Gothic Cruise 2008 – October 14th

Tuesday was the day we arrived at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. I got up early, ate breakfast, and then filmed the islands as we approached them. There was a light rain and this caused my Panasonic PVGS120 MiniDV Camcorder to display a dew warning. That was the first time I’ve seen that error message and it took me awhile to figure out that the only way to solve the problem was to swap the battery. After we had docked at Charlotte Amalie, the Cruise Director announced that most of the shore excursions had been canceled due to the weather and Magen’s Bay was flooded. I had booked a shore excursion for a day at the beach on Magen’s Bay so I assumed that was canceled. Later on the captain announced that a tropical depression, which later became hurricane Omar, would pass over St. Martin so we would not be going there. I saw several yachts in the Yacht Haven Grande.

Before we could disembark we had to go through US Immigration because we had just been in a foreign country, i.e. Nassau Bahamas which is not a US Territory. Going through immigration just required showing an official my passport so it was no big deal. As soon as I got off the ship I went to the nearby Havensight Mall which is non-enclosed strip mall at the cruise port. The stores sold the usual souvenirs, jewelry, watches, t-shirts, rum, liquor, and other Caribbean tourist trap stuff. I did buy a nice little trinket at one of the small shops, a small black guitar on a stand with the words “St. Thomas” on it. I thought it was an appropriate souvenir. I shot some video of the Carnival Glory from the Havensight Mall.

I then managed to find an Apple store in the Al Cohens Mall. Leave it to a geek like me to find a computer store in the Caribbean! I bought an iPod 8GB touch for $319.00. This seems to have been $100 more than the average retail price but at least I did not pay any taxes or duty on it. After that I went to the Barefoot Buddha Cafe and ordered a passion fruit smoothie. The Barefoot Buddha Cafe is a quaint little coffee shop which I was attracted to because I’ve studied and respect Zen Buddhism. They had computers with Internet access so I was tempted to check my email. The chairs required you to kneel to sit on them and I saw a woman land on her ass trying to seat herself before a computer. I walked another block and then found a Subway. I usually boycott fast food restaurants because they treat their employees like dirt but I make an exception when traveling. Like many travelers I appreciate a familiar restaurant where I can get familiar food. Actually, St. Thomas is a very American island with a K-Mart, McDonalds, Burger King and many other typical establishments. It makes a very curious impression because it mashes up the familiar and the exotic. It was sort of like a dream where familiar things have undergone a subtle distortion. For example, I found some black islanders in the Subway restaurant but they were watching Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the TV. He was giving a press conference on the fires in Los Angeles. The man in front of me was very talkative and tried to amuse the server but she was being very cold towards him. I had a crab and seafood hoagie on a toasted bun with onions.

I then went on a long walk up the street, occasionally stopping to videotape the Carnival Glory from different angles and perspectives. I was accosted by a crazy man who may have been out of his mind on drugs. I was tempted to scare him away with some dire threat of “exterminating angels“.  The goth scene provides many colorful phrases like that. Eventually I circled around back to the bay and then found the walkway that leads downtown. I saw a small lizard scampering around the rocks and I managed to videotape it. I crossed a very busy street to tour the shops and then found a Catholic church on a side street which I also videotaped. I thought a Catholic church would look great in my Gothic Cruise footage. I walked past the Green House restaurant and debated with myself on whether to enter. My shore excursion was supposed to take us there for lunch and a Bushwacker or 2 so I decided I may as well. I drank two Bushwackers at their bar. I don’t know how much alcohol is in a Bushwacker but I gulped down two of them really fast because I was powerfully thirsty. They did not not seem to have any effect. It was like drinking milkshakes. The bartender did not offer me another so I guess two was the limit.

I started to walk back to the ship but then I got caught in the rain. Pretty soon I was soaked and had to take shelter behind a dilapidated shed where several other goths from our group had taken refuge. They were headed towards the downtown area.  Fortunately a van was passing by and the driver honked his horn to see if any of us wanted a ride. The van was a one of the many taxis shuttling the cruise passengers back and forth from the cruise ship to the downtown area. I was the only person to get in the van because I was the only one heading in that direction. Wouldn’t you know it, but the van was already occupied by someone else in our group, a girl from LA named Alice, as in Alice In Wonderland. Cute. She engaged the taxi driver in a very amusing conversation. First she asked him about all the whacked out druggies or crazy people that seem to be wandering around the place. I thought that was curious because I’d encountered one myself. The driver didn’t seem to want to give a straight answer to that question but she kept probing like an investigative reporter who smells a story. I began to think there was some dark secret on the island. Maybe drug smuggling or something like that. Then she asked him if he had a gun and really gave him a hard time. Many of the goths were like that. They seemed to enjoy having an unsettling effect on people.

I’m not sure what I did between my return to the ship and dinner. I remember I tried to order a pay-per-view movie, “The Ruins”, which would have been a good choice but their pay-per-view system didn’t really work. Since my pants were soaked I had to wear the Ghast String Raver Dance Shorts I bought. I was wearing them when I went up on the Lido deck to shoot some more video. I passed the drummer for CombiChrist who seemed to do a double take when he saw me so that was kind of embarrassing. 

At dinner that night I managed to catch a few names. There was a couple from Chicago, Sam and his wife, who seemed to enjoy teasing me. And Carson had us listen to a few songs from one of the bands he was in. They invited three other people over because the girls arrived late. They may have been pissed because they had to find other tables. The woman who was teasing me must have been very drunk because she felt my hair and asked me what shampoo I used to make it so soft. LOL!