Anne Bonny (1703–1724) was an English pirate who ran away with a sailor at a young age. She eventually took up with “Calico Jack” Rackhan and joined him on his pirate forays in the Caribbean. She was noted for teasing her male adversaries then shooting them. Our ship left St. Martin and headed northwest toward the U.S. Virgin Islands. As Linda and I sat on the deck watching the sunset, she wondered aloud: What if the ship sinks, and we get stranded on a deserted island?

She was not concerned about the silly Gilligan outcome or the Robinson Crusoe/ Tom Hanks lonely survival, but in her very practical manner, she wanted to know how to find drinking water. Remembering my Peace Corps training and the many stories of wilderness exploration I have read, I calmed her with my five rules to find water:

Blackbeard’s Tower sits on a hill high above Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. It is said that he used the tower to spot his victims sailing by. 1. Make containers of any kind to collect rainwater.

2. Tie rags around your ankles and walk in grass in the early morning. Dew will collect in the rags, and you can squeeze it out and drink it.

3. Locate banana trees or, if the island is a desert, cactus plants. These contain liquid, which is drinkable.

4. Circle the island’s coastline and look for streams flowing into the sea. Follow the stream inland to where the water is free of salt. Do not drink salt water or water from stagnant or standing pools.

5. Scan the sky and the beach for birds. Where they gather, there is probably fresh water.

Between my advice and the margarita, her mind was eased and soon my wife and I went back to our cabin.

Edward Teach (1670–1718), known as Blackbeard the Pirate, was said to be the most fierce pirate of the Caribbean. He would terrify his enemy by lighting a cannon fuse tied to his beard, causing smoke to waft above his head. The next morning we docked at Charlotte Amalie, the capital of St. Thomas. Fifty–six thousand people live on this island of 32 square miles.

St. Thomas is one of the three major islands that make up the American territory of the US Virgin Islands. It is the most commercially developed with fine bays and beaches. St. John is the smallest at just 20 square miles and just 3,500 people. St. Croix is the largest, 84 square miles, and is largely arid, almost desert–like. 50,000 people live there.

These islands, just east of Puerto Rico, have been home to many people: Arawaks, Caribs, Spanish, French, British, Dutch, Danish, and finally Americans. Columbus discovered St. Croix on his second voyage and was confronted by the Caribs. He named and charted the Virgins archipelago, which now includes the US and British Virgin Islands.

The US Virgin Islands have been an American territory since 1917. Charlotte Amalie is the oldest settlement in the islands and was a busy port for tobacco, sugar, cotton, coffee, and slaves during the 16th–18th centuries. The Danes settled and named Charlotte Amalie for their queen in 1666.

Many pirates used the Virgin Islands as a haven during the 16th and 17th centuries—Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Mary Read, and Anne Bonny. The privateer Francis Drake raided the Spanish from the secluded bays of St. Thomas.

On the hill overlooking Charlotte Amalie is Blackbeard’s Tower, now a National Historic Landmark where allegedly the pirate spied on ships sailing the Caribbean. It is now a small hotel and a fine restaurant. On the grounds are bronze statues of many of the famous pirates including Blackbeard and Mary Bonny.

The Virgin Islands developed a slave plantation economy and participated in the triangle trade: metal and textiles from Europe to Africa, slaves to the Caribbean, sugar and rice back to Europe. I was hoping to find some mention of Capt. Lightburn in St. Thomas. Styles Lightburn and his brothers were deeply involved in this trade between the American Revolution and the Civil War. They owned a rice plantation on Wadmalaw Island, a fleet of ships in Savannah, and a slave trading post in Guinea, West Africa.

The US bought St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million. These US Virgin Islands have housed a Navy base, a Marine airfield, and an Army base over the years. Citizenship was given the islanders in 1927 and, soon thereafter, universal suffrage. Today, the islands have a small measure of self–government, but there is no movement for statehood as there is in Puerto Rico. They do send an elected delegate to Congress.

We were re–entering U.S. territory, so we had to go through immigration and customs. We had to show our passports, but it was mostly perfunctory, no body or shoe searches.

It was nice to re–enter good old America with its English language, U.S. dollars, ATM machines, and standardized signs. This is not to say these were absent in Tortola, Antigua, or St. Martin, but here they were legitimate and the place felt more like home.

(Continued next week)