On my flight to St. Thomas from Charlotte I had the adventure and pleasure to sit with Gary from Tennessee. A Vietnam vet and 20 year retired NY state trooper, he now lives about 20 miles from where they make Jack Daniel’s, something he found very exciting. Our flight attendant, who also works with the Troopers near Charlotte, loaded Gary up with enough Jack to last him at least through the first morning of his 4 month stay in St. Thomas. Gary was a happy man when he got off the plane.
I was happy with my two Bloody Mary’s and a couple of Tito’s to go.
Bill Wiltsch was also on the plane into St Thomas. We flew in a day ahead of time so we could “Scout” the area before the rest of the Pirates arrive.
The sun sets over the US Virgin Islands as Bill (or a really big turtle head) soaks in the pool at the Green Iguana Hotel.
It’s pretty hard being a Scout. We had to find and test out a nice restaurant called the Green House and sample their rum drinks, like these Pain Killers, before the rest of the Pirates arrive.
Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 4th, the Piratea have assembled. In from KC and St. Louis is John Garrett, Steve Richards and Jimmy Dean. We settled them in from their very early morning departures with a couple of ice sold Heinekens as they began to gear down into Island Time by the pool. 
Another nice sunset. This could become a habit.
Back at the Green House for dinner we enjoyed more rum drinks, fish, calamari and steaks.
Thursday morning we embraced the ocean on a ferry from Charlotte Amolie in the US to Road Town on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. It was about an hour of pretty high speed boating where we seemed to become airborne for about a second before a hard landing on the ocean. John, Jim and I learned to hang on, just in case.
Before we got our boat we had to provision for 5 guys for a week. 90 minutes and $1,125 later we had most of what we needed.
We arrived back at BVI Charters to find Steve and Bill getting familiar with the boat and all of the different systems; water, waste water, generators, AC, navigation system, diesel motor, etc. Once at sea we’re pretty much on our own for first response and repair.
Our boat for the week is the Reventador II which appears to imply “Trouble Maker”. I hope that means us guys rather than the boat! We shall see. The Reventador is a 47’ long boat with a 16’ beam (width) made in France and is about one year old. It is in very good shape and very comfortable, with most of the luxuries of home.
We set sail to Coopers Island sometime around 1PM, We’re all shaking off our sailing cobwebs as we begin to tack (sail upwind) on a southeasterly direction and refresh our skills of handling the sails, sheets (ropes attached to sails) and winches (not the female kind!).
The best time of the day IMO is after we moor or anchor and start to chill with a beverage and tell old stories about each other and white lies about our adventures. Jimmy likes to show off his feet to John who apparently seems to have a foot fetish?
Bill, Steve and Jim took a refreshing dip off of the stern as the sun was setting.
The Coopers Inn, the only restaurant in our harbor, was sold out for the night. I counted over 30 other sailboats in our harbor. So we dipped into our provisions and all chipped in to make some cheese burgers on the outdoor grill on the back of the boat. Very tasty.
We told more stories after dinner and settled in for the night around 10PM, rocked gently by the waves of the bay.
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