Two hours later we were still waiting. There was plenty of activity ashore and we could see officials moving about, but none of the activity seemed to be directed toward us, nor did we get any signals. Finally we upped anchor and motored over to Long Bay, where we could see many yachts at anchor. No sooner had we arrived and anchored within happy hailing distance of the Carstarphens, of Shellback (fellow members of the Seven Seas Cruising Association whom we had long been waiting to meet), than a peremptory message was sent out from shore: “Return to King’s Wharf and go up to the dock!”
With our quarantine flag still flying, we headed back across the bay and nudged our way in among a flotilla of interisland boats, a very tricky procedure. There was less than a foot of clearance between the Phoenix and her neighbors when we finally tied up at the dock.
Eventually we were boarded by an immigration official, who seemed extremely irked because we had not come in at once. Being in an irritatingly mellow mood for once, I did not get my back up but only pointed out mildly that a ship entering from a foreign port does not usually dock until told to do so. We had been waiting to be boarded.
“How could we come out?” the official responded angrily. “We don’t have a boat!”
This seemed a good reason, but I wondered why the Coast Guard, which had three boats tied up alongside the dock, could not be induced to offer the services of one of them to Immigration. Meanwhile Barbara joined with me in applying the soothing treatment to our visitor, by serving tea and cookies, and although he made it difficult, we remained almost unbearably pleasant. At length he was sufficiently mollified to say that we might consider ourselves officially entered.
Once again we motored over to Long Bay and this time were allowed to stay.
Charlotte Amalie combines the bizarre tourist atmosphere of a Waikiki with the indolent, quaint flavor of an old Danish town revamped for a modern age. The stores, remodeled in what used to be warehouses, are deep, cool caverns with great steel doors that fold back by day and close to form a solid wall at night. Inside are subdued lights, tasteful decorations, and a display of wares from all over the world. Because St. Thomas is a free port, it is possible to buy luxury items at substantial saving: perfumes from France, clocks and music boxes from Switzerland, Swedish crystal, Danish silverware, tweeds and cashmeres from Britain, and of course liquor and tobacco from any country you care to name.
At the invitation of our fellow yachtsmen we spent one evening in a night-clubbing expedition to hear the renowned “steel bands” of the West Indies. The instruments themselves are ingenious—being fashioned from the cross section of a large steel oil drum, open at the bottom. Some drums are shallow, some deep, and each is made by the individual player, who tunes it by heating the drum until the metal is soft, and then pounding it until he acquires the exact tone he desires. The actual musical quality of such an instrument is a matter of opinion, but the combined effect of a number of them playing in concert is certainly unusual.
It was fun for an evening, but for me once was enough. The pleasure seemed highly artificial, and I suspected that most of the people packed into the room were there not because they actually enjoyed the heat and the noise and the crowd but because they had never learned how to find pleasure in themselves as individuals—only as members of a swarm. By contrast, I found myself recalling (and looking forward to) our peaceful evenings at sea, with familiar constellations wheeling overhead, the soft slap of the waves against the side, and a game of Twenty Questions or an animated discussion to unite my family in a contented, self-sufficient whole.
We sailed on May 20, bound for NEW YORK CITY, as Jessica announced in very large letters in her journal. Ever since leaving South Africa she had been getting more and more impatient to reach “home,” to renew contact with friends whom she had not seen in six years but who remained as dear to her as her family. One of them, indeed, Joan Clark, was her avowed “blood sister”—they had pricked their fingers and exchanged red smears by mail to prove it; and the first six months of 1957 had been designated, by Jessica: “January, February, March, April, May, JOAN!”