Winter Solstice
Happy Winter Solstice! The shortest amount of daylight for the year. For those of us at Latitude 18, it means sunrise was at 6:47 a.m. and sunset will be at 5:49 p.m. 11 hours of daylight, which pretty much means sunshine here all day (the rain I felt that persuaded me to quit my run after just a minute or two was definitely before the official sunrise). Our sunrises and sunsets are fairly quick, maybe 30-40 minutes from first light before official sunrise time. Compared to living in Alaska where they maybe get just 6 hours of daylight in the winter, the difference between a Caribbean winter and summer daylight isn't very extreme. In June, our sunrise is at 5:45 a.m. and sunset is at 6:59 p.m.
One related thing that seems to confuse some people for some reason, is that most, if not all, of the smaller Caribbean islands are on Atlantic Standard Time. AST is one hour ahead of EST. The USVI doesn't participate in daylight savings time, so in the summer, it's the same time on St. Thomas as it is in Pennsylvania.
Just like the amount of daylight doesn't change much throughout the year, neither does the temperature. Yesterday's high was 84 with a low of 76. In June, the average high is 90 with a low of 77. Weather.com has a lovely graph showing the monthly averages, and you can even compare our monthly highs to your city's!
Tonight marks the first annual Crown Bay Christmas Tree Lighting Party. (No, it's not for Winter Solstice, it's scheduled for today because the Queen Mary 2 is here.) On an island of 50,000 people, one might wonder why 3 separate town christmas parties are needed. Crown Bay is a new (by "new" I mean "not yet open though it was supposed to open a few months ago") shopping area at the Crown Bay dock on the western part of St. Thomas. Cruise ships have been docking there for as long as we've been on island, whenever the dock at Havensight (closer to town) is full. Havensight holds 3 ships, and Crown Bay holds 2. Whenever we have more than 5 ships (maybe once or twice a week during the season), the rest have to anchor in the harbor. Today the Queen Mary 2 is here. It's the only ship I know of that is too large to dock in St. Thomas. St. Thomas has a very deep harbor, but not deep enough apparently. When the QM2 is here, it anchors outside of the harbor. The ship's passengers get ferried to/from their ship. Right now you can see the Marriott from the ship's bridge webcam. I can see the ship from my office window - almost 90 degrees left from where the webcam is pointing right now.
One related thing that seems to confuse some people for some reason, is that most, if not all, of the smaller Caribbean islands are on Atlantic Standard Time. AST is one hour ahead of EST. The USVI doesn't participate in daylight savings time, so in the summer, it's the same time on St. Thomas as it is in Pennsylvania.
Just like the amount of daylight doesn't change much throughout the year, neither does the temperature. Yesterday's high was 84 with a low of 76. In June, the average high is 90 with a low of 77. Weather.com has a lovely graph showing the monthly averages, and you can even compare our monthly highs to your city's!
Tonight marks the first annual Crown Bay Christmas Tree Lighting Party. (No, it's not for Winter Solstice, it's scheduled for today because the Queen Mary 2 is here.) On an island of 50,000 people, one might wonder why 3 separate town christmas parties are needed. Crown Bay is a new (by "new" I mean "not yet open though it was supposed to open a few months ago") shopping area at the Crown Bay dock on the western part of St. Thomas. Cruise ships have been docking there for as long as we've been on island, whenever the dock at Havensight (closer to town) is full. Havensight holds 3 ships, and Crown Bay holds 2. Whenever we have more than 5 ships (maybe once or twice a week during the season), the rest have to anchor in the harbor. Today the Queen Mary 2 is here. It's the only ship I know of that is too large to dock in St. Thomas. St. Thomas has a very deep harbor, but not deep enough apparently. When the QM2 is here, it anchors outside of the harbor. The ship's passengers get ferried to/from their ship. Right now you can see the Marriott from the ship's bridge webcam. I can see the ship from my office window - almost 90 degrees left from where the webcam is pointing right now.
posted by Kendra at 8:53 AM
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