Exploring
A Beaconite had a jampacked weekend of wellness and fun: She attended Dr. Sharlon Lewis’ Wellness Weekend and experienced sailing after months of rules restricting activity on the water. She feels blessed to really feel the Virgin Islands coming back to life in the midst of Covid-19. On Saturday, her tour stopped at Little Harbour, Peter Island. Curious about the abandoned house on the hill there, she trekked up to it and began taking photos. She posted one of the photos (of broken tiles and beautiful paintwork) on a Facebook page called BVI Photography. Two people commented and posted their own pictures of the art on the wall when it was in its full glory decades ago. She quickly fell into a whirlwind of history, information and stories about the house on Peter Island. She finds herself fascinated by it and intends to dive deeper into research and exploration.
A Rodent of Unusual Size
One aspect of living amid a pandemic is feeling like one is being robbed of life experiences one would otherwise have. A Beaconite has been feeling this in a particularly strong way considering that she only had a few precious months of living in the Virgin Islands before the Covid-19 arrived. But she is doing her best to cope and still find joy in what the VI has to offer, be it trying a golden apple for the first time or getting excited for a new surfing season. Silly as it is, one other new life experience came to pass this week that seems worth noting. She and her roommate successfully chased a Rodent of Unusual Size out of the apartment late Friday night. Armed with a flashlight and a broom, the intrepid reporter helped shoo it out from under the couch and back out the balcony door from whence it came. The Beaconite can verify from her roommate — who, to be fair, did most of the work — that it was indeed an unusually large animal. Dealing with it was a new experience to check off the list of young adulthood. And as an added bonus, the kitchen is spectacularly clean, as the Beaconite cleaned it with verve that night.
On the water
A Beaconite has been on and off many kinds of boats for years, but this month marked the first time she pursued getting any kind of official certification. She doesn’t plan to captain boats on a regular basis, but it’s a great skill to have in a pinch and the Virgin Islands is one of the best places in the world to learn boating. Despite some unusual weather on a Saturday morning that alternated between rainy and hot, it was a beautiful and calm weekend to be working toward her RYA powerboat certificate. Although driving the boat was fairly easy to master and skills such as coiling lines, tying knots and dropping anchor came back to her, she realised that what her boat friends always told her about docking is true, and she probably needs to practise that skill at least 100 more times before she feels comfortable.
US election
As the United States presidential election approaches, a Beaconite has been struck by how much attention Virgin Islands residents are paying to the contest. Of course, the Beaconite has long known about the outsize influence the United States has around the world. But having never lived abroad during an election year, he never grasped the extent to which people from other countries pay attention to major political events in the US. One of the most impressive examples was when the Beaconite was having a conversation this week with a police officer at the Magistrates’ Court, who theorised that Joe Biden would win the presidency because he and Donald Trump were polling almost evenly in Florida, a historically tough state for Democrats like Mr. Biden to carry on election night. If the Democratic contender has enough political might to win Florida, then he’ll probably win the other swing states, too, the theory goes. The Beaconite doesn’t know many US citizens who can provide such sharp political insight about their own presidential race, and he knows even fewer who can make similarly astute observations about politics in other countries.