Second EcoTours Trip

My second trip out with VI Ecotours went well. There were 4 tourists, 1 guide, Isaac (who is in the same position as me, just checking it out), and me. The tour started at 9am this morning, and we kayaked about 1 mile to a coral rubble beach on a lagoon, near the ocean, where we then snorkeled for about 45min-1hr. (The VI PD firing range is near the snorkeling area… was a bit odd to be snorkeling a nice tranquil mangrove lagoon, and having sporadic gunfire go off. We then kayaked back to the docks. When we got back, and the tourists had left, Isaac and I helped put up the kayaks.

Both of us are scheduled for our first training tour, Monday morning next week. We don’t get paid the first trip, but we get a VI Ecotours hat and shirt (yippee!). After that, we get paid a little while we train, then we get upgraded to assistant guide, making a bit more, then eventually we are lead guides, and we get full pay.

Anyhow, it should be interesting. Most guides do 2 tours a day, starting 8:30-9:30 for the first, and then 12:30-1:30 for the second. Should keep me busy… I am looking forward to seeing and learning about all the lagoon/reef organisms… today I saw my first barracuda. It was about 2.5-3 ft long. There is a resident adult barracuda, named Barry, who is ~5ft long. Apparently he can get a bit territorial, and has even chased snorkel groups out of the water. Also, the guide said that when large groups go out, somebody almost always kicks up a mangrove jelly fish and gets stung. Good fun. :-)

Caribbean Mechanics

Well, today was my first foray into the interesting world of VI auto repair shops.
[Sorry for the long post with no pictures (or sketches).]

Kendra’s coworkers all suggested the same place to get car AC fixed, so that is where I went (“Auto Kool”). Once I finally found the place, I was astounded by the spotless exterior on the building out front. Then I realized that I would never actually go inside that building, as it was still under construction/renovation. Oh well. I was directed to the back of the shop, and to a spot under a 3 car carport. There, a mechanic met me, and through my white boy mainland English and his Carib Spanglish, he was able to ascertain from me that my AC didn’t work, the car was last serviced a few months ago, and the make of the car was a Saturn (which he and the other mechanics had never heard of… hmmm… great). After about 20 minutes, he told me that it would cost $230, including labor, to repair the AC, and it would take about 2 hours.

Anyway. Here is some setting info for you, so you can get a nice visual, tactile and olfactory mental image.

Three vehicles, all with hoods open, were in the carport/repair bay. One was a church van, which was having some part soldered with a lit acetylene torch that was balanced on the rim of the hood (Look Ma! No hands on the highly explosive canister!). Generic (to me) Latin music blared from the cooking hut/living quarters behind the carport. The middle car (a Honda), tapped in time to the music thanks to a wrench wielded by a mechanic on the underside of the car. Spurts of Carib English and Carib Spanish (neither of which I can decipher that easily) are shot between the mechanics at seemly random intervals, interspersed with off-key singing, sometimes synchronized from multiple mechanics, sometimes one would take the chorus, while the other sang the primary verses.

Mosquitoes flitted about in the warm humid air, homing in mercilessly on the foolish fresh meat (me) who decided to take a seat outside and watch the mechanics in their musical dance of auto repair. Chickens wandered through the carport, pecking (nearly in time to the music) at morsels, that while invisible to me, somehow kept them pecking for more. Lizards waltzed and swayed in the wake of the chickens, followed by a lone rat (who was not musically inclined at all).

The occasional passerby walked through the repair bays to the apartments directly behind the shop, from which various smells –onions, chili powder, beans, rice and vinegar- wafted through the air. “My” mechanic took a break and returned from the cooking hut/living quarters with a pot of rice and beans and plantains (all together) and ate his meal dividing his time between looking at the Saturn’s engine, singing, and talking with the other mechanics.

Now that you have an idea of the setting, here’s some info on the mechanic. “My” mechanic (the one who spent most of his time working on the Saturn), managed to work on the car (unscrewing bolts) while talking on the phone. When the bolt fell to the ground under the car, he went and fetched a golf club and used it knock the bolt from underneath the car. My confidence was (slightly) bolstered when it became apparent that the other mechanics came to him with questions more often that vise versa. He seemed to be the most diligent mechanic (maybe b/c I was sitting there); he disappeared the least out of the 5 or so mechanics and he spent at least 1/3 of his time actually working on the car. Speaking of the multitude of mechanics… they went from car to car, performing various tasks, detaching and attaching hoses, flipping switches on attached machinery, unscrewing bolts, ect… each car had a primary mechanic, but there also seemed to be extra people around who messed around with the shop equipment/vehicles when the primary was absent.

The bottom line… 2 hours and 10 minutes after I arrived, I was leaving, $280 less in my pocket, but with a working AC system. Despite not knowing what a Saturn was, they seemed to know AC systems forward and back, and they provided an accurate time and cost estimate, which is more than I can say for quite a few mechanics in the states. Plus, it was quite interesting.

In the spirit of interesting, we are trying a new meal for tonight’s dinner. Left-over steak, cut into strips, salad, and my version of the popular Caribbean Rice and Beans dish (traditionally called “Moros y Cristaianos”, literally, Moors and Christians).

Moros y Cristaianos, Dave style
Add 3 tablespoons oil to a large sauce pan, heat oil

Add to oil:
1 diced onion
Cook until onion is clear, and then add:
2-8 cloves garlic
2 bell peppers
2 Cuban peppers (like bell peppers)
1 pinch oregano
Hot sauce
(Cumin, thyme if you want)

Mix well

Add 2 15 oz cans black beans and rice, plus enough water to cook the rice (see directions for stovetop cooking on rice container). I plan on adding 1 cup rice and 2 cups water.

Cook until rice is done

First VI EcoTour Trip

Kendra reminded me that I never posted about my first VI Ecotours trip. That one began with a short dingy ride (~10 person inflatable boat) to a nearby cay (a small island, cay is pronounced either “kay” or “key”) called Cas Cay. We then went on a 30 minute hike on the cay and also a coral barrier (a rocky barrier connecting Cas Cay with another cay that is between the ocean and the lagoon composed of broken coral accumulated over hundreds of years).

We then snorkeled in the lagoon, which had many interesting creatures include a big lobster (I mean BIG), many conchs, including a really large one (about 1.5 ft long), lots of tropical fish, many kinds of coral, mangrove jelly fish (which can sting, but spend their time on the bottom, they are not predators like other jellyfish, instead they harbor algae which feed them, much as a lichen is composed of a fungus fed by an algae), and a gigantic puffer fish. The puffer fish was not inflated, and it was about 2.5 ft long, and about 2ft wide (a very blocky fish). It must be huge when it inflates!

Assuming I start working there, I’ll have access to the pictures which I will post (every tour has a photographer with a digital camera in a water proof case, and VI Ecotours sells the CD’s to the tour members back at the hut… I assume if I work there I could burn some for free).

Garden and House Plans

I was supposed to go on a kayak tour today to check out that side of VI-Ecotours, but I woke up with a nasty headache around the eyes, which was very similar to the symptoms of the standard “Dave Migraine”, so I called and wussed out of going. I managed to eat some food, then I slept for about 1.5 hrs. Now I feel fine… if it had been a migraine I wouldn’t have gotten off so easily, so who knows what it was.

Well, my container garden is on its way. The capital investment stage of buying containers and soil is done, now all I need to do is plant the plants. I’m going to call our AC maker today and ask if I can use the ~5 gallons that it produces a night to water the plants.


As of now, I have several green bean plants, a Thai basil plant, a few sweet pepper plants, some chives and some parsley that is growing well. There are also some pea plants (which are normally cooler weather plants) which are struggling, as well as some yellow crookneck squash that is looking pretty feeble. 0 of the ~10 broccoli seeds and ~8 nasturtium seeds sprouted. Recently planted cucumbers (planted 3 days ago) have sprouted, and are working on their first set of real (non-cotyledon) leaves. I am continually amazed what the constant high temp and humidity does for germination times here. Plants sprout so fast…

I am definitely going to plant some Sunrise Papaya, Strawberry Guava, Mysore Raspberry, Acerola (Barbados Cherry), ground tomatoes, corn and cilantro. I need to find a supplement to make the soil more acidic for a couple of the above, but other than that, all I need to do is plant and wait (and water and fertilize).


Kendra and I had a request for more “sketches” on or blog. In order to fulfill this request, I have provided this sketch of our house [click on the sketch to enlarge]. Distances are roughly measured. Total house sq footage is ~800sq ft . The deck (minus the front porch, stairs and hot tub area) is also ~800 sq ft. Devon’s studio is under the kitchen, entry and part of the main room. There is another studio (minus a kitchen) under the North corner (partially under the deck and partially under the main room).

When I was measuring the deck I saw an iguana chowing down on the tree flowers, so I had to take a picture:

Swimming at Trunk Bay with Kendra's New Do

Saturday we went swimming at Morningstar Beach again. I think it's a good place to get used to "real" open water swimming because it gets some decent waves. We swam the length of the beach four times total. We figure the total was anywhere between 1.3 miles and 2 miles. Who knows...

Before that, the heat was really getting to me. My hair was just refusing to stay out of my face, and the front of it was just too short to pull back easily but yet long enough to be annoying. I knew something had to be done..... So I went to Ladi Rainbow at the vendor's square in town, and this is what I look like now:







I was a little afraid of looking like your average white girl who just got off the cruise ship, but everyone at work seemed to like my new "local do" and reminded me that this is the island life and nobody cares what I choose to do with my hair. It certainly has been keeping me cooler!



Sunday we went to St. John. We went to Trunk Bay where the National Park service has an underwater snorkeling trail. This picture illustrates the route I took. Dave opted to spend the last back and forth lap taking pictures instead. (This picture isn't one of his, I found it online. It's from where most of the taxis stop for the tourists to see the view.) The loop-de-loops are swimming around the underwater trail. Swimming around the cay was tough as there were decently strong currents. It was a good workout!!! Dave bought a book about the cays of the USVI and it said the perimeter of Trunk Cay is 480km! So we must have swam about 1,500 miles total on Sunday. Or maybe the book was missing a decimal....


This last one is a picture Dave took at Trunk Bay - it's my favorite of the weekend photos. The water really was that green and the sky was equally pretty.

Wish you were here? :)

changing plans

We talked about going to Tortola, the closest British Virgin Island, last week, but we thought about it a little too late and didn't think we'd make the ferry on time. Thursday night we came up with the idea of going to Virgin Gorda for the weekend. Virgin Gorda is one of the furthest islands of the BVI and has the famous "baths" to swim in and around (pictured here). Dave even found a place for us to stay Saturday night for $75 - nice hotels are cheaper for VI residents, especially during the summer! But it just isn't so easy to get to Virgin Gorda. I had to get an allergy shot this morning, so we had to scrap the plan because we might not have made the ferry, and even if we did, it had 3 stops along the way with an hour of waiting on Tortola for more passengers. So we decided to postpone that trip for another weekend, when we have more time to make plans.


This morning we thought we'd make plans for Tortola for the weekend, since we came up with the idea 3 hours before the ferry this time. Unfortunately, we can only find one place to stay and its on the side of the island furthest from everything we want to go to. All the other hotels are either closed for the summer or we can't get through because they don't have a US number (that we can readily find) and our cellphones aren't wanting to connect to the BVI right now. *sigh*

Not to fear, we still have plenty to do for the weekend anyway. I had another busy week at work, 11 hour days every day, so I'm happy to get some relaxing in. Unfortunately, the a/c in the car is acting up, so my usual plan of driving around on the weekend to cool off isn't going to work this weekend. I'll have to learn to cope like Dave does every day, until we can figure out the problem and get it fixed.

So the plan for the weekend now is to work on the curtains a bit, nap, and watch a movie we got from NetFlix - we signed up for the free trial last week. It took 8 days for our first dvd to show up. And of course, swim, swim, swim. We're quasi-in-training for the St Croix Coral Reef Swim. I say "quasi" because we haven't really committed to it yet. We're not sure if we're crazy enough. It's a five-mile swim - about two miles from Buck island to St Croix, then about three miles along St Croix's coast. The race is at the end of October and we haven't really trained much. But they do have a Fins division. I'm just not a fan of fins because it makes it a bit more difficult to swim different strokes along the way. Another obstacle is that Dave is a faster swimmer than me, but I think it'd be more fun if we were together. I just want to do the race to do it. The trick is, you're supposedly only given 4 hours for the race and then they pull you out. Someone high up at work, though, told me that he is usually one of the kayakers in the water accompanying the swimmers and that after 4 hours passes, if the swimmers want to continue and the kayakers think they can do it, then they get to finish. So one person took 6 hours once. eek. Talk about sunburn!! If we don't do it this year (we have another week or so to decide) then I definitely want to do it next year.

Well, my computer is making the room a degree or so warmer than it would be otherwise, and it is getting toasty. so it's time for kendra to rest by a fan or two.
By the way, for most of the pictures we upload, you can click on one and it will get bigger.

Homegrown Coconut

I pulled down a coconut from one of our trees today. After spending about 5 minutes futilely hacking at the husk with my machete, I stopped and sharpened up my machete again. I then realized I was hacking at the husk the wrong direction; I had been hitting the coconut from the bottom of the husk, which doesn’t do much except dent the husk. Switching and hitting the coconut from the top of the fruit allowed the husk to start to peel. Having accomplished this, I then grabbed the partially separated pieces of husk and pulled to separate the husk pieces from the actual nut. The picture is of the husk pieces, the nut, my machete, and the file I was using to sharpen the machete (I was using a whetstone, but the machete was so dull it was not making much of a difference, so I switched to the file).

From there it was the same as a coconut from the store; puncture two holes with a nail to drain the coconut water, then “tap” (actually whack quite hard) around the shell until it breaks.

The coconut is actually the first “good” one that I have had in a couple of years… the ones I had bought in the store (both here and in the states) had fermented… which, although they might be edible, fermented coconuts are not what I want.

I also started to cut the fabric for our bedroom curtains. Kendra had found a website that sells the curtains that we are trying to make, but since we already have the fabric we figured we might as well try to make them and save ourselves the cost of buying them. I think that it will be slow going without a sewing machine, but we shall see…

Oh, also, I am (tentatively) scheduled to go out on a tour with VI Eco-tours so that I can check out what they do (I have applied to be a photographer and/or guide there).

Driving tour, Morningstar, and Philippe

Yesterday we did a bit of a driving tour in one of our guidebooks.
We drove up to Drake's Seat first, which is where we took this

first photo. This is Magen's Bay, where we go swimming all the time. Friday afternoon we swam most of the width of Magen's Bay. (The view that we have from home is essentially the same as someone who is standing on the beach in this picture looking to the left, we our house is to the right of this photo). Drake's Seat is named after Sir Francis Drake who apparently used to watch approaching ships from there.

Okay, actually, I'm not sure anymore where we took that photo, because after Drake's Seat, we went to Mountain Top, which has essentially the same view. Hmm.. oh well. Both Drake's Seat and Mountain Top are listed here on this St Thomas attractions website. Mountain Top is another tourist trap. In addition to the restaurant and bar, it has a bunch of shops. The bar is supposed to have amazing banana daiquiris. We tasted one, and trust us - when you come to visit, you don't need to waste the money there. We'll just take you for the view.

After driving around and enjoying the A/C in our car, we went to Charlotte Tamale's Mexican restaurant for lunch. It was a bit disappointing. I'd heard they had good fish tacos there. I was hoping for Rubio's quality, but my fish was super deep fried and overly crispy. They have both a one-pound and a two-pound burrito. If you can beat the record time for eating one of those (we're not sure which), then it's free.

Then we went to Morningstar beach for our afternoon swim. We had never been there before, so it seemed time to try it out. It's right near the Marriott Frenchman's Reef hotel, for those of you who've been here. It was pretty nice; not super calm water, but the waves were kind of nice. It was such a hot day, we had to run into the water to keep from burning our feet on the hot sand. The water was refreshing at first, but then after awhile even the water was too warm - we guess about 85 degrees. Dave spent most of the swim a few feet under water to stay where it was cooler - maybe 80 degrees. The sun was bright and high enough that the photos of the beach itself didn't show up too well, but I'll share one anyway...

The Marriott is on top of the cliff in this photo, with the Charlotte Amalie harbor entrance just behind it.

Well, now we've got to run to the store and get some more hurricane supplies; we've decided if a storm hits, we don't want to be stuck with just canned beans.... As I'm sure most of you don't know (mainland news only seems to report about storms that may hit the mainland, we've discovered), there is a potential big storm coming our way. Tropical Storm Philippe. The picture to the right shows the projected path, and if it stays that way, it'll just miss us. Last night the projected path was a little closer to us, but it seems to have shifted a bit to the northeast. So, you can keep an eye on it on the National Hurricane Center website if you're the type to worry (or if you just want to see a larger image of the storm path). On a similar note, if a hurricane does hit us, we'll only be calling our parents to let them know how we're doing, rather than trying to call everyone we've ever met. So, if anything happens, I'm sure my mom will post a comment on the blog website to let our friendly readers know we're okay.

Playing catch-up: a christening party and losing voting rights

Well, it's been awhile since we've posted anything. So, I'll try to give the short story of what's happened since last weekend....

Last Sunday we went to a co-worker's baby's christening party at Magen's bay. Neither of us had ever been to such a party, but this party was happening. It was an "invite your friends and neighbors and anyone else you meet" type of party. They had a huge music system set up playing calypso and reggae so that almost everyone on the beach could hear it (made it a little hard to talk to people at the party though). and TONS of food, some of which they were making right there, and a variety of drinks (and i mean drinks.

Here's a sampling of the local food available there: mutton (which people here say is goat but we thought it meant sheep?), souse (pigs feet!), sweet potato stuffing, macaroni and cheese, stewed pork and chicken, soup made from a variety of seafood (i think i found an eyeball in my bowl), and beans and rice.

After we went swimming with some coworkers, we found that even more food was being made on the spot: stuffed shellfish and johnnie cakes.

The stuffed shellfish are made from the fish called shellfish - not what you'd normally think of as shell fish. These fish have scales that are super hard, so basically the chefs cracked them open like a hard taco shell and gutted them, stuffed them with veggies and other goodies. Then they wrapped each one with tinfoil and put them on the grill for awhile. I wish we'd brought our camera because it was a pretty neat production line.

People were also making the best johnnie cakes we've ever had. Johnnie cakes are essentially biscuits, but deep fried. They remind us of doughnuts but minus the sugar. We got them hot and they were tastey.

Other items of interest this week....

I discovered that when we mail packages to the states we have to use customs forms. It's bizarre. Half the time we're considered part of the U.S. -- it only costs 37 cents to mail us a letter, or vice versa, we use U.S. dollars, and you don't need a passport to come here from the states.

But the other half of the time, we're just this second-class part of the U.S. -- we have to fill out customs forms when we mail things and when we fly to the states too; we also have to use passports to enter the states from here (while the dept. of state website says otherwise, the airport officials will seriously hassle anyone who doesn't have one, as we witnessed two weeks ago); and of course, we can't vote for president and we don't have a voting senator or representative in the house.

I officially gave up my right to vote in federal elections on Thursday. I am now officially a VI resident. (Dave has been one for a month now.) I went to the DMV and got my license. Not quite as easy as it is in the states. It involves 1) going to the DMV to buy a health form ($2), 2) which you then take to a local optomotrist who checks your eyes and makes sure you don't have any serious health problems (for $20), 3) then you go get two passport photos taken of yourself ($10), then 4) you return to the DMV and pay the cashier for the written test ($10) and 5) stand in line for the test which you don't have to take to be signed off on (only available two days a week from 8am-10am) and 6) go back to the cashier to pay for your license ($35) and then, believe it or not, 7) get in line to have your photo taken for the most expensive driving license you'll ever have.

Even though you have to bring in two passport pics to get a license, they don't actually use them on the license, they just put them in your file. Normally I'm not one to complain about an ID photo, but this one is just amazingly poor. My photo is pixelated, grainy, distorted, and incredibly zoomed in. My ears aren't even in the photo and it's stretched so that my chin is almost as wide as my forehead; I have a box as a face. But the good news is, this lovely piece of plastic gets me a 10% local discount just about anywhere except the mall and the grocery stores.

One more thing about the DMV - when I say you get in line to get your photo taken, I don't mean stand in line. You stand near the photo room and look at everyone else standing or sitting nearby who are also waiting - it's just a group of people. There are no numbers to take to hold your place. You memorize the faces around you. When everyone who was there when you showed up has left, it's your turn.

Okay, not exactly a short summary, but it's the details that make life interesting here. :) We haven't figured out what's in store for the weekend yet. Definitely some beach-going and swimming. No cruise ships until next Tuesday, so we should take advantage of the emptiness.

Saturday

We went to yet another beach yesterday. This time it was Sapphire Beach (first beach listed on that link). It's one of the many beaches that is attached to a resort, so daytime guests have a little farther to walk from the parking lot than overnight guests.


The thing that looks like a mountain below all the clouds in this photo is St. John. The water here wasn't very calm, unlike most of the other places on the island. There were a few too many waves for my liking for swimming, but the waves weren't quite high enough for body surfing unfortunately.

Dave saw an octopus and a lobster while we were there. Unfortunately, I couldn't swim close enough to the bottom to see them because the pressure starts to hurt my ears, and the water was a little too hazy for me to see them. Dave didn't collect the interesting specimens for dinner though, so we went out for pizza and beers at Kokopelli Cafe (apparently they have a sister restaurant in Arizona) . Just $1 for an ice cold Miller beer, but $2.75 for a soda. Our pizza had shrimp and pesto on it and we just had some more for breakfast.

I spent yesterday morning at work, and I'm about to get some more work done. Within the next week I'll post something about what all this work is like. One of my major tasks right now is going through all the applications (about 200) we just got from third year law students who want to work here next year. Time for me to get to work!

Hazy Day

It is very hazy here today, as the photo shows. It has been really humid and still… also smells a bit like smoke. I’m not sure if the smoke smell is because the haze is from Montserrat or if it is just because someone is burning trash.

I ordered some plant seeds, including Strawberry Guava, Mysore Raspberry (tropical raspberry), Acerola (a.k.a. Barbados Cherry), Kiwi, Horned melon, Ground Cherry (kinda like a cherry tomato) and Sunrise Papaya. With the exception of the raspberry, I am going to try to grow all of the above in containers on our patio. The raspberry, I’m going to grow out back, assuming Devon/Maureen don’t mind. A picture of the Horned melon is below.



I trimmed back the yard a bit with my brand new machete. I managed not to lose any parts (or shed any blood) as I cleared back the bushes a bit from where we park. Was good fun, hacking at the jungle out in the sun with a freshly sharpened machete (I can imagine mom shuddering at that).

I talked with Devon a bit about the yard. The banana trees (herbs) in front are Fig Bananas, which Devon says are a bit smaller and sweeter than regular bananas. He promised to share them with us when they are ripe. Also, he told me the coconuts are "ready" when they are full size (and green). For those of you who don't know, coconuts have a large husk on them which must be hacked off (with a machete of course). The brown, round coconut you buy in supermarkets already has had this layer removed (random tidbit from watching ogles of nature shows as a kid… the outer husk protects the inner fruit from damage, but also serves as a float, so the coconut can float from island to island). Anyway, I’ll have to try one out one of these days.

I almost had a low speed frontal collision while I was turning onto our street today. From the “main” road, our street is a very steep descent, which makes it hard to see if anyone is coming up our road. Anyway, both of us stopped in time, so no harm done. That is the 3rd time in 5 or 6 weeks that I’ve met a car coming from the opposite direction at the head of our street, so it doesn’t happen too often, but it keeps me on my toes. To complicate matters, our street is only one lane, meaning that if someone is coming the other way, one of the cars needs to pull into a driveway to let the other pass. The road services about 10 houses or so, and I meet a car on it about 1 out of 5 times. It is an interesting drive from the airport… it starts out with a 4 lane divided road, then goes to 2 lanes with clearly marked lines, then 2 lanes (more like 1.8 lanes) with no lines, then our one lane street. Good fun.

I don’t remember if Kendra has posted this already, but there is no open container (alcohol) law on the island. So as far as I have discerned, it is okay to:
1) Drink and drive (and yes parents, we know this is stupid, and we will NOT drink and drive).
2) Stop randomly for as long as you want wherever you want to chat with other drivers or pedestrians, or just because you want to.
3) Park and leave your car, as long as 2 of your tires are off the road.
4) Use any part of the road you want.
5) Drive as fast or as slow as you want.

Only two things you are not allowed to do:
1) Have too much tinting on your windows (they just passed a law stating the max tint required 70% light to pass through, yesterday they changed it to 40% light passing through because they realized 70% was pretty extreme. The police were pulling people over, and then giving the driver a choice to either use a razor to scrap off the tint or take a traffic ticket.)
2) Drive without a seat belt on.

I find it highly ironic that you can drink and drive, but if your windows are too dark you get busted. Go figure.

Perhaps it is bad taste to put a drink recipe here, but here’s another Nielsam Original regardless:
Iguana Sunset (careful, it is a fairly strong drink)
Makes ~16 oz
Put ½ to 1 cup of ice in 12-15oz glass.
Add:
3 oz Pineapple Rum
3 oz Coconut Rum
1.5 oz Light Rum
9 oz Grapefruit Juice
Stir and serve.

Weekend

I only have a minute or two as I'm just waiting for Dave to pick me up from work - yes, at 8pm.. long, busy twelve hour day. We went to Philadelphia this weekend for my brother's wedding, so not a whole lot of Island-time. But, saturday morning, we went to Magen's Bay before our flight. This was the first time the ticket booth guy was there. You're supposed to pay $1 per local ($3 per tourist) and $1 per car to go to the beach there, but the person is only there during business hours basically - maybe 8am to 5pm? Just to get the tourists really... So as we pulled up, we stopped to pay, and the guy says "oh, go on. I'm still eating breakfast." Gotta love the island-mentality. I saw a sea turtle while we were swimming! Also saw a water aerobics class going on. Guess the bay is really the community pool too.

Being in a big city was a little weird after being on a small 4 miles by 13 miles island for the past 5 weeks. So much land! So many buildings... We did alright driving on the right hand side of the road again. Or Dave did. He did all the driving. It was good to see everyone. Apparently we're not quite tan enough yet though. Not much else going on right now!

Spot the Iguanas!

Can you spot the iguana in the tree? The green guy in the upper picture blends in well. Fred (lower picture), on the other hand, obviously doesn't care who sees him. The novelty of iguanas in the front yard hasn’t worn off yet, so you can probably expect some more random iguana shots in the future.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time today browsing a tropical seed website. I want to grow various tropical fruits and vegetables, but having a 2 year time limit and only being able to use containers limits the options a bit. (I was bummed when I learned that mangoes take a while to grow). As of now, I have a small herb garden planted. Hopefully I will be able to get my hands on some seeds for some tropical plants, and get fresh fruit in a few months. We shall see.

Ribs on the BBQ

The ribs and on the bbq and the potato fries are in the oven. Kendra had to work late today because the chambers crew went to St. John to check out the courtroom there, so I am cooking dinner first, then picking her up from work. Ribs sounded like a good change after the quasi-Caribbean stew that we had the last two nights.

I spent most of today reading a book that Kendra got me, Herman Wouk's "Don't Stop the Carnival". Basically it is about a guy who decides to buy and manage a hotel in "Amerigo" (a fictional land bearing much resemblance to the VI). The book is an interesting read.

The last few days have been a bit hazy. A couple of mornings ago the haze was heavy enough to look a bit like fog. Turns out that we get quite a bit of dust from the Sahara Desert as well as dust and ash from the island Montserrat. This time the cause of the haze was Montserrat. The island has several volcanoes, one of which has been continually active since the 90's. When the volcano first erupted in 1995, most of the 12,000 or so inhabitants fled the island, and as it stands, the former major town of island is the restricted "Exclusion Zone." More info on Montserrat is on their webpage. Below is an image from the website showing just how much of the island is off limits.