St. Croix, January 2 1938
Dear Marie and Valdemar,
happy new year and thanks for your old one. We are unpredictable and especially very touchy, therefore we now sit on St. Croix or more directly said fly from the one place to the other and drink and eat and stuff ourselves. Here is an especially friendly Danish Colony – well, I start from the beginning. Thanks for the letters that were waiting on St. Thomas. I cannot answer them for they are in “Restmore”. I have deserted for the time being and have neglected to learn them by heart. We came to St. Thomas a couple of days before Christmas and one hour after the arrival a young man came and said, “Hallo, come home with us and have a piece of black bread with salami.” We visited them. He is married with a lady from Copenhagen, they have 2 children, a boy 5 years old and a girl of 2 years. Then we also were invited for Christmas Eve. So, we had Christmas Eve taken care of, a big Christmas tree, baked duckling and red cabbage, ice cream and coffee with Christmas cookies. It was all Danish that one. Everything that is Danish there is connected with the Danish West Indian Company. The Danes live on a road that takes you from town to the company along the beach and that is of course “Strandpromenade” (Strandstreet – as in Denmark between Copenhagen and Helsingor) Beach Promenade. Furthermore, the old street signs are still there with Danish names so we felt very much home with Bredgade (Broad Street), Kanalgade (Canal Street) etc. over the water and under the water. The General Consul’s wife didn’t come home from Europe on the 4th Christmas day so the consul decided he wanted to see us for New Year’s but it couldn’t happen this year because on the 4th Christmas day a young Danish woman came and asked if we wanted to sail her and her husband to St. Croix because the steamer was on strike and they were supposed to go to work the next day. In a matter of 2 hours we were on the way with a full load of Christmas visitors who had to go home to St. Croix. The lady said I and the children should keep a vacation for a couple of days by her. Peter doesn’t dare leaving the boat 20 km away from the town but they have a car and riding horses. The children are afraid of the horses and shake in their pants when they see them, but I am more courageous and got a horseback ride around the house guided by the man who takes care of the horses, just like a round in the Tivoli for 25 Øre as he held the bridle. They have a sugar cane farm and they have a nice big house with a big guest room. They don’t have any children. New Year’s Eve Peter and I were guests of honor at a supper in the Country Club. The mood and the food were good. They sang ten times for Peter, “He is a jolly good fellow” and afterwards for me ten times “For she is a jolly good fellow” and poor Peter had to say in English that he thought America was wonderful especially St. Croix which he of course also thinks as we are in a drunken state, we go from cocktail to cocktail. I forgot to tell you about Christmas Eve that we attended a Danish church service, an old mission minister from Africa preached. The service began Christmas Eve at 5 o’clock in bright sunlight with open windows and doors and outside on the streets you could hear the fireworks, so it was difficult to concentrate on the religious service. I was impressed that the natives sang a Christmas carol in Danish. Now I have returned to “Restmore” and I try to come into the daily routine again. On St. Thomas there was a fine Christmas present from Frederik, a new mainsail, we were very impressed over his speed in exporting and if then there is an amount missing in his payments it is for the sail. Now we speculate night and day about what to do with the old one, sell it to a fisherman or cut it in small pieces, let Peter write his valuable autograph on every one and sell each for a Dollar, what do you think? Isn’t that an American idea? The boat for the doctor in Martinique of course became too expensive. It takes an awful lot of Francs to equal a Crown. We still haven’t written to Often but it’s on the program.
Best wishes and good luck with the new radio, too bad our radio waves don’t reach any farther than our blessed kids can master when they really scream at each other. Can you pick it up? Otherwise we would have liked to say a couple of friendly words directed towards you through the air. Furthermore, we thank you for the Christmas magazine and the Sailsports magazines that were also waiting for us on St. Thomas. One of these days we will return there and will then fix up the packages for you but we wouldn’t put so much rum in as we would like to since we have heard that you pay 7 to 8 Crowns custom duty for one bottle. Now I don’t have any more news for this time and finish off with many loving greetings from yours
sincerely Anna, Lars, Peter, Else.
We have now turned back to the busy harbor town of St. Thomas. Yesterday we were on a nice car trip around the island which is very beautiful invited by the General Consul and had lunch in his home.
The next address is: Danish Consulate San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA, West Indies.