The Marriott

The Marriott Pool

All of us were feeling a little rough yesterday after a long night out around the island.  Kati re-learned that ever important lesson that you really don't want to try to go drink-for-drink with a group of Wabash men.  Taking it easy was fine by everyone though, especially since Wes flew out in the afternoon.  We started the morning off with brunch at an Irish pub.  The food was mediocre, but eating anything significantly helped our physical condition.  Afterwards, we spent the rest of the day relaxing at the Marriott's pool.

The Marriott has just about the best location of any hotel on the island.  They built it on the very precipice of this rock jutting out into the ocean and St. Thomas Harbor.  The pool is pretty fantastic.  There are actually two pools, a normal pool and an "adult" pool with a swim-up bar, both of which are what I would call first-generation infinity pools and sit right on the edge of the cliffs.  It really is an incredible place and it was nice to act like hotel guests for a day, steering away from the sand and shells, and relaxing in a much more pampered place.  It also gave both Kati and me the opportunity to finally develop a little color - something that both of us had inexplicably failed to do but that I blamed on Kati subjecting me to high-spf sunscreen.  

Kati in Front of St. Thomas Harbor

From the pool at the Marriott you could see a very small island that I believe was called Buck Island.  There is absolutely nothing there except a lighthouse, and I can't imagine much wildlife resides on the tiny rock either.  Alex said that back in the days of sugar plantations, the slave-owners would take a misbehaving slave out there and leave him on the island with no provisions for a fortnight.  It would have been a brutal punishment, but it was apparently almost always effective in "breaking" a slave.

After the pool, Alex, Kati, and I cleaned up and grabbed a nice dinner at Fish Tails in Red Hook.  We got some Caribbean lobster, which was great, some Mahi, and even some shark!  I'd never had shark before and it was very interesting.  I expected something similar to swordfish but it was really more like a very tender white fish.  We finished the night at Latitude 18, listening to the Sun Mountain Band and their fiddler.  The band was great, and put a very unique spin on a number of very popular songs.  Overall it was exactly the kind of relaxing day that all of us needed to recuperate from the night before.  It's really a shame we only have one day left down here.