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In Charlotte Amalie, the town docks are at one end of the harbor and the grocery store and restaurants are at the other.
On foot, it is probably 3+ miles from end to end and, after a very short debate, we decide to hail a cab.
Never hail a cab in Charlotte Amalie.
You can lose an arm, get run over, or start a fight by hailing a cab and, it turns out, it is a total waste of motion.
Every motorized vehicle, from moped to dump-truck, doubles as a taxi on this island of entrepreneurs.
Apparently, carting tourists around is a major, competitive industry on St. Thomas.
Without even a hand gesture, we have cars stopping to offer a ride.
One of these is a 70's vintage Vega, belching out unmuffled smoke,
already fully occupied by three overweight Island women.
We decline their offer and wait for a more taxi-like looking vehicle--something with a sign on top.
Almost immediately, a rundown station wagon with a taxi sign arrives and takes us first to the grocery store
and next to a restaurant.
Most places in the U.S., this vehicle would have already been shredded and recycled into rebar or man-hole covers.
In Massachusetts, it would definitely not be street legal.
It is probably easier to count the things that still work on this rattle-trap, than to count the broken parts.
This "taxi," more than likely, was no more or less official than the three fat ladies in the Vega,
but the sign on top gave us a false sense of security.
It seems more likely that we will eventually be allowed out of this vehicle.
Who knows what the fat ladies had in mind for us.
For dinner, we ask three locals for advice and get three different opinions,
but finally settle on a "French" restaurant overlooking the water.
"Betsy’s Bar and Lysa’s Kitchen” is exactly what I have come to expect of island eateries:
over-priced, and not all that good,
but served with a cold beer and easy to clean up after.
In fact, with only one or two exceptions, all the food on all the islands catering to tourism
exactly fits this description.
There is no bell-curve, no "stars", no appreciable diversity, ethnic or otherwise.
Every where we have been or will go, we will have the same two-star cuisine.
It is as if all of these tourist traps have exactly the same menu and perhaps even exactly the same head chef!
Jimmy Buffet is right.
Ask for the cheeseburger in Paradise because the filet mignon is likely to be inedible.
Betsy's Bar is the prototype of what we flock from Boston,
New York, and New Jersey to find in the Islands.
So what if the food is not all that good?
In the dead of winter, we are sitting in shorts and tees, eating food, and rubbing elbows with the locals.
A quick glance around the restaurant and bar reveals, however, that the tourists come for food and conversations,
whereas the locals come for beer, rum, and darts.
That's right!
Pub darts.
A dozen or so men are gathered around the dart board, engaged in a perpetual tournament, and taking it very seriously.
There are several "types" that are immediately recognizable.
One is the com-si, com-sa, just passing time type.
One is the athletic, dive-shop dude, as blonde and as good looking as he is dumb.
Another is Joe-Cool, wirey chain smoker wearing leather and sporting a scarf,
deadly serious and deadly accurate with the darts.
Joe-Cool seems to be winning, by his strut away from the board.
No one from the IBIS even momentarily thinks of stepping up to challenge the locals.
The "Force" is too powerful to be challenged by an outsider.
Eventually, we taxi our way back to the boat for a good night's sleep.Please email any comments to Jeff Dieffenbach at dieffenbach@alum.mit.edu