Jaccar Organic and Natural Sorbets is located in Gallows Bay where Peter Stewart’s office used to be. For those who don’t know Peter,  it’s in the same building as SEA and Anything Goes, but on the opposite side, the east side of the Arawak Building. They have a few little cafe tables set up outside and it’s usually a nice breezy place to chill on a humid tropical summer day.

Jacky and Carol are making delicious frozen and non-frozen sweet goodies using local fruits and organic ingredients (read: good for you sweets and treats)!

They are certainly a godsend to us, since we have a place to bring dozens of our (still falling) large and small mangoes.

They have delicious flavors of sorbet and frozen fruit pops; organic candies like gummy bears;  home-made walnut, chocolate chip and lime meltaway butter cookies, unsulfured organic dried fruits, local noni juice and more.

My favorite thing about them is they are consistent in their commitment to health by being good to our planet earth. Their packaging is biodegradable, even the “plastic” spoons and containers are really ones made from corn starch.

We need more small, personal locally owned and run businesses like theirs.

Call them at 340-719-6999 or e-mail jaccarsorbets9@aol.com. Better yet, stop in, say “Hi” and tell them you read about them on our blog! They’re open Tuesday through Saturday 10 – 5:00.

Firstly, we haven’t been going anywhere new (we haven’t been going out much period).

Secondly, I had this bizarre thought that if we supported places, they would in turn support us. Well, I was way wrong.  So I stopped writing restaurant reviews.  All we ever got in the way of support were  a few “atta boys”.

Even if the restaurant owners or manager themselves don’t like to get massages, maybe they could buy gift certificates for family members, or staff birthdays or tokens of appreciation…….I mean, if we have to deliver a GC to your restaurant, we might stay for a snack, drink or even a meal…..

Lastly, I get bored with writing all the little particular details about everything these days. “The Change”, you know.

Anyway, the other night we had sushi at Angry Nate’s.

The sushi was okay, but the service was fantastic. Possibly the best service we had ever had anywhere, ever.

I could go on about the details, but I’d bore myself to death, so I’ll cut to the chase.

The wahoo sashimi was right off the boat, tender and fabulous. The mahi sashimi was tough and gristly. The nigiri was perfect. And the rolls were good except for the fact that there was too much rice. Way too much.

Presentation was lovely.

We had the spider roll – love the tempura soft shell crab -  I had to remove much of the rice from the outside though,  so that I could get it into my mouth and feel that wonderful subtle crunchiness that makes it my favorite.

The bagel roll (we hadn’t tried one of those anywhere before) was also good, but excessively ricey.

If there were less rice, we wouldn’t fill up so quickly and we’d order more food, bringing our bill up.

The price was certainly right. We had all that plus two carafes of sake and the bill still came to under $50.

So there. Give Angry Nate’s a visit for sushi on Sunday or Monday night when Dashi is closed. Just ask for less rice in the rolls.

Okay. This will be easy since we have just returned from a week in Rincon, on the west coast of the “enchanted island”.  A surfer’s paradise.

Both places are green and lush and have nice beaches, warm weather year-round and warm sea water. Both places have lots of people who speak Spanish and English quite well. Both places have nice, friendly people working in the tourism industry. Both places have tons of mangos falling from trees and rotting all over the place during this time of year. Business is slow this time of year for restaurants and bars frequented by tourists.

Here’s where our experience of each place differs. There are many more roads in Puerto Rico. They are much better maintained  than our, at least in the communities we drove in. Maybe they are able to maintain their roads better because they roads are so small. Many of the “two-way” streets we drove on were barely wide enough for one compact rental car. And with people parking on the sides of many of these roads, they were practically impassable.

Other differences: Our restaurants are sooooo much better. Better food, better atmosphere, better presentation, better wines…..The servers were all very nice and helpful, but the food was not even in the same ballpark.

Our first night there, we went to a local place which came highly recommended by the people at our guest house. It was kind of a shabby looking place, but the owner is a fisherman and they always have fresh local seafood. We ordered two different local wines by the glass to go with our tuna and mahi entrees. Ugh! The wines were sweet red wines! We were forced to order a bottle of Castillo del Diablo, a familiar red to get us through the meal. The bottle was only around $20. The entrees were $8.00 each and came with choice of heavy starchy fried or boiled side dish (yucca, green or ripe plantain, yam, tostones…..). The fish was gristly,  the cuts small, and served on styrofoam plates.. We ate most of it, though and tried a local “corn” ice cream (served in styro with plastic spoons) for dessert. It was interesting. Not very creamy, though, and we drank our sweet local wines with that.

Whew! Since we had cooking facilities in our room, we bought a few items for snacks and breakfast for a few days. I usually boil some eggs which we have with english muffins or bagels and cream cheese instead of having to go out every morning. There’s not much in the way of breakfast restaurants in the area either. There was one that looked interesting, so Sunday morning we went looking for it. They advertise 100 different garnishes and hot sauces for their bloody marys. That was a big selling point for me. But by the time we got there, breakfast was over. I had a bloody anyway (there were 4 hot sauces, and the garnishes were a lime and a celery stick), and it was okay. Michael tried a rum drink. Drinks were served in plastic  cups. The food was just okay here, too. I had a taco salad or something and Michael had fish tacos. Not memorable, but not bad.

Pizza signs abound on Puerto Rico. We wanted to rename it Pizza Rico. We never got pizza out, but the subliminal thing must have worked because we bought a frozen pizza from a health food store to have one night in our room. We ended up having it for breakfast one morning.

I really wanted to have a nice veggie omelet with home fries and toast for breakfast one morning with a bloody mary or two, but the rest of the times we went out in search of recommended places, they were closed or not at all up to par. One place was a bakery. Highly recommended. I really didn’t want to try it, but Michael insisted. Well, it was gross. Slimy kid snot on all the tables, flat omelets and frozen, fast-food-type hash browns.I didn’t want coffee, and could not get a bloody, so I ordered a beer. They looked at me like I had five heads. Whatever.

Our last morning we drove way out to a place at the top of a windy ridiculously narrow road for what promised to be an awesome breakfast. They were closed for the month. There is a “slow season” in Rincon, between the winter tourist season and the summer Puerto Rican season, when PR families with kids travel out to the resort areas. Ha ha ha. So we went to a hotel/condo restaurant right on the beach. It was 10:29. They stopped serving breakfast at 10:30. Hahahahahaha.

We had found a place with a breakfast buffet a few days earlier. Michael called ahead to make sure they were still serving, and they were – for fifteen more minutes. We told them we’d be there in ten minutes, and they did make us a nice veggie omelet, but I couldn’t get a bloody because the bar wasn’t open yet. Oh well. I eventually got one and Michael had one of their Pirata Cofresi special rum drinks served in a coconut.

For our last evening there, we decided, after some deliberation, to go to a nice-looking place just up the hill from our guest house and a few doors up from the place with the corn ice cream. They had decent wines and a nice looking menu. We sat outside. The only other occupied table was inside. It was a dark and stormy night……and we felt like eating lobster. They had a few different preparations like thermidore, scampi, stewed, in butter sauce, with onions, etc. We started with a bowl of delightful French onion soup, and had a lobster thermidore and a lobster scampi. with the requisite choice of bland starches. We were surprised when they brought each of us a small “salad” (ice burg shreds with a hard pink tomato slice – and french dressing). We thought, “okay the place is much more expensive than the others we’d been to, so the lobster should be good”. Well, it was just okay. The thermidore consisted of a few chunks of lobster in a half shell, swimming with frozen vegetables in a cheez wiz  sauce. The scampi was better, but they used garlic powder and not fresh garlic.

A couple of nights before this, we were on our way back from a disastrous “day trip” and came upon a seaside restaurant where we were greeted very warmly by the host and waitress, served a nice wine, and a fabulous meal. The place looked over a surfer’s beach in the town called Isabela. The entertainment was great. As the surfers caught small but rewasonable waves, we watched grackles in a coconut palm performing their mating rituals.

We started with a cup of cream of plantain soup. It was good, and the seafood ceviche was nice as well. We shared the “best mofongo in Puerto Rico”and loved it, although we hadn’t tried all the other mofongo, so we couldn’t really vouch for their claim. This was our best meal of the whole trip, so I didn’t want it to end. We even had cheese flan  and nice Puerto Rican coffee for dessert. Yum!

So, in the restaurant department, St. Croix is definitely superior.

Because of the rough seas /crappy weather, we only snorkeled once, at Steps Beach. It was beautiful though. A little murky, but fabulous elkhorn corals, lot of sea fans and fish and a ham of a hawksbill turtle. She swam right up to Michael begging to have her picture taken. He took some video of her, which will appear somewhere on this blog sometime in the future.

The Rincon rea as a whole seemed pretty safe. It was quite disconcerting to me though, that there were big signs all over proclaiming: “Pelligro! Zona de Tsunami!”

Yikes! That’s gotta be pretty bad for tourism! I did lie awake a couple of times wondering if the sea would disappear while we were there and then return to sweep us away. I imagine there is some sort of alarm system, but who knows…..

The guest house we stayed in was chosen by me. It was a little off the beaten path, not in Rincon proper. I wanted to stay there because the sea frequently hits the building. Our room was on the second floor, and we commonly felt the entire house shake when the waves were larger. Our hosts were in the room directly below us. They must have gotten splashed a lot.

A couple of times, we walked right off the porch onto the beach, and walked in the sand (with a few rocky areas) among the waves for an hour or so. It’s an interesting place to be, but I’m too nervous to ever live in a place like that.

It was nice enough. It differed from SunDog House in that it was a smaller space than we’re used to. An electric two burner stove top wouldn’t have worked in a power outage. It had a jacuzzi tub, which also wouldn’t have worked in a power outage. It lacked a pool, dogs (of course), and it wasn’t as clean as our house.

It was on a side street, but there was frequent loud traffic at all hours. It was charming in that horses were ridden by a few times and the cat, Irene, was friendly and cute.

All in all, our vacation was not as good as we expected it to be. But the company was good, we read a few interesting books (discovered a new-to-us author!) and had a change of scenery.

After waiting MONTHS for another mural artist to return my call, I called a much more responsible and professional one.

We’ve been wanting a mural painted on the front porch – a beach scene with dogs frolicking -for two reasons.

First, the dogs live on this porch and rub against the wall constantly, so a sandy scene on yellow paint would not show their “dirt” so much. Second, this is SunDog House and the whimsical theme inspired pictures in our heads of dogs surfing, climbing a coconut palm tree and doing other “fun in the sun”- type things.

I had forgotten that Barbara said she’d start today, and she magically appeared at 8:20 (yikes!) to start working. This would not have been a problem if I’d expected her at that time.  As it happened, we’d been gone all day yesterday, the house is a mess with boxes full of stuff to move across the street, and our cherished shop-vac cleaner bit the dust on Tuesday.

Needless to say, I was too embarrassed for words. The dog poop hadn’t been picked up in a couple of days, and I was still trying to recover from yet another night of menopausal insomnia. Fortunately, Yoda was in the right place for me to scoop her into the  master bedroom where she’d feel comfortable and not bark all day or bother Barbara.

I also had a 9am massage appointment on the beach, which I was running late for. Ah yes, the mellow life of a massaaage therapist………

Anyway, Barbara is very comfortable with our helpful pack of kids, and I was able to leave for my appointment knowing that she and they would get along just fine.

I enjoyed a great session with a first-time visitor who is enamored with our island of St. Croix and wanted to know about the best hiking and snorkeling spots. I was happy to show him our favorite spots on a map after we are finished getting him “de-crunched” as he called it. I also told him about SunDog House, the new National Park, and the soon-come bike path, which he was VERY interested in. We hope to  have him and his significant other as our very own villa guests in the future!

After I got paid for that, I went immediately to buy myself a  piece of jewelry new awesome shop-vac. It’s the best deal on island at GBH.

When I got home, I was amazed by what Barbara had done in a mere two hours. The yellow porch had been transformed into a beach! I was nearly speechless! It is so beyond my comprehension to be able to do that. I would need stencils and at least six months.The palm tree is outlined and the bottom has a cartoonish textured look. It’s exactly what we were looking for!

Can’t wait to see our happy little kids as they start coming out to play on the porch beach! It’s magic!

We met a lovely couple who won one of our donated gift certificates in the last SEA auction. The only downside to donating  these GCs, is that we’re never sure where on island we’ll have to drive to and not get paid for our services. But it’s always interesting to meet the like-minded folks we haven’t met and, of course, to massage those who know and love our particular brand of TLC. We truly love our work.

These fabulous folks live out in Frederiksted in a modest home with 2 and 2 dogs. They love snorkeling and scuba diving and hope to see St. Croix become an eco-tourism destination, too. They enjoyed their massages, which they really needed, and will probably call us in the future.

The last time we were out west was during the application process for our business license for SunDog House. We did not love that work. We had to go to the police department, fill out their application, pay their fee for 2 record checks (the fact that we have business licenses from our massage business and had already gone through record checks doesn’t matter), go back after a few days to pick up the form and bring it to DPNR (Department of Planning and Natural Resources), pay the fee for them to okay the application (saying that what we want to do is okay in the zoning area we’re in), and then bring it to fire services, and pay their outrageous fee to have them come out and inspect the premises.

Anyway, we figured that since the last time we were in F’sted for fun was when Wreggie was here in September (how SAD is THAT?!), and since christmas day was sooooooovery crappy and new years day even worse, we’d enjoy lunch and a great snorkel in Freedom City.

Well, the universe thought it would play a joke on us again and create another cloudy, gray day. We sure didn’t feel like getting in the water with no sun and blue sky, but we did play along with the joke. We went to Polly’s at the Pier for the first time (awesome!) and walked along the waterfront (beautiful), we visited Marsha at Island Villas, bought some pencils from a tiny entrepreneur, and when the sun still hadn’t appeared, we went back to Polly’s for a scrumptious lunch.

I was hoping they’d have their menu on their website, but alas, you’ll have to bear with my description of our experiences. In the morning, Michael had a cup of coffee and I had one of their yummy Ghirardelli frappes. I thought it would hold me over while we went snorkeling. But since we never did go snorkeling, we thought we’d check out the museum center, but it was closed. Really. On a holiday, when people have time to go to a museum, it was closed. Tres Cruzan!

Back at Polly’s (we love that they named their cafe after their dog!) for lunch after our stroll, we started with a bowl of mushroom bisque – rich and creamy and flavorful topped with scallions. It went well with my sauvignon blanc, but not so well, in my opinion, with the yeasty pale ale Michael had. He didn’t seem to mind, though. The sandwich menu is limited, but everything sounded so yummy that we had to try two different ones. I had the grilled cheese, which comes with choice of three cheeses and veggies like spinach, tomato, onion, basil and avocado. I thought the cheeses would provide enough fat, so I opted to not have avocado. It was grilled on home-made whole wheat bread and was delish.

Michael ordered the Loveburger with avocado and tomato and sprouts on whole wheat. I had forgotten about Loveburger, but I used to sell it in my store in RI eons ago. It was good, too and we each ate half of the other’s.

Of course, after we were full, the sun started coming out, but now we were too full to snorkel, and we didn’t have time to lounge around. We had shopping to do! But we did go to Sandcastle beach for a quick dip, which was nice.

Off to kmart for cat food etc., then on to their appliance store to check on lawn mowers. We’re going to need one for the rental property which has an entire flat, grassy acre of land for the dogs to frolic. We’ll also need another washing machine, since we do at least one load a day of massage sheets.

We also stopped at the consignment store to see what was new and we bought a few small items and an outdoor table for SunDog House.

Quite a bit accomplished, for a holiday!

I’ve been coming up with pretty inventive meals, but I’m really tired of my own cooking. So, thanks to credit cards, we splurged and went to Galangal for dinner last night. I’ve really been craving their wonderful flavorful foods, so I was able to twist Michael’s arm (actually I didn’t even have to pull his pinky -  he’s pretty tired of my cooking too) and we went to town.

There was only one table of two seated when we arrived. More trickled in as the evening wore on, but it was slower than we’ve ever seen it. We were lucky though. They are pretty much the only restaurant on St. Croix that brings in fresh mussels, and the mussels had just arrived. They’d also just gotten in an 80 lb wahoo. That made our meal choices a no-brainer. I also love their green papaya salad, so we started with that and an soy-cured salmon with fresh greens salad. The temperanillo wine we ordered was out of stock, so we had a lovely pinot noir.

It was too awesome for words. Every single morsel. It practically brought me to tears. (Well, everything brings me to tears these days.) After weeks of pasta and cannned tuna and rice and beans and chili, it was absolutely heavenly. The papaya salad was a little spicier than the other times we’ve had it, but I was thrilled about that, and Michael seemed to thoroughly enjoy it too. The coconut curry sauce that the mussels come in is to die for. I wanted to lie down on one of the red couches and listen to Tobias describe the specials and menu items for the rest of the night. But alas, Michael insisted that we get home for a nice cozy Christmas Eve Eve.

The portions were just the right size, and we left feeling satisfied but not stuffed.

I   ♥  Galangal!

The Pickled Greek is surviving the slow season. (Yay!)We go there because we love the food,  the people and, of course the prices.

Besides, my lovely and talented daughter, no longer a jewelry business owner (this is a relief in quite a few ways), has finally received recognition as an excellent customer service representative, so is suddenly is working at 3 (yes THREE) restaurants.

{The typical “rags to riches” story continues…..I was a poor jewelry store owner who became a waitress…. – (sigh)}. Steve Martin couldn’t have done it better…. 

So, Friday night, we went (on Mitchell’s birthday) to his soft opening at the new Cultured Pelican. It was absolutely lovely!

We wanted to try everything, of course, so we started with soup and salad. They had a roasted eggplant soup. We’d never had anything like that before. It was like eggplant Parmesan puree in a bowl. Perfect for these two eggplant lovers. (My daughter- one of the servers – go figure- reminded me that I ate eggplant parm just before giving birth to her. So, in my world, anything associated with eggplant is GOOD!)  And this soup was delizioso!

We needed to try the caesar salad, because housemade caesar dressing is a rare and beautiful thing. It was also fabulous, lightly dressed with shaved parmesan cheese.

For our entrees, Michael chose the housemade pasta dish called, “Fallen Hankeys”, created by former owner and chef, Dennis. (Yes, Dennis is still there working with the new guys. Is this an awesome place or what?!) “Fallen Hankeys” consists of sheets of fresh pasta in marinara sauce topped with ricotta cheese and pesto. Red, white and green, like the Italian flag. Magnifico!

I had the fresh local Mahi with charred tomato risotto and mixed veggies italiano. Eccellente! The mahi was exquisite. Tender, juicy and flavorful. Not over-cooked nor over-sauced, and therefore not overpowered by distractions. Perfetto!

I described dessert in detail, but the computer ate it, it was so delicious. So all I can say is. “Mmm, Mmm, Mmm!

We would definitely eat there again. So we made reservations for Sunday brunch, which would happen the day after their next dinner shift. 10am, right when they’d open because we needed to get to World Food Day festivities at the University of the Virgin Islands.

We were asked about how we like the paint job. Well, the paint job is great. It looks fresh and clean, but I am so totally not a white person, that it really does nothing for me. I like Caribbean colors and I loved the bold blues and purples of the last incarnation. But that’s just me…

Sunday’s brunch was also lovely. Again we ordered a bunch of stuff so we could adequately review the menu items. I started off with a Stoli bloody Mary topped with shrimp and olives. When they are officially open, they will have pickled asparagus and green beans along with the jumbo shrimp garnish. The shrimp were huge and delicious with the olives and the nicely spiced concoction. My food choices were: an omelet with roasted eggplant, artichoke hearts, spinach and goat cheese. I also needed to try the baguette French toast with banana kiwi sauce. Yum!

Michael started with their special cane rum drink with fresh limes. It was cool and refreshing – like a mojito with out the mint. He also ordered and enjoyed the lobster hash with eggs and homefries.

We  saw lots of friends there. Meredith back from MA brunched with Nancy and a large contingent from the Pickled Greek  came to celebrate and wish Mitchell well.

We were stuffed, but headed to the festivities at UVI hoping that we could work off those calories and eat some breadfruit…..

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!

How can we not love people who have the guts and grit to live the lifestyle that will save the planet?

They are the only certified organic farm in the VI and they do wonderful educational workshops to spread the word about their mission and the issues facing farming on our increasing threatened planet Earth. And more.

We were lucky enough to be able to make it to their “Fermentation Workshop” on Saturday. The drive up into the rainforest is always interesting (Mahogany Road is still chock-full of pot-holes), but going to Creque Dam Farm (and Mount Victory Camp) is well worth the jerky jarring jaunt. And Saturday it was extra exciting since WAPA’s biggest trucks were scattered all along the winding way, preparing to put power poles in.

We actually made it there on time and had a wonderful time with Nora and Jay, farm managers, and visiting biodynamic farmers, Pat and Susan Ross from Micanopy, Florida. There were a handful of other workshop participants with whom we picked veggies from the garden, sat and peeled and chopped and grated, and stood to mix and meld massive amounts of food to be pickled.

We started with over 30 lbs of greens – mostly savoy cabbage and bok choy. We had 3 coolers and a big stainless steel bowl full of the stuff, to which we added chopped garlic and ginger, grated carrot and beet and turmeric. I had never seen turmeric root and had the great pleasure of grating it. The aroma was magical and my hands are still incredibly yellow.

We squished it down some more and there was veggie juice produced from the effect of the mineral salt pulling the liquid out of the cells. Fascinating! The finished product is called “Kim chi”.

We also pickled mangoes and carambola fruit with basil and ginger, and okra with basil and dill and garlic. We made Kvass (beet tonic) with fresh organic beets from the farm and brine (that’s all!), and had a fantastic lunch which included kim chi made by the farm folks previously, and tempeh and yogurt and sourdough bread also made on the premises. Yummmmm!

The VISFI folks will be having more interesting workshops during the coming weeks and months. Sign up for their newsletter (through their website) for notification of these and other worthwhile events at the farm.

Also, and this is VERY important, vote for the farm in National Geographic’s Geotourism Challenge.  Congratulations to the Farm Folks for making it onto the finalist final list! They are in good company, and not only would this be a very prestigious award for the Creque Dam Farm, but it would be great for the island of St. Croix.

We need more attention to projects which do not include casino/golf course/timeshare development. Thanks to all who contacted the NPS about Castle Nugent.  Now let’s get together for VISFI.

Go to their website at www.visfi.org and vote for them! Do it ASAP. Time is of the essence!

The best time to go is around the new moon when it’s darkest. We went the other night, not only when the sky was moonless, but there were also no stars to be seen. It was hazy from Sahara dust and overcast from clouds which continuously threatened rain, but did not deliver. So it was pretty dark.

Unfortunately, there is some artificial brightness in the area from street lights and a large rental villa, which at times during the tour make it slightly more difficult to see the flashes of blue in the water, but Bryan knows what to do and where to take his guests to maximize the potential of this sacred place.

It was fantastic!  Michael and I came with our kayak (purchased from Virgin Kayaks a few years back) and met up with Bryan and a small group, including our friends Greg and Margaret in Bryan’s white van towing a trailer full of kayaks for the others. We put in at a small, secluded beach and proceeded to pedal out past old abandoned boats to a roosting area in the mangroves where scores of herons and egrets spend their nights.

After everyone was comfortable in their kayaks, we headed across the bay to “the dark side”, behind the point where the old hotel is.

As we went along, I put one or the other of my hands  into the water and saw small blue flashes emitted in the wake. But when we got into the small bioluminescent bay, the water stirred up by our hands and kayak pedals and paddles wash like glowing blue foam. We paddled more than pedaled and every now and again, we’d hit a jellyfish and a big blue flash would appear beneath the surface. It was magical!

We carried on, observing lightening-like flashes in the pedal holes of our kayaks and waves of light blue under each others’ boats until Bryan suggested we go back to land before the local restaurants closed their kitchens. We reluctantly acquiesced, and on the way back across the bay, flying fish flew by us in the dark.

We all had a fabulous time. We have another tremendous resource at Salt River. Let’s keep supporting  people like Bryan who work to share it’s wonders with us.