Lobster
It would be truly difficult to try and find something negative about this past weekend’s Anegada Lobster Festival. Two reporters ferried over to the island on Saturday — one to report, the other purely to eat a lot of lobster — and the day went off without a hitch. The ferry left conveniently from Road Town and was half the price of a normal ticket to Anegada (and also sold rum punch); little maps showed visitors which restaurants and bars were participating in the festival; and, of course, the lobster came in all shapes, sizes and styles. This reporter missed Lobster Fest last year in lieu of going back to the United States to celebrate Thanksgiving, so she’s glad this time around she was in the territory to experience it — even if it meant swapping turkey for lobster.
‘What’s going on?’
A Beaconite who lives in Cane Garden Bay woke a month or so ago to find her beloved neighbourhood unrecognisable. “What’s going on?” she asked a friend. He shrugged and said, “It’s tourist season.” Oh. You see, the Beaconite, who moved to the Virgin Islands in early September 2017, is only just now witnessing what a normal tourist season in the VI truly means. For nearly a year, she was spoiled in that she and her friends, except for the occasional handful of charter guests or foreign volunteers, had CGB to themselves at a time when it would normally be overrun. No longer. What was once an easy and painless jaunt down the hill to relax in relative solitude on the beach, enjoy an unhurried cocktail or go for a swim, is now a baffling ordeal, with a vast array of rentable beach chairs having taken over the formerly empty sand, alongside paddleboard rentals, oversized floats and souvenir shops hawking their wares, akin to the vibe of a large resort. All the spare parking spaces are occupied by safari buses. She and her fellow residents often find themselves retreating to more remote beaches, like Smugglers Cove or Lava Flow. And even though it seems like she’s fallen through a wormhole, she has to remind herself that before Irma swept through, this was just how it was this time of year, and she’d better get used to it. She also recalls how, after Irma, many long-time residents found the silver lining by trying to appreciate the emptier, less-developed landscape, observing that it was “the way things used to be.” At the time, she didn’t quite understand. She definitely understands now.
Bank wait
A Beaconite has been hearing lots of complaints about banking service in the territory recently. This past week, he had his own bad experience. On Friday he tried to go to FirstBank, but the line had around 20 people in it, so he turned back at the door. Maybe the long line made sense, he told himself, because Friday is payday for many workers. But when he returned on Monday, the scene wasn’t much better: More than a dozen people were waiting to be served. But he needed to get his banking done, so he had to stay and wait. And wait he did. Nearly 45 minutes later, he finally reached the counter just as several customers in the line began to grumble loudly. The teller who served him was very quick, professional and polite as usual, so he suspects that the problem is not with the tellers themselves, but with management. Clearly, more tellers are sometimes needed, and surely the bank can figure out a way to add more staffers during peak days. Lest FirstBank feel singled out, the Beaconite has heard similar complaints about most other banks in the territory as well. In a financial services jurisdiction like the VI, poor service is inexplicable.