I don’t know which of you is more lucky to have the other. The highlight of our week has been you guys and your fabulous sense of humor. You have an uncanny ability to give us exactly what we want, both giving us space and being there, for laughs, for cocktails, for snacks, and constantly offering entertainment options. Steph, everyone raves about your food, and it is heavenly good. If you forced me to pick favorites, it would be the evening fish dishes, and the massive breakfasts that were perfect after an hour of wobbly dawn yoga on deck, an early morning snorkel, and plenty of coffee. BTW that coffee was always there and freshly brewed no matter what ridiculously early time I got up. I couldn’t beat Ryan out of bed, even once, although Liz managed it, but only on day one, getting up at 3:30am she was so determined not to miss a minute of vacation.
Steph, I loved our land hikes to get the views, and seeing you sweat like crazy and assure me that you loved climbing hills too, while downing gatorade. Ryan, you showed us beautiful cove after beautiful cove, and stunning sunset after stunning sunset. You gave me my first taste of tubing, and it was a blast! There was no way I was flying off that thing, although you tried hard, and I swallowed half the ocean laughing. Andrew got his first taste of paddle-boarding (I have the hilarious video to prove it). It was no mill-pond, we had a big-swell week, and he wisely decided to stick to the kayak to explore the places you took us, but Liz went out most days (an experienced paddle-boarder and she could handle the chop). Thank you for towing the kayak out to the very windy tip of Magens bay, so we had the perfect easy kayak back, going with the wind, watching the turtles surface, and nosying some of the most beautiful houses on Saint Thomas. Thank you for paying attention to our safety at all times, and racing across the bay to look for us when you thought we’d gone astray (we hadn’t, a false-alarm, we were having fun kayaking the coves, seeing goats play, and were just out of sight behind the massive boat, Felix).
I’m the first to fall off Felicia, but apparently not the first to accidentally dump technology overboard. Thank you for rescuing my GoPro when I dropped it in the dark, minus its floatie bubble case. Ryan, you dove down with a flashlight under the boat, and froze your balls off – muchas gracias, and sorry for shining the flashlight in your face and temporarily blinding you! Thank you for tolerating our (slightly drunken) whim to night snorkel, inspired by the underwater flashlight/GoPro incident, and wisely advising how to do it safely (noodles and buddies), and then killing the boat lights and blasting out the Jaws theme-tune as we swam back (OMG we laughed!).
Thank you for tirelessly hunting lobster with William (yum, the sashimi appetizer Steph created from it was delicious!). Thank you for filling your tiny freezer with his bait, and zipping along at plenty of knots so he could fish off the back of the boat. I’m still laughing at Steph yelling ‘William you’ve got a fish!’ when that asshole cut behind us and destroyed the lines. I loved when we had both sails up, the noise of the boat whooshing through the water, and we flew across to Buck Island, where I got those gorgeous turtle photos. Thank you for playing Cards Against Humanity and Uno with us, and laughing just as hard as us. Thank you for cleaning up after us, constantly, and the miraculously appearing towels, just when we needed them. You keep the yacht spotless, there are so many different places to chill, the cabins are beautiful, the water is hot, the beds are comfy, and the closet space surprisingly large (who knew there were drawers under the beds, and the bathrooms have six shelves). The evidence of how much fun we had is captured in so many photos of so many memories that we will treasure, and you Captain Ryan and First Mate Stephanie, are right there, starring in tons of them. Thank you.
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