The amazing thing about well planned adventures is that they can include everyone. My wife discovered this venue so she oped to be included. As I structured the event, I included my wife, my granddaughter and my son-in-law in the first run and signed them up for one hour of Class II to III. The following picture says it all.

They all look happy and enjoyed the thrills. After about 40 minute, Dolores decided to quit because of the biting cold. It was about 50 degrees out and you were covered with mist and water from waves and the wind was about 10 miles an hour. Still she had a great time and enjoyed it as did Carson and Cayla.

The second run was scheduled for two hours of Class III to IV rapids where you can run the course about 6 times. The following picture was taken on the first or second run and everybody is all smiles. Amazingly we did not know that our picture was being taken and those smiles are natural.

In the third round, they did a Jackass move called surfing which bares no relation to leisurely riding the crest of a wave with skill and determination. In whitewater rafting, you stick the nose of the craft into a rapid and paddle like mad. The move takes skill and high energy and there is no particular thrill involved like riding the crest of a 6 foot trailing swell in an ocean going kayak.

While engaged in this so called surfing using all your power to go up stream, the inevitable happened, I got tossed out of the raft and went under. I can’t believe that my wife actually captured the sequence on our old and slow digital camera.

OOPs we lost John and everybody is looking for him in the rapids. Take note the safety spotter on the shoreline in the first two pictures.

The dip under the rapids was about 12 feet deep and when I didn’t pop up, the spotter started to run downstream apparently for body recovery.

I finally popped up and some non- employees came to the rescue while my granddaughters wait and watch. Take note that the spotter and my raft had give up on finding me in this area and are not in the picture.

My heros who went down stream for body recovery return upstream to claim me.

I get back in the raft for another trip around.

I really wasn’t happy about this bath because of the chill factor. I had dressed with care wearing underwear, bicycle shorts (to support that sometimes painful groin tendon), pants and a wet suit and boots. On top, I had a tee shirt, long sleeve pull over, a nylon pullover and a wind breaker. The joke was I stayed down so long because I had so much wet clothing weighting me down.

I explained, that my training held me down. When thrown in the open ocean from a craft, the rules are relax, head for the light, save your energy and let the life preserver do the work. What I forgot was I was under a water fall and the current was driving me down and without some effort on my part, I was never going to surface.

I went around one more time and then go out. My daughter thanked me for the advice as they were dumped on the next run and she is a powerful trained swimmer. She first moved to get out of the current while looking for the light and had a much easier time.

I can’t help but believe our dunking was on purpose as we quit early and our guide who showed up late could leave early as we were his last run of the day. Perhaps management should pay the guides by the number of successful times they navigate the course and if they lose a tourist out of the boat, they don’t get paid for the run.

I’m not turned off on white water rafting, I’m simply turned off by a guide who dumped every passenger into the water while staying dry himself. I still plan on doing the real deal in the next couple of years.

My wife Dolores was definitely in the planning and executing process for this trip.  The cold doesn’t bother her physically, mentally or spiritually and I go down for the count on all three.  So we went up to DC to see the Granddaughters and get a rental car for the weekend on Thursday.  On Friday, we drove north to Doylestown, Pennsylvania and spent time with my Mom who is 90.  She was in pretty good shape for a person that age which means she’s limited to her wheelchair and bed but she still has her mind and a modest sense of humor. We went to visit her again on Saturday and then started our adventure.

Now you just cant get to McHenry Maryland from Doylestown Pa without driving due west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and then South along the Cumberland Valley to McHenry. Eastern Pennsylvania is not really flat, but goes from rolling hills in the east to the Allegany Mountains in the West. Some of the turnpike has deep ravines next to the road which was cut in the mountainside and there are a few tunnels that go under the mountains. The worst part is the cross winds rolling off the hills which bounce you around when your doing eighty – quite a thrill. Once you exit the turnpike and start driving south the pace is a little less hectic.

Western Maryland is one of those very friendly rural areas which hasn’t learned to be rude to tourists – YET!.  When we stopped for gas in Accident, we asked directions to McHenry coming to the belief from Mapquest, that McHenry had more than a strip mall and a traffic light.  You go to love the directions.  Go down the highway until you see the next BP station go in the front and out the back and you will be at your Hotel, the Deer Creek Lodge. 

This is one of those cute old hunting lodges with friendly folks who even give you a Duralog for the very functional fireplace. At the front desk, you get directions and opinions on everything within 5 miles so we had dinner at the Black Bear Tavern and Breakfast the next day at Annies in Accident.  (That’s the name of the next town up the road.)

Dolores included herself as an intrepid whitewater rafter but she would have enjoyed herself at dinner anyway.

Carson and Dagny are always fun to be with and even when their having a marital spat. (where my daughter is always right) They have the decency to keep it to themselves.

My two granddaughters, Cayla and Ana have built a bond of love even though we live about 1500 miles away. Of course it helps that we have squandered the family fortune by visiting them about 6 times a year and having them spend about 2 months total in  St. Croix on there 2-3 trips each year.

Hell, even if whitewater rafting was a bust, we had a bundle of fun and a good meal. The staff was excellent and was never bothered by the trips to the bathroom, food on the floor and the dramatic exit when Ana left shrieking after being reprimanded for not sitting still.  (Actually I left with Ana and the rest stayed to enjoy the meal.) 

PS The food on the floor was mine as I still haven’t learned to eat left handed while holding two loving girls on my lap. 

Some how, I’ve missed whitewater rafting.  As a kid I used to climb the rocks and dive into the creek and whenever I was around water I lost my fear of heights.  At age 12, I used to dive from a 3 meter board at a pool and it took them 3 years to figure out I didn’t know how to swim.  I mean I would dive when it was my turn and then swim under water to the nearest ladder and get out of the pool and get in line again.  It never occurred to me that there was a reason to swim on top of the water and yes, I can still swim 25 meters under water. Years back, I even dove off a 15 meter board and went in head first. I’m told it looked perfect and I was treated like a stud, but my aching back knew the truth.

As a Boy Scout, I learned to canoe and since moving to the Virgin Islands have taken up open ocean Kayaking.  I’ve been in both a 16 foot boat and 11 foot Kayak when I had to face 10-12 foot swells.  It is quite a thrill when you survive.   

Tubing down the Delaware (now that it’s clean) is a lot of fun but not very challenging. My mother-in-law went along with my wife and I when she was 65 (I used to think that was old!). Years earlier, my wife and I took a house boat up the Rideau Canal through all 47 locks and I’ve spent time motor boating on the St. Lawrence River, the Delaware River, Barnaget Bay and St. Croix. I’ve been sailing in the Chesapeake, the St. Lawrence, St. Croix and Sandy Hook in the Atlantic.

Obviously it’s not fear of water that has kept me from whitewater rafting but lack of opportunity. I made up my mind that if I ever visit my nephew Michael and his new wife Anna in Colorado, I am going to take some time to do whitewater rafting.  People who have done it all tell me I’m nuts.  They all loved it for the thrills, but they know how much I suffer below 72 degrees and told me I would never survive the chill of damp and wet 50 degrees in the shade without bawling like a baby. 

Once again, it was my wife to the rescue as she read an article in the Washington Post about an artificial course in McHenry Maryland, the very western part of the state.  I tried researching  the course but there was very little information and there web site is not overwhelmingly informative on the adventure side. 

Seems this is a do good-er venture where the founder is also the founder of a adventure tourism program at the local community college and the 24 million dollar venture is a non profit corporation with only four permanent employees and a seasonal staff of 30.  They brag about sustainable Eco-Tourism and the synergy of the artificial pond being used to water grass and and provide a cold water source for artificial snow making great energy savings.  The course opened in May 2007 right before the June Washington Post article and in August they held the National Slalom Kayak Championships.

Famous Last words!

What could be safer than an artificial course and I chose the weekend of October 15th to go so I could feel the chill of real white water rafting.

Now the first issue of the day is that Brian is a dedicated dealer for Hobie Foot peddle Kayaks. Boom – two protests!

Our group started as three couples who knew each other and then he had a request from a professional Tour Operator (Ay-Ay Eco Hike & Tours) to join him for the Day. The tour guide is also involved in Eco tourism only his speciality is hiking.  Seems Ras Lumumba, the hiking guide is a direct descendant of the Caribs (Half Carib and half Afro Caribbean). His speciality is endurance hiking and plants. 

When he heard I had Angles Trumpet and Black Wattle in my Voodoo Garden of Biologically active plants, we immediately bonded.  As a Carib, he knew the right way to be in a canoe was sitting upright with a paddle in your hands. Likewise I met Brian 10 years ago and told him immediately that these foot peddle ocean going machines were unnatural and against Gods will which is why he sent the angles to Sodom and Gomorrah (or something like that). 

Well today was his show and each Kayak had foot peddles and it was his way or the highway so I chose to use my feet more productively and tried the Hobie ocean going foot peddled Kayak.

Dolores was in the front seat and I in the rear.  She did not protest the foot peddles as she is just starting to get into this structured excercise thing and doesn’t have a whole lot more experience with a kayak paddle. 

The first leg was easy about 3/4 mile, mostly in the lee of the upwind hills.  The second leg was a bitch – probably about 1 mile against the nastiest 25 mile wind as it funneled through the hills while causing waves and cross currents to the surf which rolled in from accross the reef.  I knew two things as I made the crossing.  First, if I had been in my own Kayak with oars, I never would have made that passage against wind and current Second, I would have chosen an alternate path in the lee of the hills which would have gotten me almost as far with a lot less work. 

The return trip was in the lee of the hills and the trip back to our starting point was challenging but do-able in almost any kayak.

During the 3 hour trip there was  the sun, the surf, the waves and the wind.  I have to admit that the Hobie was a hell of a machine and I couldn’t have made the same trip in my own Kayak.  Perhaps the most challenging part of the whole day was the exposure to knowledge.

It seem that St. Croix is one crossroad of Amerindian History and center for historic cultural clash.  The Carib Indians came up the island chain from Venezuala in the south and the Taino Indians came across from Cancun in Mexico. The Taino carried with them their stone working ability and built a cermonial ball court like the ones in Mexaco. The Carib brought their ability to make war and their desire for woman from outside their own tribe.  By the time Colombus arrivied, he was met by Carib Wariers with their Tanio wives. He was resoundingly defeted at the Cape of Arrows and following the example of the Carib warriors, sought solace in the arms of Taino woman residing in Puerto Rico and the west.

It was a fine day walking and Kayaking in the footsteps of history while accompanied by two excellent Tour Guides of our Island.

Note: In my last post about Kayaking, I talked about open Ocean Kayaking off Cane Bay where the wall drops 7000 feet within a 1/2 mile of shore.  Actually, Brian told us the trench gets to be 14,000 feet deep just north of Cane Bay and while he might go to that area in wind and current like Sunday, he wouldn’t take anybody else in those conditions.  My buddy Ted said he wouldn’t do it and I’m simply not sure. There is Awestom, and then there is just plain stupid.

When I took a job as a roofer, I would simply never look down and when I had to go to the edge, I would crawl. The fact is if anyone joked with me or touched me when I was close to the edge, they were likely to get a very hard punch or two. Money or dare would overcome my fear of heights but it always returned. While in Italy, there was a trip to the Devils Cave at the bottom of a 300 foot drop. I was telling the rest of the party, I could not cross the bridge to get to the elevator when a friendly Canadian woman started pushing me across the bridge. She jumped back as she recognized she was about to be punched. I have never hit a woman in my life but she was to be my first exception. I waited in a souvenir shop and had a couple of beers as everybody else took the 2 hour tour. The pictures showed I had missed a fantastic cave.

Fear is interesting as it is it seems to be a controllable emotion. You either avoid the stimulus or control the anxiety. Now I decided I wanted the sensation of flight more than I was concerned with the fear of heights. I have not been hang gliding extensively (16 dune flights and one 2000 ft tandem), but I have yet to see anybody who actually paid their money and got ready for flight back out due to fear. Maybe because the initial lessons involve a childlke game of running down a hill with a kite strapped to your back. The most reluctant of our group which was Carson did not sign up until he saw his wife and me fly. Then he joined the fun. Cait joined a year later and over came her fear of heights for a wonderful time.

Years ago, I used to go hot air ballooning on a regular basis. I used to let the pilots use my farm as a balloon port. Every chance I got, I would hitch a ride. It was an almost surreal out of body experience where you silently floated above everybody and every place and silently observed the world. At no point did I ever have any fears and I really never had any fear of flying in jumbo jets.

The closest I had to anxiety in an airplane was a breezy. Now this was an open body homemade airplane with a Corvair bucket seat up front and the rear seat behind. The only canvas was on the wings, tail and rudder the rest was an open pipe frame. the engine was mounted above the wing and it was behind the passengers in the pusher configuration. It was owned by a pilot friend and we were all drinking at the 4th of July party and my wife said she wanted a ride. I simply couldn’t be shamed into letting her do it alone but you have to really understand the concept of just using canvas on the wings, the motor behind the wings and and sitting on an old car seat in the middle. I Googled breezy but couldn’t find any pictures. The closest to it was the following.

Breezy Airplane

No Lie it was fantastic and until I went hang gliding it was the closest thing to really flying. We flew up and down the Delaware River, over the islands and the boaters. We were higher than the hawks and our bodies were totally caressed by the wind. It was fantastic. The only moments of anxiety was when I really looked at the craft while climbing on it and then when we took off from a cliff there was a slight drop before the lift of the airplane took us up, up, and away.

Well I’m starting to do my research on things to do while you are all here and of course Kayaking is on my list. As Cait knows, I own several, and it’s really not too big of a pain to throw them in the back of the truck and go to either Salt River or the South Shore. I already described my adventures on the south shore and Salt River is different, historical, interesting but not yet awestom.

The Salt River area has been occupied for thousands of years, first by the Indians and eventually Columbus, The French, Danes, Americans and Tourists. After being here about 30 years, I’m still not exactly sure which piece of real estate was coveted and occupied by who, but I should rectify that the Sunday after Thanksgiving when we take a guided historical tour for $45 apiece and we all get a one hour classroom history lesson to boot.

This outing started when we were talking with some friends about going Kayaking with us, I pointed out that I have two singles and one double so with two novice Kayakers, there was no way to safely do it. He said Ok he’d rent a double for the day. Then another couple wanted to go, and I wanted to learn more about the area so we decided to all do the guided tour thing for $45 per person and let the guide do all the work.

The young couple who run Virgin Kayak Company are idealistic enough to have learned all that eco-tourism stuff, the Indian way of life and studied the first armed conflict between Natives and Europeans. I chose them because of their knowledge even though they are impossible to find when you Google “Kayak, St. Croix, Virgin Islands”.

For Walt and Marge, it may just be easier to go to the Salt River Guest Center and find the location of all that history, then throw the Kayak in the pick-up and head for the water – ditto for Cait and roommate. That has the attraction of being free.

But Cait and Roommate, visit this site and check out the open ocean Kayaking. The 1/2 day event is deep water open ocean with a passage over one of the best dive spots in the world called “The Wall.” Within about 1/2 mile of shore, there is a deep water trench which drops to 7000 feet. On a calm day, you would think you were kayaking in a bathtub. On a rough day, they will probably cancel due to waves and currents. This is one of several traditional areas for the drowning of a couple of tourists a year even though we don’t get all that many tourists.

I don’t plan on ruining anybodies vacation by drowning but if the weather cooperates, this could be a thrill kayaking off the coast of one of the most isolated parts of our island. Besides, I sort of want to get back in the saddle with regard to open ocean kayaking.

There is a place on the South Shore of St. Croix which is ideal to learn to kayak. It is also a place to get close to god, nature, mother earth or your favorite deity as there are very few proofs of modern man. It’s not the easiest place to kayak as there is a wind and current which works against you. The reason it’s a great place to learn is that it is a shallow bay that you enter from the west end and as you kayak to the east the wind and current send you back to your starting point. If you flip the kayak, the water is only about 3-7 feet deep so just stand up and start again.

I took a total amateur from Oklahoma (Sharon, Carson’s Mom) who works with Indian kids and she loved it. When I showed her an eroded bank where you could find pottery pieces from the Danish era (pre-1917) and a foot or two lower you could find Indian pottery Pre-Columbus) with conch shells and whelk shells showing what they ate and where, she was ecstatic and couldn’t thank me enough. It was kind of awestom watching her emotional experience as she picked up pottery pieces to take back to Oklahoma to bring pre-Columbian Indian pottery back to her tribe for them to actually handle instead of look at in a museum.

I had another awestom kayaking experience in the same area. While at the eroded area, I saw pelicans diving on something in a feeding frenzy. Seems in the most unlikely of places for life to start, turtles were hatching on a sand, stone, rubble beach and as they entered the water the pelicans were doing their job feeding on an endangered species. I decided to work with the underdog and started throwing stones at the pelicans.

I noticed a fisherman who earned his living from the sea and called him. He came with his girlfriend and we all started throwing stones at the birds. He had a dog that was so excited by seeing us excited that he kept on jumping up and down and never recognized the turtles as a life form. Fortunately, we were able to shoo him away and he never harmed a turtle. All the time the fisherman was throwing stones at the pelicans, he was shouting, “Awesome, F*#%*ing Awesome!”

Perhaps one of my favorite days Kayaking can be classified as good, perhaps even great but short of awestom. Seems that Elizabeth Armstrong of the Buccaneer Resort organizes a five mile sea swim starting at Buck Island which is 3 miles off shore and ending at the Buccaneer in Christiansted which is five miles away. It was a beautiful day, calm seas and a gentle breeze. Every amateur in the world was out to help mark the course. There were ladies with parasols in a double kayak just drifting with the wind. With prior arrangement, you didn’t even have to kayak the three miles out to Buck Island at 5 am. You could have caught a yacht out and drifted back into town in the kayak which had been transported to Buck Island on a fishing boat. It really wasn’t kayaking as I know it, but it was a cool community outing. The purpose of the kayaks in an open water swim is to mark the course and assist swimmers in trouble. I’m not sure that most of the people on the ocean that day could even save themselves from harms way or knew where the course was.

The next outing classifies as both Awestom and Ugly. Once again, it was an event staged by the Buccaneer and it was a 10 mile swim, five miles against the wind and current to Buck Island and then back. Only this was a day to tax the endurance of everyone involved except the swimmers. There was a ferocious wind and the current was wicked. The swimmers handled it rather well as there wind resistance was close to zero. The real issue was the wind and waves. The swimmers never noticed the 10-12 swells as they were only 6 inches out of the water. It’s kind of a thrill to handle a 12′ long ocean going kayak in that kind of sea, particularly when you are heading directly into the rough water.

All good things must come to an end and my 20 year old female partner started to get sea sick and stopped rowing. The swimmer we were supposed to be protecting was pulling way ahead of us and while I tried to stay on the water and generally with the pack, I took it as a sign from God that it was time to quit when she started puking and it was blowing back in my face. It’s hard enough to be controlling a double kayak alone in 10-12 foot swell but that was just to darn much. I was the first to quit, at about the 2 mile mark but by the 4 mile mark the race was canceled as too dangerous. By the way, if you’re a female that’s a hell of a way to discover you’re pregnant and prone to morning sickness which which was the case.

I would definitely have to classify that trip as somewheres between awestom and ugly.

When you Kayak, not only do you have to know your partner but you have to know yourself. The next day I wasn’t really ecstatic about spending 8 hours on a rough sea without a partner to talk to but I had promised to be one of the course marshals. I love to commune with nature for about 2 hours but after that it’s either time to get to work or get social. On another occasion I was out for 5 hours in a 15- 20 mile per hour head wind and 1-3 foot swells and my very talkative partner kept it fun. However on this day, I was positioned on the leeward side of a cape with slight swells in the 1-3 foot range and the wind was steady out of the east at about 10 miles an hour. There wasn’t another person in close proximity. I was in the water about 6 hours when I moved closer to the rocky shore to sips some water. I raised the bottle up and in slow motion became disoriented and flipped the Kayak.

Now at best pulling yourself back on top of an Ocean going Kayak is tough, but when you’re tired after 6 hours at sea it’s impossible. My choices were to swim about 100 feet to a very nasty cliff like beach or swim a half mile to shore to a nice sandy beach. Needless to say, I chose the dumb path and swam to the sandy beach towing my Kayak behind me. Since all the support boats were out protecting the swimmers, there was nobody around to save me. My wife was in a panic on the shore line when I finally made it in (Kayak and all) because she could not get any of the race officials to help me.

Well that’s the last weekend that I went deep water open ocean Kayaking. Yeah, I could save myself and even save a pregnant 2o year old girl, but it simply wasn’t fun – Awestom maybe but just over the edge on the ugly side which real awestom is never supposed to be. I’ve been kayaking since but not deep water open ocean. I plan on going out this December when seas and winds are rough and again for a major event covering about 10 miles of the deepest nastiest sea you would want to kayak in but those are challenges and stories for another day.

Another treat this year is that my brother is a star gazer and he has promised to show me the ropes with my not so new but definitely unused telescope.

Yesterday, I started to build an outdoor table and I’ll post a picture when done. After painting and sanding all day I decided it was time to clean up and test out some of my snorkeling gear and underwater digital camera (1.2 mega pixel) Obviously, it’s old but still good enough to play with.

During our winter, the temperature drops to about 70 at night and 86-88 during the day. It is also the time of year where the winds really kick up to about 25-30 miles an hour and stir up the sea. There is a steady wave action on the coast line and the the water is very murky to locals. Outsiders, think that there is no such thing as winter in the Caribbean but the weather is colder and the sea murky.

The following pictures were shot off Cormorant beach at a depth of about 6 feet. Every plant has a patina of sand and the water is turbid by our standards. Most of the pictures I shot were blurry because of surface waves bouncing me around and the small fish move away too quickly to catch a good shot unless you are in the midst of a large school and catch a good shot randomly.

Fortunately, Caribbean Blue Surgeon Fish (Tang) are so well defended that they can afford the luxury of swimming slowly and living off of algae. Seems they have a sharp spine near the tail that comes perpendicular when they are attacked whether by man or other beast. This scalpel like appendage is why they are called surgeon or doctor fish. Once cut by the retractable spine, you are far more careful as are all predators. For years my son thought the official name for this fish was the “bastard fish” because ever time one sliced my hand I would involuntarily scream “You Bastard.”

The following pictures show a single fish and a group.

Caribbean Blue Surgeon Fish

Group of Caribbean Blue Surgeon Fish

Actually these fish are very social and on a beautiful day, you will find large schools swimming slowly along in there search for food. These fish are small but quite tasty. They are one of many species called pot fish after the name of the trap they are caught in. The question with Caribbean fish is not whether the are edible but if they are large enough to be worth cooking and which recipe gives the pest result. In this case, a tomato, onion pepper sauce is used and the fish are fried before the sauce is put on it.

From now until the end of the year, I’ll be doing more snorkeling then the rest of the year just testing all the equipment and accompanying everybody on their vacation swims. I’m sure I’ll be doing a lot more when my granddaughters take up an interest in snorkeling.

Honestly, it’s a lot of fun but rarely awestom.

Still, snorkeling is  a constant reminder that Christmas and Guests are coming soon so it’s hard for me not to hum happy Christmas Carols while checking out the equipment and making preperations.

Now I got an education and have been self employed for life. So many people took Uncle Jack’s advice that the pro on a local course is underpaid and the support staff are even lower. But the real reason that my one game was my first and last was that I was so bad their was no sense investing one more minute in the game.

Now there are three courses on St. Criox and all have different attributes. I’m doing this post for my brother Walt who is a golfer and coming down for Christmas. I’m sure he could go on line at www.stcroixtourism.com and learn there as much as I did by going online but I’ll just add the local color.

The Carambola Golf Club is described as being nestled in the northwestern valley section of St. Croix and was built by Laurence Rockefeller with Robert Trent Jones designing the course. Since opening thirty years ago, it’s received top ratings and has hosted ladies PGA events. The course is now owned by the club and it’s fortunes rise and fall with financial resources and seasonal rainfalls. At it’s best, it’s a world class course. The club house has a solid inexpensive lunch and a wonderful panoramic view of the greens. Non golfers are welcomed. 18 holes costs $70 in season and I’m not sure about the cost of the cart.

The Buccaneer is an 18 hole golf course with three extra holes allowing for continuous course maintenance. It is located just east of Christiansted and was built on the grounds of a former sugar plantation and now a world class resort hotel. The hilly terrain of this course offers stunning views and leads you right to the edge of the Caribbean sea. While people of the community and tourists are welcome to play, this is not a place to go hang for a beer. It is an upscale resort for upscale golfers although an introductory golf lesson is offered for only $50. 18 holes is $95 including the cart and you can rent clubs for $25 extra.

The Reef is a 9-hole course set in the valley on beautiful Teague Bay on the northeastern part of St. Croix. In fact, if you play on The Reef, you will be playing on the most eastern golf course of the United States! This course with 3000 yards of fairways, groomed greens, and water hazards will challenge all levels of golfers. This course is truly a local favorite for novices, non players and beer drinkers. No wonder at $30 for 18 holes (you do 9 holes twice.) including the cart, there is money to play on a limited budget and still have beer money left over.

Now Walt, I really can’t recommend either the Buccaneer or Carambolo because most locals who are serious golfers play both courses. When you get here, I’ll let a couple of locals lead you to the right path.

Now to be lead astray, don’t discount the Reef.

This is the place to go and spend the day teaching Dolores how to golf at rock bottom prices and you’ll all have money left over for beer drinking. (Dolores want’s to learn but doesn’t want to go it alone and golf is about dead last on my future experience list of things to do before I die.)

St. Croix golfing is definitely not “awestom” enough to get me involved but for a real decision, I let the golfers decided.

“Mixed bag; this island hosts one of the largest petrochemical plants in the Caribbean and has significant environmental problems. Coastlines are stunningly beautiful, whereas inland shows significant signs of mismanaged land and environmental degradation. Tourism could be sustainable if rampant development is kept in check. Hotels mainly big, with a big footprint on the island. Few locals benefit from tourism. A real West Indian island where locals work and live, not a tourism-dedicated playground.”

Actually, that description of my home for the past 27 years doesn’t bother me too much particularly when you recognize that the environmental degradation is done at the hands of the Territorial Government and if the United States EPA would hold the same standards for the Territory that they do for States government operations, our problem could be quickly rectified. Overall, it’s fairly accurate picture but I’ll show some pictures of our family vacation so you can decide for yourself.

The following is a fairly typical view of the sunrise from our gallery. It is the start of another glorious day in paradise.

Sunrise!

Usually Dolores and I start our day with a cup of tea or coffee and watch the sunrise. I generally go to work between 5 am and 6 am. About 10 am, I head to breakfast at Cormorant Beach Hotel. This hotel has sort of added us to their roster of local color and we have full guest privileges. Julie has been the manager through 3 changes of ownership and it has morphed from a gay resort to a family resort. I really don’t care if it carries the feather or not. As long as everybody treats my family with respect, they serve great food and I can use the pool and beach, it’s a family resort to me.

Cormorant Pool

I’m really not sure if I’m addicted to the food, ambiance or the pool at Cormorant. The pool is simply the best in the Caribbean. It manages to get sunlight all day on one side and shade on the other. If you want the kids to play in the shade, it’s on the south side. If you want to bake to a golden brown, use the beach chairs on the north side and if you want to lounge in the naturally warmed pool with a drink, hotel guests are welcome to so long as you use plastic cups. There are pools in the Caribbean which are too cold to swim in at any time of the year because they are shaded from the sun and the tropical winds cool them by evaporation. Cormorant Pool is always at the perfect temperature naturally.

Of course, no trip to St. Croix is complete without a visit to one of the prettiest beaches in the world, Sandy Point. This isolated beach is administered by The National Park service and during certain times of the year they have turtle watches to assist turtles in hatching and getting to the sea while avoiding predators. The only problem is this beach is truly hotter than my projected afterlife but the water is cooling.

Sandy Point

Everybody who is a regular movie goer has seen this beach – take a look shut your eyes and imagine Morgan Freeman walking towards Tim Robbins in the Shawshank Redemption. That’s right, there are so few tourists and infrastructure improvements that it’s cheaper and more artistic to do it in St. Croix than Mexico.

Sandy Point Tourists

Well, we’re not completely devoid of tourist when you shoot the picture the other way you can find my daughter chasing her daughter with a few tourists in the background. The only thing sort of disgusting about Sandy Beaches is the lack of fish to see while snorkeling.

To see fish and coral you have to go north of town of Frederiksted where the off shore reef structure has moved to the coast so you are swimming outside but close to the reef. Everybody knows the drill, the coral has associated plankton growing around it so little fish clean the coral and bigger fish eat them, etc. ad nauseum until barracuda and sharks eat them all – Up to barracuda and sharks, they pretty much are all fishable and edible. Plus, they are fun to watch while swimming and coral and their parasites are cool but that’s another story.

West End Rocky Coast

If your a tourist, no trip to the West End is complete without visiting the Domino Club and feeding the beer drinking pig. Years back, the pig really drank beer but the animal rights people put pressure on the owner to serve the pig non alcoholic beer. One of the pigs was allegedly murdered in a jealous rivalry and is buried in an above ground mausoleum slightly higher up the hill than the owner’s first wife who has her own monument. Dick Solberg, The Sun Mountain Fiddler, captures all this lore in a ballad called “Buster The Beer Drinking Pig.”

Son Andrew and the Beer Drinking Pig. (Andrew is on the left.)

Now even with guests, I go to work early, break for breakfast and try to keep up with the physical activity of family members half my age. All of this takes it’s toll so there is a predictable ending to my day and an alternate ending.

The predictable one is that I stop at Cormorant for another swim and a glass of wine. The following is their promotional postcard and is included because my house is visible as the flat roof with lighted front in the second arch from the left bracketed by the post and the palm tree.

View of Our House from Cormorant.

Now when my body has really taken a beating, my vision of relaxation does not include a happy hour at a Resort Bar fraternizing with tourists, it’s a quiet drink in my hottub which was exactly what I was doing when my daughter asked to join. Next came her baby who wanted to be held by mommy. Of course the older Granddaughter didn’t want to miss the fun. Next my niece asked to join. At this point my son in law who was very jealous of my good fortune begged to join. When I jokingly said no, they all started to harass me for being mean. I end up with the following shot which I call my tub of love.

Tub of Love

Now that’s awestom!

About three weeks after everybody was gone, I had another visitor. It was a family of deer who came to visit. It was dusk and the lighting wasn’t good. It seems that during a dry spell, my lawn and shrubbery make a pretty inviting meal.
I started talking to them to welcome them. Of course the buck bolted instantly, but the doe and her fawn stayed to enjoy the meal.

A Visit from The Deer.

I don’t mind the visiting deer because there is only one flower bed that they really destroy. If the dry spell moves to a drought, they come closer to my house and will drink the water from my fountain and 55 gallon outdoor aquarium. The damage they do is offset by their beauty. The only problem I have is waking up in the middle of the night to the almost metallic click of their hooves on my tiled gallery. It is a little startling until you figure out what the source is.