I meant 2 HUNDRED million

Derek pointed out my error to me in my last post. It should say the super yacht is for sale for $200 million. Not a measly $2 million. So put away those checkbooks Mom and Dad. I'll take some land on Carriacou for Christmas instead.

Yachts

Dave and I can tell the "season" has begun because a number of yachts have returned for the winter. Last year they lined up along the waterfront drive near town. This year, however, they're docking at the island's new Yacht Haven that just opened a few weeks ago.

Yesterday a coworker pointed outside to our amazing view and said "do you see that yacht?" I looked, but I only saw a mini-cruise ship. I looked again and realized that what I thought was a mini-cruise ship was in fact the largest yacht I have ever seen in my life. Today's newspaper confirmed that - apparently the Rising Sun is the second largest megayacht in the world. The CEO of Oracle owns the 452 feet long ship. From my office, it looks as long as half of a regular cruise ship. It's huge. There are some photos of the ship online. Rumor is the yacht is for sale for only 2 million. It has 80 rooms and 8600 square feet of living space! I know what I'm doing when I win the lottery!

It's hot - no, it's cold

After recently realizing how disappointing it is to check my friends' blogs regularly, only to discover nothing new has been posted, I've decided to try to post on our blog more often. So when I have a few free minutes at work, I'll try to whip something up. This will sadly mean fewer photos, but I'll try to post photo blogs on the weekends.

This past weekend and Monday were miserably hot. I mean 90+F with 70+% humidity. For those of you without a handy heat index chart, this calculates to a heat index of 106F. So, at home, where we just have ceiling fans and an occasional breeze, it was quite uncomfortably warm.

On Monday night, the power went out around 3am, which means our lovely dehumidifier (which pulls 5 gallons of water out of the air in our bedroom each night and, in turn, significantly lowers the temperature) and ceiling fan, of course, promptly stopped. This instantly wakes us up as the stagnant hot, humid air seems to suck the life out of you. One minute you're snoozing, fairly cool and comfortable under a blanket; the next minute you're suffocating, covered in sweat, frantically throwing off the covers, getting as far away from your spouse as possible. This time Dave was the one to get out of bed, open all the windows and doors to allow any breeze to waft through the bedroom. Typically once one of us does this and crawls back into bed and nearly falls asleep, the power comes back on. The instant relief of the ceiling fan brings a smile to our faces though it gently wakes us up, leaving us with the quandary - is it worth getting back up, closing all the windows and doors and turning the dehumidifier back on? Dave decided yes, as I usually do, and stoically got back out of bed to bring back the cool, drier air. Along with these obvious benefits, the dehumidifier and closed windows serve to keep out the neighborhood noises of chickens, roosters, and various insects. (Most of our guests love the earplugs we provide, free of charge!)

As can be expected, the power went out again not five minutes after the dehumidifier had begun to sooth us back to a comfortable sleep. This time the machine hummed every few seconds in synch with the ceiling fan's half spins. We could tell they were trying their best to keep going, and we cheered them on. But, alas, WAPA won and the electric appliances we love so dearly died once more. Again, Dave saved us by opening all the windows and doors to the bedroom. And, when the power came on again a little while later, he closed them up and restarted the dehumidifier once more. Sometimes this happens more than once or twice during the night. When we give up and don't bother turning on the dehumidifier, it can be a miserably long night when the weather is warm like was that night.

The weather shifted last night though and brought us a very chilly breeze. My typical sleeveless shirt and shorts were not enough to keep me warm as the brisk breeze blasted through our apartment. I grabbed a long sleeve shirt and covered my legs with the spare couch pillows. Our thermometer indicated it was in the high 70s, but I bet with that wind chill the low 70s would closer to what it felt like. I had to sleep with socks on to keep from getting frostbite. Today the dark grey sky is pouring rain on the brave souls that venture off the 5 or 6 cruise ships that are here today. Definitely a day for some hot chocolate!

Appendicitis

As many of our loyal readers know, I had an emergency appendectomy 10 days ago - the night before we were supposed to leave on our cruise. I came down with a terrible belly ache (among other miserable symptoms - I'll spare you) and after about 14 hours, I realized the pain had localized in the area of my lower right area of my abdomen. I believe I've clearly expressed my disdain for the hospital here in previous posts (it's really not a good sign when a nurse warns you "I'm a little messy" as she's about to draw blood - this really happened to me here and, well, she was right). At the same time, I didn't want to be the dummy who died of appendicitis while trying to avoid the hospital. So off we went to the ER.

After waiting 4 agonizing hours, a doctor finally saw me (we learned you get quicker service if you arrive at the ER in handcuffs, accompanied by multiple VIPD officers). And 3 hours after that I was in surgery. I feel I should note here that we do have air evacuation insurance for medical emergencies. However, you can't get evacuated (to Puerto Rico, or if you're lucky and the hospital there doesn't have space - Miami) unless it's safe to move you and the care you need is something the local hospital can't provide. It's questionable under what circumstances you could actually get flown out of here, but I've heard of it happening.

The surgeon and anesthesiologist seemed quite competent which was reassuring. (Everyone at work asked me their names, and everyone at work knows them - "He took my appendix out."; "He took my daughter's appendix out."; "I worked with him the summer after we graduated high school at my first job ever." etc.) I had a spinal rather than general anesthesia so I was awake the whole time and could feel my insides being pushed around as the surgeon cleaned up the mess from the ruptured appendix. After the surgery, I'd say the care went downhill significantly. I spent two nights in the hospital. You know those buzzers by a patient's bedside? They've got those here, but they're pretty much ignored unless you're screaming in pain (a neat trick I discovered; I noticed others followed my good example). But for example, if you buzz them asking if it's okay to eat the oatmeal you were brought, since you're supposed to be on a liquid diet per doctor's orders, well, don't expect an answer until the oatmeal is cold. (the answer? "if they brought you oatmeal, it's all they have, you should eat it.")

Coworkers visited me and brought me goodies from the Ag Fair that we missed. Most importantly though, my surgeon told us we didn't have to miss out on the cruise entirely. His daughter had an appendectomy the day before they had planned on going on a cruise, so the family just caught up with the cruise later. Taking this sound medical advice, Dave and I hopped a Liat flight to St. Lucia on Monday and joined the ship on Tuesday. Cruise details later! I'm doing much better and return to the doc today. Hopefully he'll give me the go ahead to get back in the water and swim. It's been miserably hot here lately!

Random Bits of News

A few people have asked me lately if there is a ferry between St. Thomas and St. Croix (about 40 miles away). The answer is "sometimes." From what I can tell, almost every year there is a different company that tries to maintain a regular ferry between the islands. One of them, the VI Fast Ferry, has been around for many years, but this past year it chose not to operate. I read in the paper that it didn't think the new company would last and so it didn't see any reason to spend the money competing this year. Well, they were right. Island Lynx ferry apparently went out of business about a month ago, after sporadic service since the spring. (There was no service last winter because the Island Lynx kept delaying its start date.) I heard that VI Fast Ferry was willing to start up again if it was assured a monopoly. No such luck for them. As of last Friday, a new ferry company is in town - VI SeaTrans.

A friend of mine had a baby yesterday in Arizona. This reminded me of something I've mentioned to a few people who all thought it was most interesting: Women having babies here on St. Thomas this summer were probably excited - as of this July, epidurals are now available on the island!

We're going on a cruise next week! (A Caribbean cruise, of course!) We fly to San Juan on Saturday on Cape Air to get on the Crown Princess. Cape Air flies the tiniest commercial plane I've ever been on, easily. It holds 8 people, including the pilot. Both times I've flown, I've been in the co-pilot seat. They put the smallest person in the co-pilot seat. I feel like this should concern me. There's got to be a weight limit on these planes, right? All the latest TSA concerns about liquids in carry-ons haven't really affected us much with island hopping here. Why not? Because some of the airlines don't have security (seaplane) and many of the airlines have such small planes that you can't bring anything on board with you other than a small handbag (seaplane, cape air). Everything gets checked!

I'll try to blog again before we leave, as there is much to write about, and I'm sure once we get back we'll have even more to write about on this blog!

Liberty Day

Today is Liberty Day in the Virgin Islands - a local holiday celebrating freedom of press. It is also known as D. Hamilton Jackson Day, in recognition of a labor leader, attorney, judge, and publisher who is said to be the one who convinced the Danish King in 1915 that the Virgin Islands should have the right to a free press. According to the Daily News article, upon Jackson's return to the Virgin Islands, he published the Daily Herald - the first newspaper without the Danish seal.

In honor of the publication, a bull was slaughtered and roasted, and roast beef and bread were given to the public to celebrate, which is why Liberty Day is also known as Bull and Bread Day.

All the local government employees have the day off, the banks are closed, and I guess everyone is eating bull and bread! (I think I'll pass on the bull foot soup but a johnny cake sounds yummy.) St. Croix seems to have the most celebrations for local events. They're celebrating Liberty Day with a parade and speeches by an elementary student, the governor, lieutenant governor and a senator. The person in charge of the committee hosting the activites said political candidates were free to roam the park and speak to the voters, but they should limit their comments to the subject of D. Hamilton Jackson.....