I also had dreams of living in the mountains, the big ones. I thought I would enjoy a rustic outdoor lifestyle on a ranch in Wyoming or enjoy working around the ski industry so I could learn to ski and ski as much as I wanted. I had never been to the mountains and only once to Jamaica (my first plane ride, at age 18).

When I had made up my mind that I was going to leave Little Rock, the direction I took was easily decided because winter was coming and I was getting cold. I hate the cold and dislike the leafless and dreary colors of winter. I don’t want to shiver and can’t stand it when my feet are cold and nose is running. I had to go South!

I knew that making this move and dramatically changing my life was a huge and necessary step for me. I had no way of knowing its impact until I had done it and been gone for a while and was able to reflect on the lessons it taught me. I am still reminded of how much I grew and what I took with me, through my life until now, from my adventures. No one can learn from others what they themselves have from the experience of unfamiliar people and places. This is personal and, I learned from this entire experience, essential to understanding ourelves and others better. I encourage my own children to travel as much as they can. I have made certain that they have had vacations each year, even if they are short and not far away. They are always permitted to take trips with friends and grandparents. I’m introducing them to the idea of being exchange students and seeing Europe. We take field trips with friends when we can. I have seen in them, and had their teachers comment, that they are richer and wiser for all of their travels so far.

The best part about travelling is the knowledge of new places. This knowledge not only includes what is happening now but in the past. Everyplace has a past and St. Croix had an amazing story to tell. I believe the island's past had a lot to do with the disposition of it's residents. They seemed to have a manner which was very unlike that of the Southern black people that I was familiar with in Arkansas. Although they had similar histories of slavery and oppression, the Cruzans ownership and domination was much more involved and had a much older record than the African decendants of the United States. Their isolation and history shaped who they are.

St. Croix was first visited by the Spaniards, including Columbus in 1493. They found the islands inhabited by the Arawak and Carib natives but by 1596 had declaired the islands uninhabited. They had deemed the natives hostile enemies, enslaved, and eliminated them. The Dutch and the English settled on the East end and West end, respectively in the early 1600's but battled each other over ownership. England won and held it until 1650 when the Spaniards again arrived to lay claim to their island. That same year, the French took it from them and ten years later, the French governor of St. Kitts bought the island for his own personal retreat but gifted it to the Knights of Malta. In 1665 the French West Indian company bought the island and gave it the first proper colonial management it had yet seen and it flouished with over 90 plantations in operation producing tobacco, sugar, indigo, and cotton.

Around 1695, however, management of the island failed and the island was virtually abandoned until 1733 when the French government sold it to the Danish West India and Guinea Co. The Danes invited all nationalities to settle on St. Croix and there were many however the English prevailed, as did their language. The island had two productive and successful centuries with sugar cane as it's primary and lucrative export. This ended however, when the European grown sugar beet made the import of Caribbean sugar unnecessary and the plantations, along with all of their slaves, were abandoned by their landowners around 1848. Life was so difficult for the freed slaves that they rioted and burned most of the plantations and the West end city of Fredricksted in 1878. In 1917 the Dutch sold the island to the US for $25 million. The islanders managed to continue growing sugar cane on St. Croix until 1966. Their economy shifted with the oil and alumina industries moving in and providing jobs. These and tourism are the basis for their economy today. The people are called Virgin Islanders or West Indians.

This photo shows an abandoned sugar plantation mill located high on the side of a hill on St. Croix, the wooden portions of the windmill long ago decayed or burned. These are still scattered around the island, relics of another time. Some have been built into modern attractions such as restaurants and hotels. Most are overgrown and in remote and rugged areas. It took a four wheel drive to get to this one.

The Beach Shack

Back on St. Croix, I went to visit Mile Mark Charters (Big Beard’s competition) to see if they had a job for me working on one of their Buck Island boats. They didn’t but said I could go run a beach shack for them. This sounded interesting. They drove me out to it and gave me the keys. It was a little way out of town on a small beach with a far off view of the Christiansted harbor. The beach shack was part of a condominium complex and was situated by a lovely pool.

I soon found that I had a special place of my own and the owners of Mile Mark noticed that I was making them money. In fact, I was filling up most of their boats from my location which no one else had ever done. I was selling the higher priced sailing charters which only took 6 passengers. I also booked the expensive fishing charters and put people on their Buck Island Snorkel bus. I called it “The little beach shack that could.” It was a relaxing and easy job. I sat by the pool in my bikini, sold sodas and candy bars, rented snorkel gear, and made good money by just signing people up for their boating trips while they were there. Most everyone who stayed at the condos came to my beach shack and everyone who came to St. Croix went to Buck Island.

The guests enjoyed talking to me and, hearing that I came from Arkansas, were always intrigued and surprised. I was also interested in where they came from and very quickly I was able to distinguish different accents and pick out where people were from. Once a girl from New Jersey looked at me with a snarly lip and asked me were I had come from. When I told her Arkansas she commented that that was like nowhere, like Nebraska, like who ever heard of that? I thought she was incredibly rude and ignorant. She was an exception, however.

Once at the beach shack the pool area filled up with men. They were obviously there on work assignments so I asked what they did. They were nice but reticent. One of them said if they told me what they do they would have to kill me. He didn't say much after that but eventually told me that they had enough fire power in those units to start a war or take over the island. I never knew for sure but I guessed they were either mercenaries or DEA or secret service or something to do with drug traffickers. They seemed to be highly trained, serious, and pensive. They left after two days and I never heard about a war. I wonder if they were looking for the two guys who kept a cigarette boat at the pier in Christiansted?

The cigarette boat was one of those fast, racing type with two large 700hp engines and only enough room for about 4 people. There were rumors that these two guys who ran it were drug runners. No one knew for sure. All we knew was that it wasn't their boat and they were just told to bring it there and wait. One Sunday they invited my roommate, Tina and I to go to Buck Island. That was the day all the locals would go. We hopped in and once we were clear of the harbor wake zone the boat took off and we were going about 75mph in no time. We sat straight back against the deep backed seat and I think I remember our cheeks rippling and our lips flapping a bit. I recall we blew past one of the local sailboats, named The Bandit (they had Yosemite Same painted on the transom), and we yelled at them to get out of the way. They looked like they were sitting still.

Most of the sailboats travelling to Buck Island were going upwind so were either tacking back and forth under sail or using their motor to get there and it took about an hour from Christiansted. We made it to Buck Island in about 5 minutes. When we got there someone said, "so what do we have to drink?" No one brought anything so we turned around and went back for the booze. Five minutes there, 10 minutes to shop, 5 minutes back and we still beat the Bandit to the Island. The captain had a sour attitude when he arrived. Humph

I met a lot of nice people while I worked at the beach shack. One family had come for the holidays and invited me to join them for turkey dinner. They had actually brought the turkey and many other food items with them in a cooler on the plane. They knew about the prices on St. Croix. Many people would bring me their groceries when they left rather than leaving them in their condo refrigerator. I ended up with a lot of condiments but often there was an assortment of good food, which I accepted, for it supplemented my income. Food was rather expensive on the island especially compared to Arkansas prices.

Once I started talking with a couple who had been sitting in the same seats on the beach for nearly a week but we had never spoken to one another. I began by telling them they were tan now and could go home, which I said to many of the guests. They had had a great week of doing nothing but sit in those lounge chairs and read books every day of the week. It turned out they were from Little Rock and knew my parents! I enjoyed visiting with them and telling them how rare it was to meet someone there who was from anywhere other than the North East US. They wrote me a nice letter some time later and reported to my parents that I had a nice place to work.

Next door to my beach shack I had two neighbor friends with whom I shared the beach and on slow days we spent hours talking and telling stories. They were brothers from New Jersey who ran a Jet Ski rental business from the beach. Their jet skis were not the wet bike or Seadoo that everyone sees now but the original type that you had to stand up on or stay on your knees. I tried it a time or two. It was not as easy as it looked but it was fun. We had many fun days there just hanging out on the beach. There was a restaurant called the Serendipity next door where we often got our lunch.

I adopted a couple of stray cats that hung out with me at the beach shack. They were there waiting for me every morning. The islanders did not care much for animals. This was true on most of the islands I lived and travelled. They had plenty of them but treated them as dirty and it was rare to ever see them given affectionate family status as we do in the mainland states. Most islands have problems with roaming livestock and the attitude toward animals there was sadly apathetic. St. Croix had serious issues with horses. There were many of them running loose and they were often hit by cars or injured somehow and simply neglected and the people who owned them would never come forward and claim them in these cases. They would only claim an animal if someone tried to steal it, abuse it, or use it without permission. This was true on other islands as well. It was not uncommon to see these poor animals fenced but covered with ticks and injuries, and/or starving either. I recall an activist group but I don’t know how effective they were. I thought about getting involved or getting my own horse since there seemed to be so many available ones but I never got around to it.

I had my bag stolen once by a bunch of local boys who had come to swim in the pool by my beach shack. I should have known better than to leave it unattended. I had decided to go for a swim after work so I left it under the counter of my beach shack after I had locked up the storage unit. They jumped over the counter and took it while I was in the water. They made off with my personal stuff and the day’s receipts. Fortunately, I got it back. The police were called and they knew who the kids were so went right to their homes. They had bought a basketball and a bunch of candy with some of the cash but the rest and travelers checks were returned. I learned a lesson that day.

I had to ask a stinky bum to move away from our beach one day. This guy wore the same green shirt and red pants the entire time I lived on the island and for who knows how long before I got there. He was well known and completely insane. He never wore shoes and was often seen standing in the middle of the road or just standing anywhere for long periods of time. I knew his name at one point because I had asked about him. I think someone said he had been from a decent family but lost his mind. I’m not sure he drank either. He was walking the beach this day but had decided to stop and stand right in front of our beach and upwind of my beach shack. I smelled him before I ever saw him and I had noticed that people were leaving the beach. He smelled so foul he was ruining the air for everyone at the pool too. I bravely approached him and asked him to move on. He spouted a bunch of mumbling nonsense but I told him that he smelled offensively and asked him to please leave and he did. Everyone thought I was so brave and were very thankful. I just did what needed to be done.

Another regular at the beach shack was an islander who would climb the coconut palms and cut fresh branches to make hats for the tourists. I always thought those were so clever and creative. I wanted to learn how myself but never did. They were really nice. He also made other things from the palm leaves as well as carved coconuts that he sold to the tourists. I should have had him make me some to mail back home to keep forever. I should have mailed a lot of things home for keepsakes but didn't. Most of all, I wish I had saved all the postcards. They are the best pictures that I could never have taken myself. I did learn to do that later.

Around this same time I worked briefly at a new restaurant in town and became friends with one of the chefs, David. I was living on Sam's little sailboat with no dingy at that time and David let me become his roommate in his apartment which was not far from my beach shack. I enjoyed my walk each morning down the hill but not long after this I was offered a car. I was making enough money to make payments. I had an island car (rusty but runs), a Honda Accord and it was great! I was mobile and went anywhere on the island I could anytime. More beaches! I could go to the Sundowner bar on the West end and see the sun set. I could go to the East end. And I did.

I also began smoking cigarettes again around this time. I was fed up with being disgusted by all the smokers around me so I decided to join them. It only took me one week to get hooked. I never thought I would smoke again after I had quit when I was 19. I hated it. I certainly never thought I would do it deliberately. It sure was easy and I enjoyed it, again. I got hooked.

There was a resort on the East end of the island that sold time share and they had people stationed at a few places in town who would talk to the tourists and send them out to visit the resort and take a tour. These people who got the tourists to go were called OPCs (outside personal contacts). They got $30 for each couple who took the tour and $50 if they purchased. I wanted to be an OPC from my beach shack so I could double the amount of money I was already making. I asked my employers about this but they did not like the idea and told me it would be a conflict of interest for the condos that hosted the beach shack.

When I visited with the manager of the OPCs I learned that they needed to expand their OPC presence on the island and she offered me the job of procuring those locations and train the new OPCs. I saw this as an opportunity to stop being a beach bum and going to work in a bathing suit and get a real, respectable job. Not that I didn't enjoy being a beach bum anymore but I felt I had been on the island long enough to become a resident and start acting more stable and responsible with my employment and overall behavior. I was ready for a change as well.

I accepted the job and relinquished the keys to my beloved beach shack. I hated to just leave my cats. I asked my replacement to feed them and could only hope that they did. I don't remember how long I had worked there, 4 to 5 months I think. It was a job I have always remembered as being unique and special to my experiences on the islands.

Boats and boat people

After losing my fun Buck Island Job, I tried several different jobs. I really wanted to learn more about boats, the sea, and to go sailing away but there were some hard lessons to learn for a young lady in paradise among so many seamen.

My experience so far had been good. Sam was fun and he really wanted to teach me to sail. Since we were dating, it worked out that I didn't mind sharing small spaces with him. I liked living on the Papillon with him and it was aboard that boat that we sailed to St. John. I was a willing crew member, eager to do it all and learn from it too. He put me to work scubbing the hull while we were anchored in Cruz Bay on St. John. I did it topless. Why, I don't know, for the tan perhaps. Maybe because I could and had never done THAT before. It was different and it was just us. He got a kick out of it.

Sam and I ended up going in different directions eventually and my roommate Tina and I also parted ways because she moved in with a boyfriend and our landlord was a pervert with a peep hole (that I could never find). I needed a place to stay so temporarily I was given free accommodations aboard a small sailboat which was owned by Sam. The boat was quaint, cozy and just enough room for me and my luggage. It had one cabin, a deck shower, dishes, water, a battery to run lights and the water pump, and I found it quite comfortable. The only drawback to living on it was that I had no transportation to and from it and it was on a mooring in the middle of the Christianstead harbor.

Fortunately, I was not the only person living in the harbor on a boat. I was just the only one who didn’t have their own dingy. Each morning when I was ready to go to shore I only had to stand up on deck and flag someone to give me a ride. It is a common courtesy to offer stranded boaters a ride so I usually got one. It didn’t take long for me to have a regular ride each morning. Getting “home” at night was no problem as long as I went around the time most of the other harbor residents went to their own boat homes. I missed this window of time on a few occasions and spent the night elsewhere but one night, very stupidly, I swam out to my boat. This, only after I had yelled and yelled for Sam to give me ride but he was apparently asleep or not home on another boat which was anchored closer than mine but beyond the boats at the end of the dock. I woke up several residents with my yelling so jumped in. I made it but this was very stupid and I never did it again.

During this time, I worked for two weeks aboard a parasailing boat. I was crew and got to put the harness on the guest and run the winch that let the line out. At the end of each trip I got to scrub the boat with soap and water and rinse it off. Of course I wore my bikini because I was on a boat, in the sun, and getting wet. Sometimes there were a few spectator guys on the dock while I washed the boat. I felt ridiculous. This job didn’t last very long because I had found another sailing adventure to pursue.

I met a captain named Paul. I think someone told me he was looking for crew to run charters in the BVI. I went over to the marina and met him on his beautiful boat. It was like a floating luxury condo with three large aft cabins, a lovely salon and galley, and captains quarters in the bow with a private head. I told him I wanted to learn to sail and see more of the islands and he said I could go along as crew. A couple of days later, we set sail for St. Thomas. He said he had a cook who would be joining us later but a friend of his came with us that day.

The three of us had a lovely sail over to Yacht Haven in St. Thomas. When we arrived we were being watched. There were many other yachts of the same make as the one we were on but ours was, by far, a much finer boat, a gorgeous vessel. I learned quickly that there is an admiration ranking among the charter yachts and most of them have absentee owners and are operated by a captain and crew, such as ours. Some of them even had hot tubs on their sterns but ours was still the highest pedigree of the bunch. Maneuvering and docking those huge boats was quite a spectacle and took a good deal of skill and finesse for the captain and his crew. Everyone watched and was impressed with Paul’s docking.

Paul put us to work scrubbing and rinsing the deck and after it was all clean I was given one of the aft cabins for the night and Paul’s friend, another. We all went out to dinner together to a restaurant overlooking the famous Charlotte Amalie harbor where our boat had docked. It was exciting to be there and I was looking forward to the upcoming week. We were to get provisions for the boat and prepare for a charter but I was still unclear about my job and exactly what I would be doing when we had guests on board. I learned quickly however, just what was going on.

That night, before retiring to my cabin, I had lain in a hammock on the deck of the boat to enjoy the night. Paul came and got into it with me and started pawing me. I got out and told him I was going to bed and good night, see ya in the morning, etc. As soon as I got settled in my bed he came and crawled into it with me but I told him I did not want to start off this way. I didn’t know him and was not going to sleep with him. He was not happy but left me alone. The next morning he gave me a sea plane ticket to return to St. Croix. (The plane ride was an adventure in itself, landing on water, done that.) I gave up on my desire to be a charter crew person.

The more time I spent around boats and boat people the more I realized that truly, I would not want to make a life out of it, as some do. The people who live and work on them all have a recognizable look about them: thin, wrinkled, worn and tired. Boats and the sun wear them out. I noticed on the couple of times I worked boats that all that scrubbing is really hard on my hands. I'm glad I got a taste of it but also glad I didn't stay with it. I will gladly go on a sailing adventure any time, however, and have a dream of taking my kids on one someday.

Big Beards Adventure Tours

Something I said repeatedly the first few weeks I was in St. Croix, that I don’t say much in my life today, is: “I’ve never done that before.” Before I left Arkansas I had never left Arkansas (except for a couple of trips). I had never gone anywhere alone. I had never thrown away a job or even failed to show up. I had never been sailing on the sea. I had never gone topless or without underwear. I had never had a roommate. I had never lived on a boat or been snorkeling, scuba diving, or 75 mgh in a cigarette boat. Before I left Arkansas I had never tasted a Calypso daiquiri or seen crab races or met anyone from other countries like New Zealand and South Africa. I also had never had a married man, with whom I did not have sex, ask me if I wanted to have an affair. (This, I thought was hilarious and I was flattered by, but declined).

Before I went to St. Croix I could only dream. I had no idea how nice it truly was to swim, snorkel, and be in the sun on a boat and a beautiful beach everyday while getting paid because it was my job. This was my experience when I went to work for John Macy at Big Beard’s Adventure Tours. Each day I went to work I was amazed and excited about where I was and what I was doing. I had only been snorkeling once before I was offered a job aboard John’s boat The Flyer. I was to be a crew member who handled the sails and anchors, taught snorkeling to 40 passenger tourists each trip, and guided them through the underwater coral reef trails at Buck Island National Park. The daily routine consisted of motor sailing for an hour up to the beach at Buck Island, snorkel lessons and play on the beach, reef snorkeling, then sailing over to a beach on St. Croix for a barbeque with burgers, dogs, fish and a big cooler of rum punch. We also did the limbo every day.

Yes, I went to work in a bikini, drank rum punch, and did the limbo every day. It was a blast and many times the party wouldn’t end just because we hit the dock. If there was punch left over, we drank it. Sometimes we would meet at a local bar near the dock for a Calypso daiquiri or two. Those are fabulous drinks. They are frozen and made of all booze: dark rum, vodka, Kailua, dark crème de cocoa, and Baileys. YUM! I had a couple of them when I went back to visit a few years ago but they really kicked my butt. I’m not twenty four any more.

Here I am at work at the beach, in a tree, with rum punch !

I will never forget the boat load of brawney New York City firefighters that we took out one day. They all had that hardened NY accent, dark complexions, and obviously pumped iron while they waited around the firehouse with no firetrucks to polish. I just knew these guys were going to be a lot of fun. Well, they were fairly mellow most of the trip, just enjoying the sun and snorkeling fun. After we pulled anchor and headed to the beach for barbeque we always went below and made up that large cooler of rum punch. I think we put a gallon of rum into it. Rum was about $1.50 a liter in St. Croix at that time. They have a Cruzan Rum distillery on the island.

I hauled that heavy cooler up and put it in place, grabbed a cup and poured myself the first sample. When I tasted it I let out a whoop and a holler (that's Arkie for YAHOO!) that it was RUM PUNCH time! This is usually when anyone who was previously sick, scared, tired, or embarrassed because they couldn't snorkel would be the first to grab a cup and most everyone tried it. These guys just sat and stared at me. I stared back. I said, "What's the deal here? We have a big cooler of rum punch!" The guy in front finally told me they were all AA! It got so quiet. I didn't know what to do so I downed the rest of the rum punch I had in my cup. We had to dump the whole cooler in the sea at the end of the trip. I've wondered about them since 9/11. I hope they are still firefighters in New York City.

Most of the time, no one ever wanted to stop drinking on St. Croix. It was one of the most popular pastimes, for sure. My friends and I, at that time, had a funny way of saying we would stay for “just one” but it was always a lie. There were favorite drinks to be had at favorite places and we would drift from one place to the other each night. It was common to take a traveler with you when you left so many drinks were poured in plastic cups. People were always walking the streets with a drink in their hands. A US marshal was a surprised by this and asked me about it once, after hurricane Hugo. They had come down to establish MARSHALL LAW because of the insanity and were posted on every corner with rifles. (more about that later) He told me it was illegal in the states and I was not aware that it was not legal in any US cities to drink in public. Apparently is was and still is. We were not in the US mainland and things were a little different down there.

Another part of my job working for Bigbeard was selling the tours. This was a lot of fun because I got to work on the boardwalk at the waterfront and talk to the tourists while I sipped on a Calypso daiquiri. This is where that married man came along. He kept coming by and buying me those daiquiris. I took them and he was nice but I wasn’t interested in him or being his girl on the side. One of the funniest memories I had from working on the dock selling tours was of a woman who stood in front of me with a very serious face, asking me a question but, I had to crack up laughing. She was sunburned, like most of the tourists but she had applied some lip balm to her lips and continued rubbing it all around her mouth in a very wide area. This part of her face had not been burned and she looked like a clown! I laughed and laughed and said “that stuff really works, doesn’t it?” She was a little embarrassed but her friends were laughing too. I made her feel better when I gave her the perfect solution. I told her to remember tomorrow to put that lip balm all around the burned area and leave her mouth uncovered so she would be evened out. She said she would. I hope she did. She looked really stupid.

When we took the tourist out on Bigbeard’s boat we had to have a talk with them each morning before we set out. There are so many things people don’t know when they get on a boat. Most important, we told them, was to put sunscreen on but to places they would never have thought to like their armpits, their ears, and between their toes. Eyelids were also susceptible and most everyone who came out with us was fresh, meaning they had no tan and needed lots of sunscreen or they would burn up. We were out on the sea, in the sun, for a total of six hours. Of course, I didn’t need sunscreen, just more sun!

John had a three stikes you're out policy for his employees. I don't remember all three but I do remember sitting naked by the pool of a beautiful house, high on the side of a mountain, watching the boat go by when I should have been on it. That was the third time I didn't show up for work and I was out after only about three months. I was so sorry I did that but it was all part of my adventure. I was so intent of collecting new and unusual experiences that I was willing to give up just about anything to be on to the next thing. John and I remained friends, he was just doing his job and had to stick to his policy. He was always good to me. He even let me stay at his big house in the rain forest after the hurricane for a few days and enjoy the pool (where I did not go naked). We have kept in touch and I took my daughter to visit him in St. Croix in 2004. We counted 15 beaches that we visited on that trip. Here is a recent photo of John and I. Dec 2004 He really does have a big beard!

I don't recall if I begged for my job back or not, but I should have. That was the most fun I ever had while getting paid. I did not blow off other jobs after that. It really was not, and never has been, my style.