I woke up today all excited and ready to go for our last port, St Thomas, but also feeling a bit melancholy because ... well ... this is our last port which means the cruise is on the downward slide to.. over!! No time to mope though because as always port mornings are busy, jump up, get dressed and packed for the day, breakfast done and some photos from the decks as we come into port. We met Heather and Tim in the Atrium again as they are spending the day with us, I hired a car to pick up at 9am from Avis in the Mall at Havensight which is where the ship is docked. It was about a 5 minute walk to Avis and they didn't have our car there so once the paperwork was done we had to wait around for about 10 minutes.. no problem, we took the time to watch the traffic coming and going, watched clueless cruise ship passengers wander along the middle of the road like browns cows... we seriously thought some of them would get skittled! Finally we're in the car and on our way, I handed my phone to our nominated navigator, Tim, and he got straight on the case with google maps. I hadn't had phone coverage for the entire cruise but as St Thomas is in the US Virgin Islands my AT & T sim seems to be up and running again. We drove along the waterfront for a few minutes, through Charlotte Amalie and somehow with everyone talking and pointing out things missed the first turn ( I must say here that I had done this trip on google earth at home several times and we sailed past the turn off I recognised from that without any word from Tim so seems google has changed it's course but I bit my tongue and said nothing ). "Oh well", Tim and Rodd say, "we'll just take the next right and go around the block back"... hmmm... yes... really.. well it seems the streets of St Thomas are somewhat like the streets of Affissos ( for those of you that read my blog from Greece ) and "Jane" was once again at her finest finding all the goat tracks and back roads she can find because for the next 10 minutes we drove down tiny, skinny, crowded little streets, and I use the term very loosely!! At one point we were heading up a hill following a good distance behind a van and as we rounded the corner the road dropped away at an alarming angle and the van was now trying to do a left hand turn at the bottom which necessitated a 5 point turn to manage the sharp angle ... Rodd put his foot slowly and steadily on the brake but the car just kept sliding down the road for what seemed like an age but was probably only 30 seconds... oh did I say it had started sprinkling too??? Heather calls out "Rodd, what are you doing?" to which Rodd very wisely said nothing or maybe he was just so worried about the car sliding down the hill and killing us all he couldn't get a word out!! I however for the whole time we've been "taking the road less traveled" have been laughing and saying how much fun this is to be lost and how it seems to be the story of my life lately always having to take the back roads and I couldn't help but throw in a "really Jane" every so often!! So, our day in St Thomas is off to a cracking start but finally Jane manages to get us to the top of the mountain, the views along the way are simply stunning and quite frankly I'm really glad we went this way as there wasn't all the tourist buses and cars on this narrow road. First stop was supposed to be Drakes Seat... as in Sir Francis Drake, apparently he used this spot as a lookout to spy on the enemy ships of the Spanish Fleet.. and it does have a fantastic view but unfortunately we, once again, drove around up and down for a bit looking for it as Tim insisted that google maps says it was "right here"!! Oh well never mind lets just head on to Mountain Top then... you have no idea what these roads are like, they go off in all directions without too many signs and don't forget we're not on the road always traveled we're on the back roads so Tim says "just keep heading up, we'll find it eventually cos it looks like all roads end there" and just as he says that we see a sign saying Mountain Top so we take the turn and as we're heading up we get to a switchback corner with a car in front of us and a bus trying to come down around that corner, well he needs the whole road so after a bit of horn honking and other manoeuvering the car in front of us manages to squeeze past him and head off up the road but there's no way we're getting past him so Rodd just heads off straight ahead up this tiny little laneway that looked like someones driveway, well as it turns out we did end up at Mountain Top but we came in the back way up a very interesting little track!! Mountain Top is definitely worth a stop, it's the biggest souvenir shop I have ever seen with heaps of great stuff, I could have stayed in there for hours and spent a fortune, but the view is spectacular. From here we were heading off to Secret Harbor for an afternoon of snorkeling and relaxing as we drove down the hill we came around a corner and voila.. Drakes' seat!! So of course we stopped for photos, we had unwittingly timed our stop perfectly because we got the last spot in the car park and one by one everyone else left so we were virtually there on our own for a few moments until the next wave started arriving and as it happened also the rain! As soon as we walked onto the beach we saw Ron and Nancy but they were the only other people from the cruise ship we saw, when doing my research I wanted to find a quieter beach, away from all the crowds and Secret Harbor certainly fits the bill. We had a great time, the snorkeling was great, lots of different fish and I even saw a squid although none of the others saw it. We ate lunch at the beachside restaurant and when Ron and Nancy left they left their loungers for us so I spent the rest of the afternoon laying back sipping on Pina Coladas while the others got in some more snorkeling. All too soon it was time to head back to the ship which we managed find without any more side trips or back roads, we did make a stop to top the car up before dropping it back at Avis and that was a bit of an experience, same as in Vegas really. Back on board we, as always, go straight to the cabin to get showered and dressed for the night. We then headed out with drinks we had left from last night and ran into Heather and Tim on the Pool deck, from there we went to the casino where I played some Craps and then joined Heather and Tim for some Blackjack but no luck tonight so by 7.15 we were in the Stardust Lounge for the show Graffiti Classics, this is 2 couples that play classical music with 2 violins, a cello and I think a viola but they put a slant on it and throw in some comedy, very amusing and entertaining show. From there we went all over the place, I know this because I looked at the cabin charges and there's charges from Dazzles ( where I know we were dancing ), Topsiders and the Casino... I have no idea what order it all happened in and I assume at some stage of the night we went to the buffet for dinner but I do know Rodd and Tim went off to bed and Heather and I ended up sitting right up the front of the ship on Deck 13 tucked up under the railing chatting... ahhhh well we have a sea day tomorrow!