Today, we’re going hiking, so we start the day with a yoga session on the pool deck at SunDog House. Breakfast is granola, fruit and yogurt sitting by the pool watching the  sugarbirds and hummingbirds flit about the flowers on the Brazilian Orchid tree, the Pink Cedar, the red hibiscus and Ginger Thomas.

We make ourselves sandwiches and fill up our kleen kanteens with water because we’ll be hiking to the far east end beaches and will not be near any restaurants or resorts for most of the day. We pack a couple of beers and sodas as well. And maybe some Cruzan Rum – what the heck, we’re on vacation!

We turn left as we drive out of SunDog Lane, and take the Southshore Road (route 60) all the way to Pt. Udall. We stop to look out at the vastness of the blue and see dolphins frolicking in the surf fairly close to the easternmost point of any US territories. The grace and strength of these beautiful sea-mammals always inspire us.

After taking the customary tourist photos by the millennium monument, we drive back down a short distance the new parking area above East End Bay. We leave the car unlocked and with nothing tempting inside for creepy thieves to steal, and we hike the easy, newly cut and graded path to Isaac’s Bay beach.

Since the hike to Isaac’s is so easy now, we detour left to East End Bay beach first, to walk along the cobbles, listening to them being rolled in the waves as they crash onto the shore. After watching an osprey soaring over head, we start back toward the west, over the hill to the wonderfully vast, sandy expanse which is Isaac’s Bay beach.

Today, we are here early enough that the little sheltered spot is unoccupied – we will have some shade to relax in when we come in from snorkeling.

The patch reefs are alive with French grunts and banded butterfly fish today and we see a small green turtle grazing in the seagrass in between. We rest for a while after emerging from the water and read a bit from our favorite author, Barbara Kingsolver. Today’s reading is from Pigs in Heaven. But  we also love The Bean Trees, and The Poisonwood Bible among others we have read, and look forward to reading those we have missed over the years.

We’ll go for another quick snorkel to cool off before hiking back up to the car.

On the way back to SunDog House, we have a couple of favorite choices for inexpensive, quick meals. The Divi Carina Bay’s East End Pizza (which we refer to as “Pizza in the Parking Lot”), or the Topside Restaurant, right next door to Ziggy’s Market and Gas Station.

A dip in the pool and a relaxing couple of hours gazing at the clear night skies reminds us why we love St. Croix, and the peaceful neighborhood of Sally’s Fancy.

Terry Chretien is the owner of Ambrosia Body Care, providing out-call massage and spa services on St. Croix. She rescues homeless dogs and cats who reside with her and become the four-legged hosts of SunDog House, a St. Croix sustainable vacation rental villa.

Here is a list of St. Croix beaches. The first 20 are on the east end. Directions take you south and east until you can’t go any farther, then west along route 82. We call it the “east end loop”. The first 17 are in the East End Marine Park.

1.)              Great Pond Bay Beach is down the road beyond the big chain link fence across from Milgie’s Grocery. The gate is open for public use on traditional holiday week-ends (4^th of July, Easter….)Take a left from SunDog Lane and go less than ¼ mile on route 624. The road to the beach is frequently very muddy and barely accessible without a 4WD vehicle, but the beach is very unspoiled and there are beautiful patch reefs to snorkel around if you want to swim out to them. No amenities.

2.)            A very peaceful beach that hardly anyone goes to is located just east of the East End Marine Park headquarters. When you leave SunDog Lane, take a left onto route 624, when you get to the “T”, go right onto route 60 (South Shore Road) and stay on this road for maybe a mile, until you see a sign for the EEMP, which is on the opposite side of the road from the sign. Drive into the parking lot, follow the dirt road to the steep part which goes down to the beach, but don’t drive down there. We haven’t been there in a while, so we’re not sure what the sea grass/sea urchin situation is like, so be careful when walking in. You can swim out to more patch reefs from here. No amenities.

3.)            A little farther to the east on route 60, on the other side of Mount Fancy, are more unspoiled beaches, but we haven’t been down there in years, so cannot vouch for accessibility. No amenities.

4.)            Divi Carina Bay Resort farther east on route 60 has a nice beach good for swimming or snorkeling. As you look toward the water, you can walk down to the right a few hundred yards past the hotel and snorkel among many patch reefs right off shore. They do not charge non-guests for chairs, so hanging out under the palms in front of the hotel is a great way to spend an afternoon. Plus there is a restaurant/bar right there!

5.)            Grapetree Beach is about 0.5 miles beyond Divi. The hotel was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo, but is being slowly rebuilt by the new owner. Take a right at the small sugarmill, and when you get to the “T”, take another right. There is a parking area on the right. You need to walk back from where you just drove from to find a path beyond a fence. No amenities.

6.)            Jack’s Beach is part of The Nature Conservancy’s east end property. Take the same road as the one that leads to Grapetree, but go left at the “T”. Drive slowly in this neighborhood, until you see a TNC sign on your left. You need to hike about ½ mile to get to the beach. There are marked trails.

7.)            You can get to Isaac’s Beach from Jack’s, but it’s another mile or so of hiking.

8.)            On the road to Point Udall (the easternmost point of the US), there are also a few beaches. As soon as you take the right onto route 82, there is Smuggler’s Cove beach on the left. The dirt road drops off sharply from the main road, so go really slowly, or park across the street and walk down. No amenities.

9.)            About a mile farther east is Cramer’s Park. Big party spot for locals on week-ends. Loud boom-box music, so we don’t go there. Restroom facilities and picnic tables.

10.)        Farther east is Boiler Bay with very nice snorkeling, but you need to hike down from the main road (route 82). No amenities.

11.)         Just before you reach the top of the hill where Point Udall is, there is a trail on your right that leads down to East End Bay Beach. There are lots of rocks and cobbles. Not good for swimming or snorkeling, but the sea turtles love it and lots of Hawksbills and Greens nest here during the summer and fall. You can also go all the way to the end of the beach and climb over the rocks to another trail which leads to Isaac’s Beach. No amenities.

12.)        Heading back west on route 82 from Point Udall, the St. Croix Yacht Club is on your right. Nice beach for swimming. You can stop in and ask about joining!

13.)        Over the hill just west of the YC is Duggan’s Reef restaurant and Teague Bay Beach. Park in the parking lot. Good swimming beach and probably pretty good snorkeling. The restaurant is only open for dinner, so….No amenities.

14.)        Coakley Bay Beach is across the street from the pink multi-story condo complex. Park just off the road at the top of a short trail which leads down to the beach. No amenities.

15.)        “Big Beard’s Beach” (not really sure if it has an official name) is often used by kite surfers. Pretty good swimming and snorkeling if there aren’t a bunch of speeding surfers doing tricks in the water. No amenities.

16.)        Candle Reef Beach is down Miss Bea Road off of route 82. Go down until a sign asks you not to go any farther. There’s a small parking area on the right. The beach on the left as you look toward the point, is rocky, but the one to the right becomes nice and sandy with pretty good snorkeling. We usually see green sea turtles in this area. No amenities.

17.)        Chenay Bay Beach Resort has a sandy beach with lots of sea grass just off shore. Good for swimming and okay for snorkeling. Take a long walk toward the west (left as you look toward the sea). This area is the Southgate Coastal Reserve, owned and managed by the St. Croix Environmental Association. Good swimming and snorkeling. The hotel has a restaurant and bar.

18.)        Tamarind Reef Hotel Beach – still on route 82, about 1/4 mile past Cheeseburger’s on the right. Go down the speed-bump-studded road to the guard shack and go left toward the Deep End Bar and Grill. The beach is off to the right. There’s a shallow pool created by large boulders, and just outside of the boulders is an awesome snorkeling trail. Entrance to snorkeling area is down at the end of the beach to the right. Talk to Jerry at the water sports shack to rent a chair or a tiki hut, or just use a beach towel for lounging after your snorkel. We usually see large schools of blue tang, adult and juvenile French angel fish, large parrot fishes, trumpet fish and puffers, butterfly fish and past the yellow floats, there is usually at least one small hawksbill turtle.

19.)        Shoy’s Beach is accessible by the road that leads to the Buccaneer. There are two guard gates. The one to the right goes into the exclusive Shoy’s community. You must tell the guard that you are going to the beach. He or she will ask for your name and take down your license plate number. Stay on the speed-bumpy road until you see the pyramid house gate in front of you. Park in the gravel lot to the right. A short trail across from the lot leads to the beautiful sandy beach. Good for swimming and snorkeling. No amenities.

20.)      The Buccaneer has great beaches, but unless you tell the guard at the gate that you will be having lunch at the mermaid, you will be charged a fee per person to use them.

Terry Chretien is the owner of Ambrosia Body Care, providing out-call massage and spa services on St. Croix. She rescues homeless dogs and cats who reside with her and become the four-legged hosts of SunDog House, a St. Croix sustainable vacation rental villa.

I think a beach day is in order. We’ll gather up the snorkeling gear and  head to the Deep End for breakfast. Choosing a table with a sea view is easy, and we watch the pelicans soar in the clear blue and over the clear blue. I’ll be sure to ask for a mug for my coffee so I don’t get it in a styro (that is so disgusting!).

After filling up, we’ll lie in the sun or the shade, getting warm before hitting the snorkeling trail. We walk to the far side of the beach just before the breakwater and wade in, attach our gear and swim out to the left where the yellow floaties mark the trail. We’ll see the huge spotted eagle ray and a few lobsters under the shelves. There will be schools of blue tang and a few pairs of French Angel fish interspersed with trumpetfish hanging vertical among the soft corals. A couple of big puffer fish will peek out from between rocks and when we get to the far side of the hotel, we’ll undoubtedly see a juvenile hawksbill turtle , or maybe two.

On the way back, we’ll see some spotted and/or banded butterfly fish. We’ll float over the beautiful sea fan gardens as we search for the octopus we once saw in the vicinity of some empty bivalve shells. We’ might take a little nap after all this excitement, and if we weren’t us, we’d have called us to arrange a massage on the beach from Ambrosia Body Care.

Hmmm, lunchtime. We could go to Chenay Bay Beach Resort, or to the Divi, where we could do some more snorkeling after a snack. That settles it. This is a beach day, and Divi has great snorkeling most of the time, too. A quick salad and a foo foo drink , and then we walk down to the far right of the hotel as we face the water. We walk until we reach the palm tree that leans way over, put our gear on and head into the shallows where the patch reefs provide habitat for juvenile fish of many species. We then grab a couple of unoccupied beach chairs and read a few more chapters of Stephanie Plum or some such fun character.

Back at SunDog House, we rinse of in the pool and relax with a cold beer or a glass of sauvignon blanc before it’s time to go to dinner. Since we’re sticking to the east end today, we’ll go to the Galleon and sit at the bar, chatting with Lesley when she’s between customers. We’ll start with a bowl of soup and a salad and either share an entree or have another appetizer or two. If we have room, the chocolate fondant and cappuccino will cap off the evening perfectly.

Time to rest up at SunDog House after another lovely day in Paradise!

Terry Chretien is the owner of Ambrosia Body Care, providing out-call massage and spa services on St. Croix. She rescues homeless dogs and cats who reside with her and become the four-legged hosts of SunDog House, a St. Croix sustainable vacation rental villa.

Since we just got back from a fantastic vacation – one of the best ever, in fact – it’s time for me to stop and think about the differences in the places we go to as compared with St. Croix.

There are so many things to do here on St. Croix, that a week would never be enough time to do them all. But if I were retired or on unlimited vacation, this is what I’d do:

First, I’d be staying at SunDog House because I’d want my vacation dollars to support sustainable tourism and help out homeless animals.

Day 1 : Breakfast at The Golden Rail, stroll out to Altoona Lagoon waterfront, look at the boats in the harbor and Fort Christiansvaern from a totally different angle. Come back through Gallows Bay into Christiansted town and walk along the boardwalk. Then up and down the streets of this historic town, checking out the shops and cafes until it’s time for lunch or a coffee drink or maybe  a home-brewed beer at the BrewPub.

If we were hungry, we could have lunch at RumRunners or Angry Nate’s, or the BrewPub because we like to be able to see the water.  Or if we’re feeling like healthy fare, we’d definitely go to Lalita Cafe at the Kalima Center. They have some great herbal iced teas and fresh fruit smoothies. My favorite things to eat there are the soups – sweet/spicy mangospacho and the smooth green cream of spinach. The best deal is to have the special combination platter which consists of soup, and a salad and a half-sandwich. All the salads and sandwiches are delicious, and you get to choose between all of them. Here’s some great strategy- Go with a couple of other people and each get the combination lunch with different things, then you can try a little of everything.

After lunch, a drive out to Cane Bay sounds like a plan. The snorkeling right off shore straight out from the sea wall is usually spectacular. We’d snorkel for a good long time – at least an hour- if the visibility was good. Then, time to relax on the beach and read a chapter of whatever book we’re currently into.

After chilling for a few hours, dinner at Rowdy Joe’s sounds awesome.  The fish tacos are the best we’ve ever had, so’s the mac and cheese. Add a couple of sides, a glass or two of wine, and maybe some of their home-made ice cream and a cappuccino for dessert… now we’re talking .

We drive carefully back to SunDog Lane, and after a dip in the pool, we’re ready for a refreshing night’s sleep in the Ajax Suite.

There you have it -  a completely ecstatic day in paradise.

Terry Chretien is the owner of Ambrosia Body Care, providing out-call massage and spa services on St. Croix. She rescues homeless dogs and cats who reside with her and become the four-legged hosts of SunDog House, a St. Croix sustainable vacation rental villa.

We arrived by ferry at 7pm in the dark on Thursday. Peddy was our taxi driver and he had to downshift a couple of times coming up the extremely steep hills from the port to where we’re staying on Booby Hill above the village of Windwardside. The population of Saba is around 1800. 500 of the residents are med school students.

As historically happens on many of our vacations, Friday is a local holiday. This time it’s Saba Day. “Happy Saba Day” is the greeting of the entire week-end. The celebrating continues until Monday with bands from neighboring islands playing in the village called The Bottom. We’re glad we’re not near there, and enjoy the peace and quiet of El Momo Cottages.

Saturday after breakfast at our inn, we started down to Windwardside at around 10am. We spoke to the woman at the trail shop about the hike we wanted to take. We got our walking sticks and started toward the trail at around 11:00. We walked along the road to the village of Hell’s Gate where the Sandy Cruz trail begins. We got to the trail head at 11:30.

The sign at the trail head said it would take us 150 minutes to hike the trail. That’s exactly how long it took! So at 2pm, we walked down the steepest road we’ve ever seen, which is not that easy after having hiked to the top of Mt. Scenery on Friday and having come this far on Saturday.

The Sandy Cruz trail is supposed to be moderately difficult. While it was not nearly as steep as the trail up Mt. Scenery, there were tricky spots which freaked me out. I am deathly afraid of heights, and the trail went through the rainforest with a precipitous slope to one side.

I really depended on my walking stick and hugged the higher side of the trail for most of the time, being sure not to look down for fear of losing my balance.

We walked on and on until we were back in Windwardside and at our hotel at about 4pm.  That means we walked AROUND the entire island the day after hiking to the very top of it!

Whew!

Terry Chretien is the owner of Ambrosia Body Care, providing out-call massage and spa services on St. Croix. She rescues homeless dogs and cats who reside with her and become the four-legged hosts of SunDog House, a St. Croix sustainable vacation rental villa.

That would be Mount Scenery. We hiked up it on Friday. We took our sweet time, started at 11:30ish and got back down to the trail head at 3:30ish. We each brought a tiny bag of cheetos for sustenance, and plenty of water.

We did stop and have a beer at the Eco-lodge as we climbed down. It may have been the best beer I have ever tasted after all that climbing up and down this fantastic hill. They say it’s 1064 steps. I only counted the last 64 to the top. The trail is extremely well-maintained and has a few rest stops along the way. Steep, but relatively easy because there are steps. The weather was clear and the views to the islands of St. Barths, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Martin and Anguilla were amazing.

I have taken hundreds of pictures with the camera Michael bought me for our anniversary, but we have to figure out how to put them here.

Terry Chretien is the owner of Ambrosia Body Care, providing out-call massage and spa services on St. Croix. She rescues homeless dogs and cats who reside with her and become the four-legged hosts of SunDog House, a St. Croix sustainable vacation rental villa.

Since our trip aboard the Roseway was not going to be the trip we purchased and we cancelled it, we decided to head to St. Thomas to visit with friends and take a couple of days in the British Virgin Islands.

I visited Virgin Gorda in October with my daughter, and wanted to share time with Michael at Guavaberry Spring Bay. We also wanted to look for a boat, so Tortola was the preferred destination for that.

So sunday, we took the seaplane to STT. Debbie picked us up at 9 am and took us immediately to a deli where we met Melissa. They all had breakfasty type foods while I drank V-8. I wasn’t hungry yet. Ed arrived on his bike just before we were going to leave. After that, we went to another restaurant so I could have a bloody mary and Ed could have breakfast. I had a croissant, too, and Buel, another massage therapist came to see Michael and meet me. We were a raucous crowd by then laughing and catching up on things.

After that, Debbie took us to see the new spa she’s working at – Nice! We stopped to pick up some food, then headed to a fabulous villa that Melissa manages overlooking Magen’s Bay. We had a spectacular afternoon there, then went to Deb’s for a second before heading to a pizza place before it was time to catch our late ferry to Tortola.

We got to Tortola around 10pm and spent the night at Nanny Cay Hotel. There are a lot of boats at Nanny Cay Marina, so we figured we’d find a broker and look at what was for sale. Well, it was Whit Monday in the BVI, a holiday, and all of the brokerage firms were closed. Ha!

Okay, we walked around and talked to a couple of charter company people who helped us quite a bit. We only had two small bags, but one was very heavy, so before we went to look at a very interesting boat, we stopped at the ferry dock to ask if we could leave it there. One of the nice ferry comapny employees told us that we could certainly leave our bag in the loading dock area under cover and “nobody gonna mess wit’ it”. So we did.

We walked around some more and found the boat of our dreams in a charter fleet. We spoke to an owner of another model from the same maker who LOVES his boat, and then we walked back to Road Town to catch the ferry to Virgin Gorda. I was really thirsty and talked Michael into going to Pusser’s for a beer. It was happy hour and they made us drink two. We got to the ferry dock two minutes before it was time to board, but our bag was gone!

Michael frantically tried to find someone who could help us while I tried to stall the ferry. I spoke to one of the attendants who said that the bag may have gone to Anegada on the ferry that left 20 minutes after we left it there. Unfortunately, by the time our ferry people contacted the anegada ferry people, the ferry back had already left. The bag had no external or internal identification. And the ferries only go to Anegada 3 times each week, so the next ferry back wouldn’t be until Wednesday.

In one of the communications between the ferry services, it was determined that a bag fitting the description of our bag was indeed on Anegada and had gone unclaimed. As we approached Virgin Gorda, our ferry captain told me to speak with the receptionist at Guavaberry who would call the other ferry to get the bag back to us. We were laughing like madmen, because every single stitch of our clothing was in the other bag. The only thing we had with us was our snorkeling gear, a few toiletries and some reading material. And the next day, we were scheduled to go on an early, all-day sailing and snorkeling trip. But we didn’t have swimsuits.

Fortunately, even though we were late checking in at Guavaberry, Valerie was extremely helpful, calling all of the ferry services and eventually learning that the people who own Neptune’s Treasure on Anegada, go into Road Town every day, and would take our bag with them on Tuesday, and the bag would come to Virgin Gorda on the ferry and be in our room before we got off the charter boat. She also had a “lost-and-found” box with laundered swimsuits we could borrow. We were fortunately able to find suits to fit us, and everything ended up the way they said it would.

We got back to our room at Guavaberry, and there was our bag! Thanks to the ferry captains and employees, Valerie, the Neptune’s Treasure people (we stayed with them on Anegada a couple of years ago -great place!), and the taxi driver who brought the bag from the ferry.

Amazing!

The Tobago Cays Marine Park. Incredible! I could have spent the entire week there. Anyway on day three, after breakfast of fruits and toasts and cheeses and yogurt and cereal, Grant told us he’d take us by dinghy out to the horseshoe reef. It was windy and the seas were pretty rough beyond, so we decided that he might move Caroline back a ways, close to a nice little beach on the cay called Jamesby, and after we explored the reef, we could drift back to the boat. There are mooring buoys there for dinghies to tie up to since it’s pretty shallow and big boats aren’t able to get that close.

Because we were so far from Caroline, I decided to wear my diveskin/wetsuit. It was almost winter and I did not want to be cold all the way out there. I wanted to enjoy a comfortable, long snorkel.

It was clear and beautiful, and we saw a small hawksbill turtle like the ones we see around here, and a four foot long nurse shark swam around with us for a bit. Cool! The coral was pretty healthy looking and there was a nice diversity of fish species. After a long time going in between many patch reefs, we started back toward Caroline. We swam over a couple of nice big southern stingrays and got to some more reef areas just off the beach at Jamesby. Nice!

Back on Caroline,  there was still time before lunch, so we went back toward Jamesby and checked out the beach. We took some pictures there and created a beach “sculpture” with a stump, a champagne cork, a sprig of broccoli that had washed up on shore and a baby coconut. We climbed a little way up a trail from the beach, but without shoes, going much farther would have been painful and stupid.

After another delicious lunch, Grant began talking about buying into the sailing club (it’s like a timeshare for sailing weeks). He said he’d get together with each couple at a later time in the week to explain the program further. Then we snorkeled around some more, saw a couple of tiny peacock flounders and an itty bitty  live conch – cute! We swam back to the boat in time for departure to Mayreau, where we would have dinner ashore at Dennis’ Hideaway.

Mayreau, oh man. I love an island with only ONE paved road and 200-300 people! We had ordered our dinners on Caroline earlier in the day, and Tara let Dennis know what we wanted. Michael and I wanted to try his Calaloo, and pumpkin soup. He also had grilled lobster on the menu, and I liked the sound of the seafood thermidore.

Anchoring in Saltwhistle Bay was a challenge for Grant and Tara that day. Michael and I were sitting up front for the first attempt, and there were some monohulls very close to each side of us. For some reason, Grant wanted to squeeze right in there, and the French guy in the boat to our port side got a little concerned and yelled something in French at Grant. Grant responded in Afrikaans (he’s from South Africa) and continued doing what he was doing. We figured it might take them a while to get the boat in the right place, so we went down to clean up before our excursion.

Our taxi ride from the dock was short, but lovely. The sun was setting behind us and goats in the road ahead were cause for mirth among the Americans. Dennis’ dining room was empty when we got there, and Goshe, Dennis’ Polish girlfriend, came around to get us drinks and bring our special fried conch appetizer.

It was tasty, but chewy (rubbery) and we looked forward to our soups and entrees. The pumpkin soup was not available that day, but they had “shark fin” (ugh!, but Michael really wanted to try it). The calaloo was good and so was the lobster. I tried a sip of the shark fin soup, but it tasted too fishy for me. The seafood thermidore was more rubbery conch with a chunk of lobster or two and maybe a chunk of fish or two, in a spicy, greasy sauce. I concentrated on the mashed potato side dish – yum!

While we waited for our entrees, a large group of people (14 of them) arrived and sat at a big table behind us. They were all dressed in orange polo shirts and speaking a foreign language and Michael guessed as Polish, since the words on the back of their shirts were not in Cyrillic script. And he was right! So Goshe had plenty of fellow countrymen and women to entertain her!

When we were finished our dinners, Grant and Tara arrived with a bottle of champagne to help us celebrate our anniversary. It was poured and enjoyed. Then Dennis came up to wish us well and to bring us his special signature drink. We were well on our way towards trouble after wine and rum and champagne, and on our way out, we stopped at the bar and met two more Polish people who invited us to sit with them and enjoy the reveling. A guy from the larger group was playing the guitar and singing Polish songs with the rest of the bar, and it made me feel like having a beer.

[singlepic id="570" w="200" h="150" mode="" float="right" ]But by the time the beer arrived, I felt like drinking vodka, so I did both and more. After listening to the loud raucous Polish songs and Dennis’ songs (he’s actually a Calypsonian who had a hit song a few years ago), and drinking some more, the rest of our group, who were seated at a table far away from the bar wanted to get going. Tara stayed with us while Grant brought the others back to Caroline. And when he got back, we drank some more before heading off promising Dennis that we’d be back and inviting him to  visit us on our island. He told us his brother comes around to the VI with a shipping company he works for out of Puerto Rico.

More pictures in the Albums and Galleries. We go now to the boat parade!

Monday morning we woke up and shared anniversary gifts. We each bought a book and something else for the other. Michael bought me “The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America”, and I bought him DeLoach and Humann’s “Reef Fish Behavior, Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas”. (How nerdy are we!) The “something else” I got was a white gold with yellow gold wraps version of the infinity bracelet that has become sort of our family (Peter, Michael, Terry) trademark over the years, and Michael’s “something else” was a dive knife, which I only brought a picture of, knowing that they would not let us take it in our carry-on luggage, but apparently, the picture was enough to cause alarm in that “nice lady” in Antigua.

Fortunately, marine toilets work without fresh water, because, even though we had filled up before leaving St. Vincent yesterday, we were plum out of fresh water! Our crew however, had back-up jugs for just such occasions. But it’s not to be wasted on showers. Just to brush teeth and wash faces, make coffee, do dishes and other necessary things like that. The educated guess as to why we were out of water, was that the dinghy’s painter (the rope that attaches it to the ship) had gotten caught in the nozzle of the rinse-off hose, which is at the back of the port side of the boat, where we climb in after snorkeling or swimming, keeping it running all night. And no one heard the water pump because the generator was running all night, too!

That changed our itinerary slightly for the day, and after a lovely breakfast of French toast (and bacon for the carnis), we headed for Canouan to stop there for water before moving on to the Tobago Cays. The sailing was once again, perfect and the people who felt funky the day before went up to the flying bridge where they felt more secure. I prefer being close to the water, and hung out on the trampolines up front, getting splashed occasionally, but it wasn’t cold, so I didn’t mind. At Charlestown Bay, there is the Tamarind Beach Hotel (sounds homey), with thatched roof pavillions and blue-roofed rooms tucked behind a line of palm trees on the beach. We didn’t see a Tamarind tree, but we don’t see them at Tamarind Reef, here on STX, either. In any case, it looks like Canouan may become another exclusive island in the future, but the place we stopped at was cute.

While we played in the water, having noodle races to the beach, a “water skiff” loaded with two water buffaloes (tanks) came out to fill Caroline up. Then it was time for lunch (and beers!  Mt. Gay rum and Coke for Michael). The first thing he did when we hit the beach here, though was head to the bar to see if they had any Cruzan rum! The others had cold cut sandwiches with salad and I had tuna salad.

Then off to the marine park at the Tobago Cays. Absolutely breathtaking! We picked up a mooring ball very closed to a cordoned off section by a little cay called Baradal, where boats aren’t allowed because of the number of turtles. Tara saw a couple of them as we approached, but we didn’t see any until we got into the water. And we saw three or four little green turtles, about a foot or a foot and a half long. They’d come up for air, then go down to the grass and graze. They were beautiful and so peaceful. We swam around there for about an hour before heading back to Caroline. At  one point, we spotted a couple of larger turtles and they let us follow them around. One had a big gash in his/her carapace (shell), possibly from a shark bite, but s/he was otherwise intact. An even bigger one (maybe 3 feet long) swam around with us and let me touch her. That was as cool as it gets.

Dinner after the most magnificent sunset, was fresh tuna steaks grilled and served with cous cous and veggies, after which, we continued drinking beer etc. and telling lies. Grant talked about how cool it would be to have a pet monkey to help him around the boat, and we picked up on that, volunteering to be his monkey, or asking him to have his monkey get us another drink and so on….

And what a trip! Even LIAT worked alright.

We could use the words “fabulous”, “stupendous”, “magnificent”, “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, or “splendiferous” (I think I used that one during the trip), but it still would not describe the experience.

Words fail to express. But let me try….

To summarize: the weather was awesome except for our day on Mustique (the “Mistaque”, we call it), the company was better than we could have hoped for, the food was delectable, the service efficient and personable and I sit here drooling wanting to be back there on sailing yacht Caroline forever, stuck in a time warp like Groundhog Day.

In more detail…Where to begin? Hmmm…let me get out the journal. We wrote much less this time than last year, when we were on land at Petit Byahaut. Mesmerized by the sea……

I adore the sea and I need to be close and near to her always. I respect her profound beauty and unlimited power. But I digress…..

LIAT left St. Croix on time, we stopped briefly at St. Martin, stayed on board the plane, and got to Antigua, where we had to go through security again to get into the airport. One of the “nice ladies” (read: a real Bitch) there made me unpack something from our snorkeling bag. It was my surprise anniversary gift to Michael. (Thank you, “nice lady”, there went my surprise!)

We had a snack and moved quickly to the second floor to escape the bitter cold of the air conditioning downstairs. It’s a ridiculous airport! Our flight to St. Vincent boarded on time but there was a problem with cabin pressurization, which took only a short time to fix (thank goodness) and we arrived at ET Joshua airport to meet Desmond, the taxi driver who would take us to the dock where we’d meet our Captain.

5 minutes (and $14US later) Captain Grant appeared with his dinghy to take us to Caroline and the rest of the gang. First Mate Tara (also a licensed Captain) was there to help us aboard, and fellow passengers Nick, Jim and Michelle eagerly awaited our arrival, since dinner would now be served.

Introductions were made, drinks were poured for us (I only had a club soda ~ virtuous) and Scarlett arrived from below. These folks had been there for a while and had a head start on us as far as alcohol consumption goes, so she had to see a mate about a seahorse or something. We did not get to see our quarters before we were sat down and served dinner. Good thing I didn’t have to check on any seahorses!

Dinner was grilled Mahi with pineapple and green pepper sauce, basmati rice and ratatouille. Dessert was fruit and baked pineapple/coconut with vanilla ice cream topped with Bailey’s. Delicious! After that, Grant took us to our cabin in the forward starboard pontoon and explained the workings of the hatches and marine toilet, as well as how to open and close the closets and such.

Everyone was ready for bed, but we were still running on adrenaline, so we stayed up top looking at the stars until it started to drizzle, then we went to bed and slept well for a while. Even though Young Harbour was hoppin’ on a Saturday night with lots of loud music, we were comatose until rain coming in the hatch over our bed caused me to jump up and close it as well as our other three hatches.

See our Vacation Photo Album for pictures.

LIAT will be taking us back to St. Vincent for our 3rd anniversary trip. Flying with LIAT will be an adventure in itself. We booked our flights with them at the beginning of August. Michael found a great flight itinerary, and we were very excited. At the beginning of November, though, they e-mailed us saying that they have discontinued our wonderful afternoon return flight, so we’d have to leave early in the morning, or the next day. At first there was much cussing and fussing about our perfect trip being ruined by this airline’s ridiculous policies (our last meal on the yacht we’ll be chartering is breakfast on that sad day of departure and we’d have to be at the airport before the crew was awake), but then we decided to stay an extra day on St. Vincent and try to fit in a visit with Dr. Karl Eklund, whose blogs we enjoy immensely. When LIAT hands you lemons…….(well, hopefully the planes will work…..)

We have sent numerous e-mails to Dr. Eklund and he has responded to each one. We will call Robert Tours on St. Vincent, the guys who took us to La Soufriere Volcano, the Vermont Nature Trail and the Trinity Falls trail last year when we stayed at Petit Byahaut, and have Robert or Elvis take us to Dr. Eklund so we can meet him and his wife, Sally. They have beautiful orchids, as well as interesting ideas about science and society. We are also hoping to learn about their experiences as part-time residents (they also have a home in MA) on a Caribbean island which is not an American territory.

I’ll be like a kid in a candy shop…..theories about our societal ills, maybe talk about physics, biology, anthropology, theology, evolution, more politics (Obama!), third world economies…….. We may have to stay another week!

But I digress….after we arrive on St. Vincent, we board a catamaran for a week of sailing through the Grenadines. Tres luxurieuse!

There will be only a maximum of four other guests on board with us, and a two person crew. We will have a private berth and head with mirror and shower. Most meals and snacks are included and there is an open bar for the duration.

We’ve both been on “cruises” before. But when you’re on a cruise ship, to me it just feels like a hotel on the water. Big, and you don’t feel so close to the sea. There’s a lot of boat in the way. During this trip we’ll be close to the sea, but not quite as close as when we’re in “Origami” or our kayak. Can’t wait!

I guess when you’re sailing, winds and currents can vary, as do the wishes of the guests. When we signed up for this trip, we were surveyed as to our food and beverage and activity preferences. We made it clear that we do NOT go on vacation to shop. We are particularly fond of hiking and water sports like kayaking and snorkeling. So we hope the other guests have similar ideas. Here’s a sample itinerary from our e brochure:

“The Grenadines are regarded by most as the “Jewels of the Caribbean”. We chose the island of St. Vincent as the home base and our yacht will be located at The Aquaic Center at Young Island Cut, a stones throw from the Mariners Hotel. Dinner is on board and preparation is made for an early morning departure.

Cruising Day 1:
After a light breakfast we set sail towards Mustique – the private island of the Super-stars. Inaccessible to most but private yachts, like ours, are welcome. After lunch, choose to explore the islands many stately mansions and beautiful beaches or snorkel the reef around the anchorage. Dinner is ashore and enjoyed at the popular Basils Bar where lime daiquiris and watching for the “green flash” is tradition.

Cruising Day 2:
The Tobago Cays – a few hours sail away from Mustique, is our destination and where we will explore for the next 2 days. Very often, pods of dolphin will come along and play in our wake. Snorkeling and diving on shallow live coral reef with their vast diversity of marine life is an experience second to none. Above the water, be sure to have your camcorders and cameras ready… welcome to paradise.

Cruising Day 3:
After lunch we stop at Union Island to visit the village of Toronto. Snorkeling amongst the pelicans diving to catch their prey is an unforgettable experience. Towering cliffs that plunge into the sea either side of a long white beach make this the perfect spot to take a bottle of wine to the beach… an unforgettable experience.

Cruising Day 4:
Mayreau Island lies on the South Western extreme of the Tobago Cays. Here, tucked away on its western side, is a unique slender stretch of land dividing the rugged windward side from the calms of the leeward. On the Leeward side is a stunningly gorgeous long white beach with a stone beach bar – you are now in Salt Whistle Bay. Venture over the top of the island to visit the little fishing village with its old Chapel and school. Before dinner onboard, your captain and hostess will prepare a floating bar with exotic cocktails. Sip and swim!

Cruising Day 5:
Enjoy the view from the yacht’s fly-bridge as we set sail north to Canouan. Then onto an island as unique as its name implies – Bequia. Beaches, boutiques and friendly smiles greet you.

Dinner ashore at the Frangipani is the perfect end to the day and welcomes you to an evening, where steel pan and calypso will keep you dancing til dawn.

Cruising Day 6:
Another day in Paradise! Wake up to the soft sounds of surf lapping on the powder white sands of the Princess Margaret Beach. For the scuba diving charters, Bequia offers a host world class dive sites – if you look hard enough, you may be lucky to see Bequia’s elusive Sea Horses! After lunch, we set sail back to St. Vincent where we once again spend the night in Young Island Bay.

Departure Day:
After breakfast, sadly your adventure comes to an end – but not for long. You will already have made plans for your next venture with Festiva Sailing Vacations.”

This experience will be incredible, but it will be hard to compete with the day we swam with a dozen dolphins off St. Croix’s northeast shore in late January 2007. Most of our island vacations are wonderful, but we’ve yet to find a better trip than livin’ on St. Croix.

Oh, and I’ll still definitely worry about the dogs, especially Ajax, who has been having a very difficult time with his arthritis lately…..sigh……

An experiment in not driving myself crazy. Truly an adventure!

Well, Virgin Gorda is incredible. We stayed at the end of the island near the Baths, in the area called the Valley. The guesthouse we stayed at is called “Guavaberry” and is located at Spring Bay. Our cottage had huge boulders surrounding it, one of which we could climb to get an amazing view of the sea, other islands, and the sunsets. The islands were all lush and green from the rains we had a few weeks ago, and the waters sparkling crystal blue. There was a regatta happening while we were there and our favorite lunch restaurant (The Top of The Baths ) was inundated with “yachties” one day. The waiter saw us and came to seat us away from the boat people saying we’d be safer in his section. He was right, we got our food before a large table who had been there before us. We were well taken care of.

All the restaurants we ate at were good, but not quite as good as our St. Croix favorites, and some of the servers were quite inexperienced, which is to be expected during this really  S-L-O-W  time of year. But everyone we met was smiling,  pleasant and helpful. We walked into town one day to check it out. It took around 30 minutes. Nikki wanted to look in any jewelry stores she might find. But they don’t really have any. There are a few souvenir-types shops, though, which also sell jewelry.

We stopped at a bar called the Bath and Turtle for a drink and decided that on the way back, we would stop at every open place for bloody marys. We’d make our walk into a “bloody mary crawl”. Unfortunately, I’d left most of my cash at the cottage and we only made one more stop, because Fischer’s Cove Beach Hotel takes credit cards, and even though we made the long trek to the Mine Shaft Restaurant, just before the ruins of the copper mine, it was closed when we got there. So we were very thirsty when we got back. We ended up being out walking for four hours with only two bar stops. Good thing we had V-8 and vodka back in our room. Both Fischer’s and the Mine Shaft are superb spots. Fischer’s has a nice  bar looking out towards Tortola, and the Mine Shaft is so high on a hill, that the vistas are practically 360 degrees.

Each day we walked to a least one different breath-taking beach. Our resort has it’s own, and Spring Bay National Park is about a 5-minute walk. We hiked down to Devil’s Bay, on the other side of the Baths and shared the beach with a bunch of people until noon, when only a rooster was left. At one point one of the tourist ladies asked if it was a real chicken because it was standing so still under the tree we were near.

Anyway, there was a mass exodus at lunchtime and we had the place to ourselves for a while. The seas were calm the entire time, so swimming and snorkeling were easy and the visibility was good. There aren’t a bunch of coral reefs in this area. Only a few patch reefs and some healthy-looking elk horn and other colorful types growing off the sides of the big rocks. Plenty of parrot fish and others that we recognize. At Devil’s Bay I saw a peacock flounder skirting down a stepped sand hill just off shore and a school of squid on the other side of the bay.

It was great to spend time with my daughter who has been very stressed out from being a small business owner on an island with a stagnant economy during the slowest time of year trying to pay her own personal bills with whatever money is left over from paying bills to keep the store afloat.

She’s really a very nice person and I had a blast hanging out with her. And she probably wouldn’t use a run-on sentence like that last paragraph, either.

Yep, it was a 2 for 1 night. Wow! Very strange!

I’m a bit hesitant about posting my dreams on my blog, but if Wreggie has the courage to do it, then certainly I can, too. I await massive amounts of commentary from the dream interpreters of the blogosphere…..

Last night was a very bizarre and vivid dream night. The first dream I remember concerned an invisible evil. Actually, they both did, but in different ways…..

In the first dream, I was living in a house somewhere (maybe my birth city?) which seemed to be a combination of a house that I once owned, and my grandmother’s house. I had been away for a while and came back to find my daughter and a friend of hers staying there. They had redone certain things at my house to sort of Feng Shui it, or more to make the invisible evil force less likely to affect us. In particular, they had added certain colored curtains to the colorful ones I already had. It would ward off the evil. But they ran out of actual curtain panels and were forced to use a table cloth for one of them. We were supposed to close the curtains to keep the evil out, which we did.

We were discussing this and went into another room (one without special curtain colors) to find our cat, Milo fighting with some invisible force! It was the evil! I tried to save Milo from it by screaming at it, and I actually screamed out loud and woke myself up.

Phew!

I’ve had a LOT of trouble sleeping this week, but I had just had this terrible dream and didn’t want to fall right back asleep in case I fell into the same dream. That would suck, so I tried to keep myself awake a while. And eventually I slept and fell into another dream where my husband and I were at some sort of outdoor learning camp or workshop. We knew we were only going to be able to incorporate what we learned here for four days each week and would be too busy the rest of the time to carry through with it, so we decided not to buy the books. The “workshop” was run by one of our friends, and, while it was going on, my husband became dizzy and had to lie down in the grass.

While I was comforting him, my eyes started stinging and I could not see. Eventually, we realized that we had been sprayed with some sort of “atomized irritant” (invisible evil) that made him dizzy, and fortunately, I hadn’t inhaled (hahaha), so it only affected my eyes. The “workshop” we were attending was supposed to help us avoid these problems, so we decided that we needed to use these skills (or whatever) EVERY DAY, and needed to buy the books. Next thing we knew a HUGE box full of books was in front of us.

Then I woke up.

Well, it took a few days to put it all together, but here’s the video of our Balloon ride with Dominic and crew of D and D Ballooning.

More photos to follow, maybe…

Between Temecula and Falbrook (Avocado capital of the world….mmmm!) lies a little town called Rainbow. The valley has many nurseries where flowers and ornamental plants are grown. It’s a nice small community, but still pretty close to the freeway, so you can hear the roaring traffic from there.

The Rainbow Inn Bed and Breakfast is an adorable little cottage that was originally a horse stable on a hill overlooking Rainbow valley. Dona and Scott, the owners are a very sweet couple who have lovingly created a welcoming, cozy, and very private little hideaway.

When we arrived there on Monday afternoon, after driving from Brea, stopping at a couple of biodiesel places along the way, and having lunch at a Mexican restaurant called “The Bank” in Old Town Temecula, we were greeted with a sign in the driveway which read, “Welcome Terry and Michael!” How sweet!

There are little trails and cute signs all around the property. The first one I saw said, “Watch for Freddys”. I couldn’t wait to ask what it meant. Dona told me that when her granddaughter was little, she couldn’t say the word “lizard”, so she decided to call a lizard a “Freddy”, since she could say that word! Adorable!

Unfortunately, we never saw any lizards, or Freddys .

We had a fabulous view from a deck overlooking the valley and could see the fog blanket in the mornings between the hilltops. The private pool was nice and warm, and the first time we went in we heard a strange sounding “bird” in a nearby tree. Michael said it sounded like rusty clippers, so we called it a “rusty clipper” – a new species we discovered! It kept chirping and chirping but we couldn’t see it in the tree, so I moved as far over on the other end of the pool as possible, and there it was on a rock behind the tree…..but it was a ground squirrel. It just sat there yelling for something that we couldn’t figure out. Maybe sometimes Dona and Scott feed him? Who knows. He was cute though, and we saw a few more of them as we wandered around the property where signs said things like “this way to secret hiding place”, and “live your dreams”, and “never mind stopping to smell the roses, look at the birds flying around!” My favorite, though was, “Age improves with wine!”

At one point, we saw some large raptors on a utility pole very close to the main house. There were two of them sitting there and two more arrived later. Michael thought they were California condors, but I thought they were vultures. The info in the cottage confirmed my suspicions, I used to see turkey vultures frequently in New England, but wasn’t sure if they were found on the west coast, too. Now we know.

As we traveled in the woods on foot, with Biggie, we’d check the skies periodically to make sure no big birds of prey were eying him as a tasty morsel. He survived! And we didn’t see any rattlesnakes, either, that would have been scary.

We loved the Rainbow Inn and highly recommend it for anyone traveling through this area. There is no minimum stay and it is comfortable and clean. Oh, and it has a HUGE library of books. Most of the walls of the living area are bookshelves stuffed with novels, historical accounts, dictionaries, you name it. I couldn’t even begin to delve in, I know I would never have gotten out. Well, except for one, called, “The Joy of Lex”, which is an amusing compilation of sayings and language intricacies that make up modern English. A lot of fun!