From one of the few days on the main island, full of tourists and locals, with very little overlap between them.
From a brochure found at the wreck: “Indulge yourself on one of our Big Party or Romantic Dinner Cruises. You’ll be dazzled by the colors of the setting sun and twinkling lights of Charlotte Amalie harbour. The Amalie Queen is a 90 foot replica of a riverboat and carries up to 160 guests on our twin decks.”
We took a trip over to Cokie Beach, on the main island of St. Thomas one day, and much fruity alcohol drinking ensued.
In 1950, the US Department of Defense turned Water Island over to the Department of the Interior, who leased it to Walter Phillips, a private developer, for $3,000 dollars a year. A hotel, the Water Isle Hotel & Beach Club, was built on the island, and operated for over 30 years, when in 1989, Hurricane Hugo severely damaged the hotel and it was abandoned.
Hurricane Hugo practically destroyed Water Island in 1989. Many property owners, rather than rebuilding, simply abanded the island. The one’s who did stay cleaned up by filling a secluded harbor with the remnants.
Made it to St. Thomas, a ferry ride from here gets us to Water Island.
Taken moments before finally leaving the States. You can see a faint grid in the sky of the first one, created by the self-enlarging shade dots embedded in the windows at Detroit Metro. As the day got brighter, the dots got larger.
A little bit of a series going here.
It’s been a while since I’ve shot much color 35mm film (I cropped it square, I couldn’t help it).
I love my little Olympus Stylus Epic, with it’s fast prime lens and almost total lack of options (yes that’s a good thing), but after my recent trip I think I finally got to the point where it just doesn’t make sense to shoot 35mm for random snapshots anymore. After spending almost $60 getting less than a dozen rolls processed, and spending almost a whole day scanning shots of varying quality, not to mention the hassle of finding decent quality film on the go (why can’t grocery stores carry Portra next to the Max 800?), I think it’s time to get a digital point and shooter.
But what to get? I thought I had pretty well decided on the as-yet-unreleased Canon Powershot TX-1. It’s actually more video camera than still cam, with 720p HD video, which I was going dig, as video is something I’ve been meaning to dabble more in (I’m gunning for you Wes Anderson), but still with a decent 7 megapixel still camera in it (usually the combo video/still cams are really good in one or the other). But then Sigma has to go and drop their new DP1, with it’s prime lens, RAW file capabilities, and the much-touted Foveon 3-layer sensor (not to mention it just looks hot). It doesn’t help that Leica/Panasonic keep making their D-Lux cameras pretty interesting as well.
So which direction to go in; the more capable but a little overwrought video-cam-plus-halfway-decent-still-cam, or a fully capable compact still camera that doesn’t look like a robot crapped it out? I guess it’s nice to have options.
Things I did on my vacation:
- Spent a week on a nearly uninhabited island in the Caribbean
- Finished 3.5 crossword puzzles
- Nearly wrecked a supped-up dune buggy golf cart
- Explored abandoned military bunkers and hurricane-emptied hotels
- Shot 21 rolls of film; 16× 120, 7× 35mm (one not in the photo above)
- Read The Stranger
- Drank copious amounts of rum and mango-flavored beer
- Befriended the locals
- Saw almost every cousin and uncle and aunt I have
Things I didn’t do:
- Check email
- Shoot a single digital photo
- Get burned (thank god)
Lots and lots of pictures to come from this (if I wasn’t too wasted to operate the camera correctly).