Sunday, May 12
Hunted for last- minute seashells as we harbored thoughts of our final morning pineapple. Dressed and packed in time for a farewell piña colada ... the end of a marvelous and perfect honeymoon.
My parents have always been avid shell collectors, and it's a favorite pastime of ours too, so with last-day blues setting in, Joy and I set out to find a beach to call our own. Working on a tip we got a few days earlier, we search for Lindquist Beach on the island's northeastern shore. It takes us awhile to find the unmarked entrance road, and when we finally pull into a dusty lot with two other vehicles, one of them has a bumper sticker that reads, "Jah Is My Co-Pilot." Island cars. Jackpot. When we reach the sun-dappled shore, we regret we hadn't found Lindquist sooner. The white-sand beach is nearly empty. Two boys – both with ribbed tank tops and thin rows of braids – are racing by their dad in the shallows, and a 20-something former mainlander is enjoying a dip with her visiting mom.
That's it. On a beach that's perfectly pristine, there's no one else in sight. As we gaze into the distance, there's not even a building within eyeshot. Just an endless island view from a place that feels so evocative of the St. Thomas of my parents' past. We laze the day away, and when Joy and I troll the water's edge for shells, my father's sentiments echo across the decades: "the end of a marvelous and perfect honeymoon."
