St. Thomas: Last Sail Before the Veil

After Miami, we headed to St. Thomas to meet up with Amanda and her ladies for the incredible weekend her maid of honor, Becca, had put together for us all.  There were so many quintessential bachelorette party moments, and some of them I'll tell you about here. 

Our villa for the weekend (casual) was incredible.  Up in the hills, it had at least 180 degree views  over the ocean, facing west.  The photo above is sunset from our deck!  Most of the rooms had balconies facing the water, and each had its own bathroom.  Most notably, there was an infinity pool!

Becca secured us transportation for the whole weekend with our main man Dawoop.  Dawoop drives a pickup truck that has both a backseat in the cab and three rows of covered benches in the bed.  We had never seen anything like this vehicle before, but they run rampant in the Virgin Islands!  Dawoop dropped lots of knowledge on us about the island's history, vegetation, and more, and in return we sang his name like a line from "Drop It Like It's Hot": DawooOOOooop!

Dawoop, his crazy tourist taxi truck, and the ladies


You can fit 12 people not just into Dawoop's truck,
but also into this selfie!

That first night, we went to get burgers and to check out the local scene. 

Amanda's second proposal

UCSD Freshman Suite 108!

After dinner, we headed to a bar by the water where there were some truth or dare shenanigans, and then the DJ came on and it started to get hyphy.  Before we knew it, there was a group of quite older people (I'm talking 65, not 40) that were integrating themselves into our dance group.  Getting down to trap music with the cruise ship circuit was definitely an unexpected turn of events!

The next day, Boat Day, was the peak of the weekend.  We had a boat, we had a captain, and we had one bottle of champagne per girl.  I made a playlist for the occasion, and we cruised around the British V.I. blasting Beyonce and twerking, making a ruckus everywhere we went.  You really couldn't miss us.  It was a blast.

Mimosa toasts in sippy goblets

Oh, Captain!  My Captain!

Monkeying around

A big highlight of the day was Sandy Spit, which is famous for being where the Corona commercials were filmed.  It's the tiniest island I've ever seen, and when you're swimming up to it you literally feel like Castaway, or an explorer coming upon the New World.  There's only one palm tree.  You can run around it in about a minute. 

Which we did.

"Corona Island"

Boat cam

We docked for lunch and spent a while filling our bellies and chilling in the sand.

Paradise lunch selfie

Rolling around like children in the sand

 Lovin' up on the bride

Next stop was Willie T's, which is a bar/restaurant on a two-story ship docked in a small, uninhabited bay.  Other boats basically pull up and attach themselves to it.  We came in hot, as usual, blasting music, dancing, and basically taking over the whole place.  And get this: there was a drone flying around filming our arrival.  This is the point where the bachelorette party started to feel like Girls Gone Wild. 

The big thing to do at Willy T's is jump off the top story into the water (preferably, we were told, in various levels of undress).  I'll leave it up to your imagination who in the group did what throughout the multiple jumps.

There are seriously about 1,000 more photos taken at this point in the afternoon, but I'm not at liberty to post them here under the strict non-disclosure agreement we all signed in blood.  I'm not even going to write about it.  These moments will stay burned into my memory!

However, the following three photos will give you a good look into the devolvement of the afternoon:

On the ride back, music still blasting, we had to more or less sit on some of the girls to keep them in the boat.  But to compensate for the challenge of securing wild ladies down for half of us, and the impending loss of dignity for the other half, at least this was our view on the way back to the harbor:

Back at the dock, there were various challenges ranging from tracking down passports to creative bathroom solutions, staying upright to actual flesh wounds.  It was a pretty surreal, hilarious push to get us all back home.  Don't worry, we made it!

In fact, here we all are the next morning, relatively bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, having taken the ferry to St. John and filled our bellies with brunch!

Next up for our day in St. John, we hiked 20 minutes to Solomon Bay.

This spot was gorgeous and we just hung out in the water chatting most of the time we were there.  Here's Kristen, contemplating life, beauty, and probably how much she's enjoying her Chex Mix. 

One last group photo, for good measure:

  

The whole weekend was like an out of body experience.  It was a pleasure to celebrate Amanda, get to spend time with the wonderful ladies she's surrounded herself with, and to do all this in such a naturally stunning and relaxed place.

HUGE thanks to Becca, who has the pleasure of calling St. Thomas home, and who tirelessly planned this incredible getaway for us all.

And to Amanda, we wish you the best and can't wait to continue the wedding celebrations with you (and the boys this time) in Costa Rica!