hello all...its been a while, but there's good reason..so be ready cause this one could get long and rather detailed :) (....i would never drag something out, its just not like me now is it?)
so whenever it was that i posted my last thing, im pretty sure I had yet to go over to the BVI(british Virgin Islands) to the island of Virgin Gorda..named by columbus who thought it looked like a "fat virgin lying on her back" ..with gorda being the spanish equivalent to fat..and virgin, well some things are univeral..but enough of the linguistic history of how the island got its name, and on to why we went..what they have there are these rock formations called the "baths"..just some big limestone boulders, resultants of volcanica activity in the region oh...a long time ago..but they are HUGE rocks right on the water and seem to invite most any adventurous human, or curios animal(probably a dog, like mine..and yours too...alas i digress) the rocks are formed together with cracks big enough to walk through, crawl through and get stuck in(only if you're really 'talented' can you get stuck) but it was just amazing to walk through there, with the surf crashing against the outside of the rocks, you can hear it, but its muffled and echoing all at the same time(not being a sound wave expert ill spare you the explanation, but just say that its a sound ive sure never heard before) the water was, stereotypical of most of the islands down here, all blue and clear and salty, but here it was even bluer, in part i think because there arent as many tourists that come by..and definately not as many larger vessels i.e. cruise ships, tankers laden with Hovensa oil, etc. *hmm seems like a topic worthy of a term paper, perchance??...ill look into it.. and get back to you after i knock out the 12 pages due in a few weeks :)* but the water was awesome, and after you get through the cavernous trail - it should be noted that 0 signs were posted as far as directions in and out of the cave, but as a general rule, we were advised "if you go as far as you can and dont see a beach, turn around idiot, you're about to get stuck"...and the problem would be bad, as it was impossible to hear much of anything (see soundwave explanation above)- so yeah after wandering through asking folks if this was the way and they didn't know either, it was goodtimes...got to the beach and ended up striking up a pretty cool conversation with an older..ok so he was like 45ish..canadian dude who was chartering a "booat" *canadians :)* and had been there a few days..we struck it off quite well(no i didnt get another boat ride...) and just talked about the people on the islands, and what was interesting was hearing things from his point of view..his observations of the local people were atonishingly similar to my own keen observations of the locals down here..he mentioned how nothing seems to run on time, and there really isn't much motivation to do much of anything, and how he would hate to live down here..haha this is when i butted in to say, sir after 3 months over on st.croix i know exactly what you mean..then i kinda went off on the lack of cleanliness on my island(of which he'd never been to..and probably wont come to now ha) but yeah..very insightful fellow he was, and i think he was impressed to talk to a stateside kid from arkansas who actually had an opinion worth sharing(its a blessing and a curse...i know full well) but yeah, by no means was the convo. the highlight of the trip, just a notable event..we parted with "it was nice to meet you, but ill probably never see you again..good luck in life" haha...not the first time and wont be the last im sure ill employ such an endnote..
..after we got back to st.thomas and spent the night at the UVI over there, I and the two girls from st.croix*washington actually..but we were the 3 who made the trip over* we took the ferry boat over to beautiful st.john..believe it or not, i was ready to leave around 7am..but "some people" need more time to get ready, which confuses me to no end..when goin to the beach, what is the point!?..oh well...we got off the boat and went to talk to the tourist info guy..(my idea btw) after chit chattin with that guy for a while and telling him our situation..*students, poor, hungry, lookin for a cheap, yet awesome time on the island for a day*...my continual good luck stayed true to form..it just so happened i was wearin my Guiness "born lucky" t-shirt, but thats beside the point..point is..he hooked us up with a free day at the Westin villa and resort...but chris whats the Westin?...its only the place where kenney chesney comes to dock his private yaht, books up rooms for his bandmemebers ,and is one of the top10 destination spots in the world..thats it..haha best part is that we got a tour of their time share villas..under the auspices of "a newlywed couple who had recently inhereited a large sum of $$" ..."so mr.cockrell, what makes you want to own a property here on st.john?" ..ready kids? .."ahemm..well janice, im glad you asked, because when i was a little guy *hand up from floor* dad used to bring me down here every year and we would go fishin, divin and just exploring the island...he isn't with us anymore *look at amy..my "wife"..then back to janice*..and i just wanted to see what the options were down here" ..."well mr.cockrell, i have an opportunity for you, let me go grab the keys and ill take you guys on a tour of our property and then we can come back and talk about getting you into one of our villas" ...with that she walked off and amy was freakin out, haha..we were just gonna play dumb tourists and try to get out of there and onto their private beach and bar for the day, then i had the idea to play around a little bit..haha go figure :) ...fast forward "so this is our three bedroom villa, with its private pool, hottub and yard*all fenced in by the way, it was cool , but seemed almost like a little prison thing* two king size beds, and two double beds..it can sleep 10 comfortably, with the couch pulling out*her soft saleslady voice...haha it should be noted that she was on her 11th day on the island and her 8th day workin here..she was nervous as all get out, and i was goin to town on that fact* "so mr.cockrell are you still in school?" "yes mam, we both are, but we had a break and wanted to do a little 'fact finding'" .."a break? what break is it?" ..."oh its fall break" ..she cut right to it "so since you have the money, and you love this villa, you're going to buy today, right? because usually finance is the only reason why people don't buy..but thats not you're problem" ..ahemm*defensive posturing,changed tone* "ahhah no mam, see we are just out looking around, weighing our options..this is a beautiful place, all 3000sq. feet of it, but today we will not be buying"..."i know how it is, i was a student once"(rather piercing tone) ..haha needless to say the rest of the time spent with her was a tid bit awkward, i knew she had an idea we were pretty much just wasting her time, but she was soo nervous that it made it rather comical..talkin to the sales manager exec guy was really cool though, she left the room*procedural* and he was talkin to me like i was a regular prospective customer, i asked some legit questions and he didn't look at me like some "kid" it was pretty awesome..i was honestly surprised at his laid back non aggressive approach into what he did..he respected my..haha "our" rather..decision and we talked a little baseball and then hit up the beach...the free lunch was great too!
...sittin on that beach amongst people who undoubtedly were worth far more(financially) than i will ever be, i couldnt help but think, that these people are getting skrewed...dont get me wrong, the place was nice, but it was sooo over the top, catering to everything, it was just "fake"..and i felt awkward sitting there..but talkin to the guy who rented out the kyaks down at their beach was pretty cool..he was not one of the tourist type, just a down to earth guy who got tired of pullin night shift in michigan and came down to work here,through random friends of friends...that is quite common here...is this long enough yet?? im about done, dont worry :)
it should be noted that st.john is home to a local island brewery "virgin island brewers" and they have a little bar/store right near the ferry dock.. i had met one of the owners several months ago in the race over there..he just called me "arkansas"..haha we didnt get to the name part of the conversation, just small talk, but regardless, i wanted to hit up his shop..and it happened to be happy hour so all was good...their "pale ale" is smooth medium type ale with a almost sweet taste, due to the fact that they use mango in the making of such a drink...its pretty much amazing..and you can't find stuff like that in the states, specially not from the tap,connected to the tank where the make it...awesome!
so whenever it was that i posted my last thing, im pretty sure I had yet to go over to the BVI(british Virgin Islands) to the island of Virgin Gorda..named by columbus who thought it looked like a "fat virgin lying on her back" ..with gorda being the spanish equivalent to fat..and virgin, well some things are univeral..but enough of the linguistic history of how the island got its name, and on to why we went..what they have there are these rock formations called the "baths"..just some big limestone boulders, resultants of volcanica activity in the region oh...a long time ago..but they are HUGE rocks right on the water and seem to invite most any adventurous human, or curios animal(probably a dog, like mine..and yours too...alas i digress) the rocks are formed together with cracks big enough to walk through, crawl through and get stuck in(only if you're really 'talented' can you get stuck) but it was just amazing to walk through there, with the surf crashing against the outside of the rocks, you can hear it, but its muffled and echoing all at the same time(not being a sound wave expert ill spare you the explanation, but just say that its a sound ive sure never heard before) the water was, stereotypical of most of the islands down here, all blue and clear and salty, but here it was even bluer, in part i think because there arent as many tourists that come by..and definately not as many larger vessels i.e. cruise ships, tankers laden with Hovensa oil, etc. *hmm seems like a topic worthy of a term paper, perchance??...ill look into it.. and get back to you after i knock out the 12 pages due in a few weeks :)* but the water was awesome, and after you get through the cavernous trail - it should be noted that 0 signs were posted as far as directions in and out of the cave, but as a general rule, we were advised "if you go as far as you can and dont see a beach, turn around idiot, you're about to get stuck"...and the problem would be bad, as it was impossible to hear much of anything (see soundwave explanation above)- so yeah after wandering through asking folks if this was the way and they didn't know either, it was goodtimes...got to the beach and ended up striking up a pretty cool conversation with an older..ok so he was like 45ish..canadian dude who was chartering a "booat" *canadians :)* and had been there a few days..we struck it off quite well(no i didnt get another boat ride...) and just talked about the people on the islands, and what was interesting was hearing things from his point of view..his observations of the local people were atonishingly similar to my own keen observations of the locals down here..he mentioned how nothing seems to run on time, and there really isn't much motivation to do much of anything, and how he would hate to live down here..haha this is when i butted in to say, sir after 3 months over on st.croix i know exactly what you mean..then i kinda went off on the lack of cleanliness on my island(of which he'd never been to..and probably wont come to now ha) but yeah..very insightful fellow he was, and i think he was impressed to talk to a stateside kid from arkansas who actually had an opinion worth sharing(its a blessing and a curse...i know full well) but yeah, by no means was the convo. the highlight of the trip, just a notable event..we parted with "it was nice to meet you, but ill probably never see you again..good luck in life" haha...not the first time and wont be the last im sure ill employ such an endnote..
..after we got back to st.thomas and spent the night at the UVI over there, I and the two girls from st.croix*washington actually..but we were the 3 who made the trip over* we took the ferry boat over to beautiful st.john..believe it or not, i was ready to leave around 7am..but "some people" need more time to get ready, which confuses me to no end..when goin to the beach, what is the point!?..oh well...we got off the boat and went to talk to the tourist info guy..(my idea btw) after chit chattin with that guy for a while and telling him our situation..*students, poor, hungry, lookin for a cheap, yet awesome time on the island for a day*...my continual good luck stayed true to form..it just so happened i was wearin my Guiness "born lucky" t-shirt, but thats beside the point..point is..he hooked us up with a free day at the Westin villa and resort...but chris whats the Westin?...its only the place where kenney chesney comes to dock his private yaht, books up rooms for his bandmemebers ,and is one of the top10 destination spots in the world..thats it..haha best part is that we got a tour of their time share villas..under the auspices of "a newlywed couple who had recently inhereited a large sum of $$" ..."so mr.cockrell, what makes you want to own a property here on st.john?" ..ready kids? .."ahemm..well janice, im glad you asked, because when i was a little guy *hand up from floor* dad used to bring me down here every year and we would go fishin, divin and just exploring the island...he isn't with us anymore *look at amy..my "wife"..then back to janice*..and i just wanted to see what the options were down here" ..."well mr.cockrell, i have an opportunity for you, let me go grab the keys and ill take you guys on a tour of our property and then we can come back and talk about getting you into one of our villas" ...with that she walked off and amy was freakin out, haha..we were just gonna play dumb tourists and try to get out of there and onto their private beach and bar for the day, then i had the idea to play around a little bit..haha go figure :) ...fast forward "so this is our three bedroom villa, with its private pool, hottub and yard*all fenced in by the way, it was cool , but seemed almost like a little prison thing* two king size beds, and two double beds..it can sleep 10 comfortably, with the couch pulling out*her soft saleslady voice...haha it should be noted that she was on her 11th day on the island and her 8th day workin here..she was nervous as all get out, and i was goin to town on that fact* "so mr.cockrell are you still in school?" "yes mam, we both are, but we had a break and wanted to do a little 'fact finding'" .."a break? what break is it?" ..."oh its fall break" ..she cut right to it "so since you have the money, and you love this villa, you're going to buy today, right? because usually finance is the only reason why people don't buy..but thats not you're problem" ..ahemm*defensive posturing,changed tone* "ahhah no mam, see we are just out looking around, weighing our options..this is a beautiful place, all 3000sq. feet of it, but today we will not be buying"..."i know how it is, i was a student once"(rather piercing tone) ..haha needless to say the rest of the time spent with her was a tid bit awkward, i knew she had an idea we were pretty much just wasting her time, but she was soo nervous that it made it rather comical..talkin to the sales manager exec guy was really cool though, she left the room*procedural* and he was talkin to me like i was a regular prospective customer, i asked some legit questions and he didn't look at me like some "kid" it was pretty awesome..i was honestly surprised at his laid back non aggressive approach into what he did..he respected my..haha "our" rather..decision and we talked a little baseball and then hit up the beach...the free lunch was great too!
...sittin on that beach amongst people who undoubtedly were worth far more(financially) than i will ever be, i couldnt help but think, that these people are getting skrewed...dont get me wrong, the place was nice, but it was sooo over the top, catering to everything, it was just "fake"..and i felt awkward sitting there..but talkin to the guy who rented out the kyaks down at their beach was pretty cool..he was not one of the tourist type, just a down to earth guy who got tired of pullin night shift in michigan and came down to work here,through random friends of friends...that is quite common here...is this long enough yet?? im about done, dont worry :)
it should be noted that st.john is home to a local island brewery "virgin island brewers" and they have a little bar/store right near the ferry dock.. i had met one of the owners several months ago in the race over there..he just called me "arkansas"..haha we didnt get to the name part of the conversation, just small talk, but regardless, i wanted to hit up his shop..and it happened to be happy hour so all was good...their "pale ale" is smooth medium type ale with a almost sweet taste, due to the fact that they use mango in the making of such a drink...its pretty much amazing..and you can't find stuff like that in the states, specially not from the tap,connected to the tank where the make it...awesome!
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