Tuesday 10/6 - I Got Pooped on by a Booby

Originally, the trip to St. John was supposed to be a trip to the beach.

We boarded the 1pm ferry to another one of the beautiful territories in the USVI, St. John. Deciding it was a bit too early for a beach run and that we were way overdue on the day's first beverage, Kiersten, DC, Beth and I stopped in at Tap Room to get a little R & R (rum and root beer). It wasn't long before we spent the entire day at this fine establishment. Soon we were visited by Brent, who was captaining the Island Girl and taking tourists from their cruise ship to St. John and back. After some laughs he told us we could save our return ticket for the ferry for another day and offered us a ride home on the Island Girl with the tourists. Of course we accepted.

Kiersten and Beth are naturally outgoing people so it wasn't long before we had a dialogue going with the Cuban family in front of us. The father understood English but could not speak it, while DC understood Spanish and spoke very little. While DC, the father and the son were struggling to understand each other, Kiersten was showing the mother houses and claiming that each was "Nicholas Cage's house", "Barbara Streisand's house" or "Shakira's house". Mind you that none of those people live here.

That's when it happened. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a "booby" as "Any of several tropical sea birds of the genus Sula, resembling and related to the gannets." Basically, it is St. Thomas' version of a seagull, and they were swarming the Island Girl.

They had been flying by my head the whole boat ride, so it had gotten to the point where I was ignoring them. And just like with girls - as soon as I ignored it, it shat all over me. I caught its release out of the corner of my eye. In my mind I quickly calculated the trajectory of the Booby bowel and I knew it was headed right for me - but suddenly I was paralyzed. Like a baseball player tracking a pitch, I watched as it splattered down my right arm and on the chair behind me. My blue and white striped shirt now had strong accents of gray.

I've since been told that it is good luck to be shat on by a Booby on a boat. I'm not so sure I believe it.