The National Park Service has come up with a final draft of the Castle Nugent Farm Study. (YAY!)

The Castle Nugent Farm Study can be seen on line at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/. You can down load and read the whole thing (long and painstaking), or you can skim through and read the summary like I did. On page 7, it gives the three alternatives for Castle Nugent and on page 8, “the most effective and efficient alternative”, alternative B, which we agree with. Hopefully, this will rid us of any threat of development of a mega resort/golf course/casino in the Great Pond area.

Please take a moment to make a comment about the final draft. This is what I said:

It’s great to see that the Castle Nugent study has reached this point. I wholeheartedly agree with the study’s finding that Alternative B
is the best one for St Croix as well as the National Park Service.

Please pass this info on to as many friends as you can!
Thanks, so much.

A local political situation has me disturbed.

We have been very supportive of Senator Adlah “Foncie” Donastorg in the past, but in my humble opinion, his extreme criticism of Governor deJongh has gone too far. Foncie’s been acting like a total ass and blowing a relatively small issue way out of proportion.

He’s beginning to remind me of the wacko former senator who pulls microphone plugs out on people expressing differing opinions. (You know, the one who killed his own son by shooting him in the back and then got elected as delegate to the constitutional convention.)

I hope Foncie is not so desperate that he continues pulling his political weight in this way. There are some things that deJongh has done that we completely disagree with, but he’s responded to many many of our territory’s issues much more eloquently than any governor we have seen before.

I hope Foncie takes a long deep breath and decides to take the high road instead of stooping to the extent that he seems to be.

He will have his time, if it is meant to be. And we will all feel better about it.

I’ll just slobber like a little child. I’ve said it to a couple of people.
I just have so much respect and admiration for this man.

I don’t want to embarrass Michael, but I know I’ll cry.

And we will be in the same restaurant at the same time on New Year’s Eve, even though we’ve been missing him by inches in Christiansted since his arrival.

The secret service are on every corner when he’s somewhere near there.

I cry just thinking about the magnitude of his work and the criticisms heaped upon him by some.

They were a nice young couple (everybody’s nice and YOUNG these days – I feel so old sometimes), enjoyed their massage and probably spent the rest of the afternoon lounging out there talking about coming back to visit, or what it would be like to live here. They had been to a few other islands and especially liked St. Lucia. They hiked up a volcano there and are into outdoor pursuits (like us).  But they liked our island, too, so hopefully, they’ll return.

When we were done massaging them, it was time for lunch, so we went to Cane Bay and ate at Eat @ Cane Bay, Frank and Katherine Pugliese’s new place. Aahhh! Beverages served in glasses and food served on real plates with silverware. If you must have a traveler for the beach or the road, they’ll give you a regular plastic cup instead of styrofoam. Add $1 for a take-out  meal since they use eco-friendly containers. Love that!

And, of course, with Frank in the kitchen, the food is superb.

Classy beach bar food. How perfect is that!

Menu items include create your own burgers and salads. Starting price for a burger with lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, and choice of cheese is $8.50. You can add bacon, egg, avocado, mushroom and onion, blue cheese or jalapeno cream cheese for $2.50. Or duck chili, chorizo or pulled pork for $4, truffle aioli for $2 or foie gras for $12.

Your salad is $10 with a butter lettuce and romaine hearts base. You can add any 6 of the following: carrots, cukes, tomato, red onion, mushrooms, kalamata olives, red pepper avocado, croutons, roasted beets, chick peas or edamame; 2 of the following: roasted turkey, hard cooked egg, feta or blue cheese, bacon or strip steak; and dress it with herbed yogurt, passion fruit french, caesar, blue cheese or evoo (?) and balsamic.

When we were there, they had a special of fresh local wahoo sandwich and also a tuna sashimi appetizer on fried wantons. We had both of those. They had also just gotten in a 90 lb tuna. We wanted more, but we saw mussels on the menu and had to try them. We had onion rings (yum) and hand cut fries  (kind of limp and oily), but everything else was great.

The rest of the menu includes an open-faced BBQ brisket sandwich, a pulled pork sand, fried chicken, an oven roasted turkey club, mixed fried seafood. Fun sides include the ones we had along with sweet potato fries, roasted beets, smoked duck chili, peel and eat shrimp, orzo salad w/red pepper and edamame.

They have a kids menu, a couple of desserts,  and  a nice wine selection. Two whites and two reds by the glass, and bottles ranging in price from $18 for the Chilean Montes Cherub Rose, to $40 for the Italian Masua di Jago Ripassa.

We are happy to have the Frank and Katherine team feeding us again! Eat @ Cane Bay! Bon appetit!

Saturday, we borrowed one of the Yacht Club’s Rhodes-19 sailboats and practiced tacking and jibing in the perfect gentle winds and calm seas of that day. Michael did a great job at the helm and first mate, Michelle skillfully handled the jib sheet.

I, of course had to hold and console the little dog, who had a traumatic experience last time he was on a small monohull, and was NOT a happy camper at all being on one again. A few years ago, when we owned a small sailboat, we went out on a rough day and got into trouble, and had to be towed back to the club.

He survived a couple of hours on the water, though. Nothing bad happened, and he was rewarded with a nap on the cool, not- rolling floor of the yacht club while we enjoyed a yummy lunch of mahi sandwiches.

After that, we took Michelle to our favorite snorkeling spot, where we saw three hawksbill turtles and dozens of other very cool sea creatures, coral formations and sea fans.

Yes, another awesome day in paradise!

In restaurant news….. Well, it may not be news to a lot of people, but Frank and Katherine Pugliese have taken over at Cane Bay Beach Bar. We KNOW it will be good, now! Apparently it has opened and everybody knew about it but us. We’ll get there ASAP. Maybe this coming week-end if it’s not PACKED.

Since Frank is no longer at the Galleon, Craig Butler is back cooking there, along with Yummy.

Mitchell and Bob from Zebo’s will be taking over at the Cultured Pelican in the next few weeks. Can’t wait to eat there again!

“Good Spirits” Deli and BBQ will hopefully open soon where Lori’s used to be.

And Ziggy is the new owner of the gas station formerly known as Smokey’s. New menu, new energy…looking good. We saw him last night at Luncheria with his very sweet right-hand man, Dale.

The restaurant on the corner formerly known as the South Shore Cafe and most recently, Kaleidoscope, has been re-painted (from their nice bright blue to a dull beige – soooo strange), so I guess it will be re-opening as something. Will find out and report ASAP.

New energy! Exciting and wonderful!

We need to get rid of our landfills, we need to get rid of our garbage, and something needs to be done with the pet coke. We also “need” a utility which uses cheap alternative energy to produce power. Well, people need jobs and the government of the VI needs to feel like their in control of the power situation. But this is going to be adding to the green house gases that some of us are trying to reduce.

I’d prefer everyone have solar panels on their homes and generate their own electricity.

As Van jones says in his book, The Green Collar Economy, “Solar energy is as reliable as the sunrise; through solar-thermal and photovoltaics, we can harness the sun’s majestyto make abundant clean energy. Enough solar energy falls on the Earth’s surface in one hour to power all of human civilization for a year.”

Many of us have been calling solar energy a “no brainer” for those of us in the sunny tropics, but the governor and his administration keep trying to demonstrate that they have less than no brains.

We’ll see what happens……

We massaged a few athletes out by Salt River in the morning and it sprinkled on us toward the end of the third session. As we were getting toward home, there was a nice downpour, and then a break, and then some nice steady showers.

“Cool!” I said. “If it rtains like this all night, the roads won’t wash out and the plants will be so happy and we won’t have to worry about …..” Last week as we sat at the Pickled Greek having dinner, firetrucks went by, and we could actually see the flames on the hillsides across the street from the restaurant. Too scary!

Anyway, the rain stopped for the evening. But during the night we woke to torrents and wind gusts that blew rain into our bedroom, causing me to jump out of bed to close the south facing window. The frogs started to squawk and I didn’t know if one was sandwiched between the panes.

I wonder what race director Tom Guthrie has to do to make things work out like that?

Read all about it here.

Meanwhile, we’re washing lots of sheets and making up more massage oil…..Later!

Well, the best thing about it, is that it’s pretty much finished and it looks a little better from the outside now that it has two tiny porches outside of each of the upstairs bedrooms, and a large wrap-around deck outside of the living room. I’m hoping the landscaping grows quickly.

A few observations:

There are large sliding glass doors on the western side of the house. The afternoon sun in the west will make it hot on that side. Strange that someone building a supposedly “green” home, would do something which would cause the cooling system to have to work harder. Common sense would dictate putting larger openings on the east side, where the cooling breezes come from and smaller ones on the hottest side of the house.

The living room/dining/ kitchen area are about the same size as ours, but the ceiling is lower, and there are 6 (yes, six!) ceiling fans, 4 in the living room area and 2 in the kitchen. Can you say overkill ?! You can hardly see the ceilings because the fans are all crowded together.

The master bedroom is east of the dining area, and there are 3 or 4 windows in the bedroom which opens into a laundry room/closet/ bathroom. It seems to be a nice room, but we’re confused by the placement of the washer/dryer – in a hall leading to the closet/bathroom. The bathroom faces the main road and there are two large windows which look right into the bathroom/shower! Bizarre!

The two upstairs bedrooms are small, but each has a big walk-in closet and a sea view. There’s also another large bathroom in a hallway between the rooms toward the front of the house, and a large attic/storage area to the rear.

This house has excessive amounts of storage space and the rooms feel cramped even without a lot of furniture. One of the people we took the tour with looked at each room and said that they could have moved a wall here and there to provide more living space without taking  much away from storage. She’s absolutely correct, and she is currently renovating an older house elsewhere on island. It will have solar hot water and the windows facing the breezes are becoming French doors with a nice open veranda.

Anyway, the entire southern-facing roof  on this “solar house” is largely photovoltaic material which will create much of the house’s electricity. The builders are guaranteeing 80%. There is an inverter to change DC to AC, but no storage batteries. They are participating in the “net metering” program with WAPA. But that means, if WAPA goes out during the night, the people who buy the house have to rely on their propane generator rather than stored energy from batteries.

Also since they have a propane generator, one would expect a gas stove, clothes dryer, and maybe even refrigerator to reduce the amount of electricity needed. The whole house could be probably be powered by the photovoltaic system if the dryer, fridge and stove weren’t electric. The house is for sale for $495,000. (One of the guys we took the tour with kept saying, “$150,000, tops!”)

Despite the  many problems I personally see with this house, it is a good idea. We hope that more projects (especially big ones, like the hotel/casino projects) actually begin with alternative energy production in mind.  I just wish that people with enough money to build something like this would have more common sense.

I was reminded of his song, “Fantastic Plastic People” at last night’s reception for the “Robin Bay” project.

(Sigh) Yes, another casino/hotel/golf course/resort/timeshare blah blah blah thing that will, (sigh) once again save all of the people of the Virgin Islands from their continuing abject poverty. (Sigh).

Oh, everybody who is anybody was there. We, of course did not receive an “official” invitation, but one of our friends did, and she included us in her RSVP.

And, of course (sigh), we got the same old same old “jobs for the people” spiel, but with lovely artist’s renditions of this monstrosity which is supposed to go on the south shore between Great Pond Bay and Grassy Point. Ugh!!

Curtis Robinson, one of the major players in this development was there to dazzle us with his “style and class” (oh, and promises of jobs for the people). His female partner sat there with her perfect blond braids and sparkling earrings, looking very Paris Hilton. Cheese an’ bread, me son! They soooo don’t belong here. Even our most spiffed up islanders with their $$$suits are more real than these dolled up robotic creatures. I really had to wonder if there was flesh and blood under all that glitz. Hollywood comes to St. Croix!! Awww lawd!!

“All pomaded and so perfectly braided”, is my official description.

“Fantastic Plastic People” is a song about the superficiality of today’s society. And there it was, hitting us smack in the face at this cocktail reception. Unfortunately, people here continue to buy this rhetoric.

When are we going to get real around here?