2015-4-20   St. Thomas---8am-6pm:

 We have been here 4 times by cruise ship and once for a 9 night land vacation.  As we've done the last few times, we rented a car from Budget at the Contant Station.  We've had major problems renting from Budget at the airport, but never from Contant. 

We made our way over to the windmill shown above to the far left and called Budget for our free shuttle.  They came within 10 minutes and soon we were on our way to the East end.  When we stayed here, we were in the Wyndham Elysian Resort on Cowpet Bay and loved the snorkeling and amenities there, so we headed straight there. 

 Then we headed straight into the water and around the point to the left side of the bay.

We really weren't there very long when my underwater camera died---for good.  Odd that my last one died at the same spot!  So we swam back in and headed back into Charlotte Amelia to Royal Caribbean where I had bought my recently deceased camera only to find that they no longer sell underwater cameras.  I figured Boolchards would be my next stop, but the one downtown was closed due to personal reasons.  So we jumped back in the car and went to the other Wyndham Resort closer to town at Bluebeards Beach Resort on Limetree Beach and snorkeled there another hour or so.  I was chatting with another Wyndham owner when someone overheard me telling my story about trying to buy another underwater camera and not being able to find any.  They told me about another Boolchard's in Havensight that they knew was open, so off we went to Charlotte Amelia again.  Their selection wasn't very big, but they did have some and I was in a bind.  Ended up with a Nikon Coolpix AW120 for $220.  By then, Ken was tired of driving back and forth to Charlotte Amelia, so we went back to the car rental place, returned the car early, and took the shuttle back to Crown Bay where our ship was docked.  Good thing we were able to get the camera there since I found out the Maasdam doesn't sell cameras, either.  The one time I only take 1 camera on vacation with me and it dies!!!  I guess it was a good thing we had a car rented.  Back on board the ship, we waited for sunset---one of the couple nice ones we had this trip, then went to dinner.