We wrenched ourselves away from Antigua on Wednesday morning bound for St. Barths, but we quickly decided to change course and make for the US Virgin Islands directly. That decision was based largely on the need to buy Evans a new computer - his has been in its death throes for the past two months. Since we needed to go shopping, it only made sense to head for the closest bit of America. As any cruiser will tell you, America is shopping paradise, and many of our foreign friends take quite convoluted routes when flying from the boat to their home countries to spend a few days in some American city hitting the malls and shopping on the Internet. "All you need is a credit card and a US address," they say. And it's true!

Our change of course made for a very pleasant overnight passage with 15-18 knots of wind shifting between the beam and the stern quarter every couple of hours, almost no swell and not a single squall. Before the moon rose, the stars stood looked like layer upon layer of sparkling gems scattered across the sky. The phosphorescence was as gentle as the night, winking fireflies playing on the dark water on the leeward side of the boat. We saw a procession of cruise ships making their way from the Virgins to St. Martin like jets lined up on a flight path, but we were far enough south that they remained surreal glowing castles streaming across the northern horizon. It was a perfect night sail, one that made us think of how few overnights we have left before returning to the Chesapeake and some time ashore.

And once in the good old US of A... we shopped. Office Max and Radio Shack served up a computer and a phone with all the trimmings. All we needed to do was flash our plastic. Then we retreated to the boat before our plastic jumped out of our wallet and flashed itself! We spent this morning at the local cybercafé, Badass Coffee, on the fastest Internet connection we've seen in more than three years. No sitting and waiting for two minutes while the website loads, and streaming video actually streams instead of stuttering to a halt every ten seconds. But we've also been shocked by the traffic, and it feels as if even here, in the Caribbean US, everyone is hyped on caffeine and just a bit touchy. We're a long way from being acclimated, even though we know that the Virgins are moving at walking pace compared to what we'll find when we get back to the States.

We've rarely felt culture shock when making landfall at an exotic destination. After all, we expect that most things will be different, and we're always surprised at how much is the same. The basics don't change that much - in the places we have visited most people live in houses with four walls and a roof, most get water through a tap and most have indoor plumbing. Food gets bought in a supermarket, mail gets sent from a post office, people drive cars, people without cars take buses and international travelers come through airports.

But whenever we have returned to our own country, the culture shock has been all but overwhelming. We expect things will not have changed in our absence, but they have and at lightning speed. And we have been changed by our experiences, so that we don't quite fit anymore, a square peg trying to slide smoothly back into a round hole. Yet we also have the luxury of being observers of our own culture, of seeing things we would never have noticed before and won't notice again in another few months. For the moment, American energy and can-do enthusiasm seems a bit overwhelming. But we're really enjoying American convenience, the "have it your way" attitude combined with "of course it's in stock!" No other country in the world does that better.

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