Jan 3: I woke first. We were rolling I would guess 10 degrees side to side. We’re so tired of rolling. Crossing over the horizontal makes life miserable. I get up and move to the foredeck to ascertain how I can stop us from rolling so bad. It’s a little after midnight and I see three dinghies come racing up and stop 100 yards behind the boat next to us. I call W/ she sticks her head up and we watch. Soon; three dinghies go up on plane and two stop at the boat next to us while the other keeps running by.
We watch a bit longer to see if the owner of the boat is on one of the dinghies. Doesn’t seem like it. They’re messing with the dinghy only and not getting on the boat. What to do? Like any good citizen I call 911 and reach the Charlotte Amalie Police Department. (My take was that I don’t want to shoot someone I don’t know for maybe stealing something that isn’t mine; and I don’t want to be shot at, and I thought it would be best to have the authorities catch them as opposed to just scaring them off to steal another day). Unfortunately the police don’t seem all that concerned. I tell them something isn’t right; I describe the situation to them. I tell them exactly where the suspects are and they take down the information. I tell them when they’ve taken the dinghy where the suspects are. I tell them that they’re about 100 yards from the Coast Guard Station which makes them about 200 yards from the Police station! They say they’ll keep it in mind or some such nonsense. I’m told I can call back later for a follow up if I wish.
When the dinghy was gone W/ shone a light on the boat next to us and got Nick up. We told him to call the police; that we had but they didn’t seem all that concerned. They weren’t sure the dinghy was being “stolen”. He called. I don’t think there was a whole lot of action yet.
Also I called the Coast Guard on VHF channel 16. I connected with CG San Juan and told them the situation and that the suspects were less then 100 yards off the CG station Charlotte Amalie. They told me to call the police. I had informed them that I had and hadn’t received much concern from them. I had thought one of the CG’s responsibilities was to protect property (maybe the property has to the have a value of lets say…… 1 million dollars or more). Obviously I’m wrong. (Note: I’ve always been told in education to think like in business. Now here I am a citizen informing a governmental agency of a crime being committed and instead of them contacting the police I’m told to contact the police. In business; when my DSL line was having issues and I called the company that I paid, they in turn called the company they had contracted to and made sure that all parties knew what was going and that it would be fixed by such and such a time. Obviously; the police and CG haven’t received any notice of working together to prevent crimes! )
About 10 mins later; or less, another couple of cruisers came by in a rather large dinghy - 50 hp center console. Our neighbor may have called them; I don’t know, but they were looking for one of their dinghies that had been taken. They picked up Nick and asked where I saw the dinghies last. I told them that I had seen them and they were off the CG station heading towards Hassell Island. They took off towards Crown Bay Marina, just on the other side of Hassell Island on the big island.
I put a bridle on the anchor chain and that set the boat to facing the surge that was coming in the harbor. That slowed the roll down considerably; enough that we could get some sleep. However; about an hour later I was awakened and looked around the harbor, then I noticed that Nick had his dinghy back. Great!
In the following am I waved Nick over as he was heading to work and got his story. They had found the guys in an industrial cove on the other side of Sub Base. The police had arrived there too as they were in off and on contact with the police. He said that one individual had pulled a gun on them, but then put it away when they had just wanted to ask some qsts. When Nick had left he said that the police had two people in handcuffs. He also said that the Department of Natural Resources in the VI’s was there and they were questioning the owners of the dinghies about registrations! You have something stolen and the powers that be want to see you’re sales receipt. How ludicrous! I can imagine what would happen if someone robs a homeowner and they want to check to see if they’re taxes are up to date. Or how about before they respond they check the tax records! Does that mean that only some of the population deserves police protection?
You can see the account on noonsite. It was posted the following day. The word on the street (bay) was that one individual was the son of the chief of police and so they let them go. Another individual said they were all “born here’s” so they let them go. I can’t believe that in the US this would happen; even a US Territory The police didn’t seem interested in getting any prints. The dinghies were by this time in the hands of their owners. One dinghy was slashed up – there goes a grand to two. Sounds to me like “Case closed”.
I am further amazed that with all the boaters there, the political community seems to have so little respect. Maybe if all the boaters voted there it would be different but hey; it shouldn’t need to be. The boaters are mostly working there, doing jobs no one else is or doing jobs that require a skill that no one else has, they bring money to the island (one cruiser said he spends on the island what he makes. :) ) , they bring a healthy work ethic to the place and a good set of values. What more could a community want. Obviously something I don’t know about.
BTW, Nick’s dinghy was double locked with cables. The thieves had cable cutters (don’t know if they had bolt cutters).
The Old St. Thomas
Another cruiser on Daniels Story described St. Thomas as an island that doesn’t know it. In the VI’s their business is “Cruise ships”. That is their main business and it really seems like mostly that is all the government is really concerned with. The community that existed 20 years ago we barely saw. This pic taken during our visit this time shows a thriving past. That past is long gone. No more is there much fishing, no real agriculture, no real industry, no real ranching. Now the island is only about 40 square miles but if the cruise ships should stop tomorrow, they’ll have a difficult time eating all the gold and diamonds.
Then the story we received is that Dubai talked the old Yacht Haven Marina into building a marina for only the mega yachts. And yes there are loads of obscene megayachts that now transit and even hang out in the area. One, Kismit, owned by an individual in the Midwest charters his out for a paltry $600,000 per week plus expenses! Another was so big I’m not sure it could get into the new Yacht Haven Grande Marina. This private yacht on its deck carries a 40’ sailboat and a 40’ motor yacht (Le Grand Bleu). While we were about to leave St. Thomas, we went to the Crown Bay Marina to fill up on fuel. We needed to take on about 100 gallons. Up anchor at 8 am; they opened at 8 am and went to the fuel dock. We couldn’t get in. There were two boats tied up to the fuel dock (One named “13” and the other something “Bleu”) They took on 10,000 and 9,000 gallons respectively and closed the dock down for about 4 hours. So much for our getting out of St. Thomas this am.
But as in all cruising we look for the show and here we weren’t disappointed! After “13″ filled up with fuel (having spent $30,000 +) they were ready to leave. Crown Bay had kindly let us tie up to an end pier. But about 15 minutes before 13 was ready to leave they felt the need to put another megayacht on the T we were tied to. So we moved and then another 100+ footer moved to the end of the T. As 13 tried to get out, they now couldn’t because they hadn’t enough room to make the turn. So out they attempted to go; and 10 minutes later after probably another 100 gallons of fuel they went back to the fuel dock. Then the captain of Bleu had to move that boat to anther T so 13 could now maneuver out. This entire process took most likely 30 minutes to rearrange all the $$$$$’s. After Bleu was out of the way and all the multimillion dollar boats were settled, they waved us over. We took on 92 gallons of fuel, picked up a bag of ice and finally, finally, left St. Thomas for points E and S.
I wasn’t really thinking I would love the VI’s this time around. I haven’t been disappointed. Had they not been a convenient stop and a place to repair the damage from my stupidity we would have been; long gone.
Adios