We had a fabulous trip back to St. Croix from the BVIs. The seas were fairly calm, wind was very friendly, and everyone had a turn at the helm. Before we knew it, we were anchored near the St. Croix Yacht Club again. The outer reef offers a fair amount of protection, we had a nice breeze at all times, and we had a lovely view of Buck Island. Life doesn’t get much better than that.
Something about being on St. Croix makes us feel like we are home, and we were eager to share exploring the island with people who hadn’t been there before. The cousins spoiled us, taking us all over the place, including some new places we somehow hadn’t seen before.
Over the years, we’ve enjoyed the view of the Hotel on the Cay (on Protestant Cay), but during this trip we had our visit to the Cay itself and their primary beach. The hotel looked like it may have been undergoing some renovations, but we were still able to grab lunch and beverages on the beach. There was also plenty of silliness going on, with the boys doing their very best impersonation of the influencers posing and frolicking on the beach. For the sake of my marriage, I will not share any of that video or photos. Our guys were clearly more talented when it came to looking good on the beach.
On another day, we took the boat and cousin out to Buck Island National Reef National Park. We couldn’t believe we had the whole island all to ourselves. This never happens, and we took full advantage of the situation. We spent the day exploring the park, swimming, snorkeling, and just taking it all in without any crowds. There was an incident with an escaped pool noodle, which little sister tried to swim out to save, but hubby ended up saving the day with the dinghy. She turned back to swim to our boat a little too soon, as she missed seeing the biggest turtle the rest of us have ever seen.
Another adventure had us checking out the beer drinking pigs at Mt. Pellier’s Domino Club. For their health, the pigs are now on the wagon so to speak, and are limited to either non-alcoholic beer or ginger beer. Kevin Bacon was a crowd favorite and more than a little greedy with his beverages. If you are ever in the area, it is important to note that it can be rather mosquito-y in that area, so make sure you are prepared for that. Also, you should probably not even joke about where they get the meat for the roast pork sandwiches on their menu… no matter how curious you may be about how a diet of beer impacts the flavor of that meat. Their residents do not end up on the menu. Trust me. Don’t even ask.
Another part of our island tour was Point Udall, the eastern most point of the United States. The view was amazing, even though we did not get up in time to see it at sunrise. A sunrise adventure was never going to make it on our itinerary. Not only was vacation meant for rest and relaxation between our adventures, but we were not an organized group in the early morning. Even so, we entertained ourselves every step along the way, and we were grateful to have our personal and very patient tour guide keep us out of trouble.
Of course we made sure to enjoye a fabulous meal at our favorite restaurant. In our humble opinion, Duggan’s Reef is the best on the island. We aren’t the only ones who love them, which is evident by how fast they are fully booked, so it is best to make your reservations early. Everything was amazing amazing as always, and I now have a new favorite: the Filet Mignon special.
We enjoyed our time on St. Croix, and were sad when the time came for our visitors to fly home. After they left, we stayed on island for another month while we worked through projects and waited for ordered parts to arrive. It was a good thing the boat was keeping us busy, as we were suffering a sort of empty nest with our visitors gone.
When the weather looked friendly, we took our very well provisioned selves back out to sea to start our journey down the Eastern Caribbean to Grenada, where we planned to spend the upcoming hurricane season.
Traveling Team Fischer 