Something I've been working on...

I've spent some time writing a book about the last three years of my time on St. Thomas. It is not finished but if anyone would like a copy please Private Message me. Here is the opening:

THE REAL PARADISE
Diary of a Modern-Day Caribbean Pirate

Copyright © 2013 Indiscreet Logic All Rights Reserved

Foreword

These things occurred on and around Saint Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands from the end of 1986 through to the end of 1989. The names here have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent. Only The Creator remembers all of the crimes we have forgotten.

St. Thomas is one island of the USVI, which is a group of four larger islands and more than fifty smaller islets and cays in the leeward part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies. It is a tropical volcanic island that is 13 miles long and 3 miles wide at its farthest points, and is contained within 32 square miles. St. Thomas is very mountainous, rising from sea level to over 1500 feet at its highest peak, Crown Mountain.

The majority of the roads on St. Thomas are thin, with barely enough room for two cars to pass. Most of the island's roads are on the side of a mountain, with one side cliff and the other side solid rock. Any road with two lanes wide enough for two trucks to pass is designated as a highway. It used to be that there were few guard rails and very little lighting, which has changed in recent years. I can remember a water truck being stuck in a tree off the side of a cliff near my father's house; it was there for a few months.

Driving is on the left side of the road and the driver's side of cars is on the left, which works out well because all you have to do is watch your side of the road, rather than trying to judge an oncoming car. Passing a vehicle is dangerous, at best, almost anywhere on the island.

St. Thomas is party central, with tourism as the number one industry. In the Eighties it was the number one cruise ship port in the world, and frequently well over twenty thousand tourists a day come to the island off of the cruise ships alone, with more than two million tourists coming to St. Thomas each year. Considering that there are about 55,000 people on St. Thomas, this is a large influx of people on a daily basis.

Alcohol was cheaper than soda or milk - Cruzan Rum, which is made in St. Croix, was $0.89 a fifth in 1989, and sometimes I have had to ask for more cola in my Rum & Coke at bars. You can buy hard liquor almost anywhere on the island 24/7/365; I have had the experience of buying Coors Light in Burger King.

I must explain that the police and government officials in the USVI are generally very corrupt and inept at handling crime. As of this writing, there are usually as many murders per capita as there are in the worst crime cities in the continental United States, and they only solve 33% of the murders - compared to the 62% national United States rate. The murder rates and solvency for a small community like this are disturbing.

I was arrested once and I have the dubious distinction of doing time in their jail. Not long after I was there, it was rated as the worst prison or jail in all of the United States, by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The stories here are not in chronological order.

.... and so on.