Swimming Adventures and One Lane Roads

We're back from St Martin! We had a blast. We'll post about it this weekend along with pictures. For now, I have a few minutes while I eat my lunch so I thought I'd mention a few other things that we've been up to or experiencing.

Last Saturday we went swimming at Morningstar - swam four lengths of the beach, so a little over a mile probably. (We're trying to counter-balance all the food we ate with our Thanksgiving at home and the awesome restaurants on St Martin. ) We actually saw people with surf boards trying to surf. Maybe we haven't mentioned this yet, but there are very few waves at the beaches around here. Morningstar is one of the more exposed beaches and is a little more like some San Diego beaches, but the waves are still nothing you could surf on. They're more along the lines of a wave pool at Waterworld - nothing like Big Surf's wave pool.


Sunday we returned to Morningstar for more exercise. This time though, instead of swimming along the beach, we decided to swim out around the land that juts out at the east end of the beach (pictured here). On one of my seaplane trips to St Croix, I'd seen another beach not too far from Morningstar, so we decided to explore by swimming and see how far it was. It only took about 20 minutes to reach the beach. I was hoping someone on the beach would have glanced up and wondered where we'd come from, since you can't see any other beaches nearby, but instead they all seemed too involved in their sunbathing to notice us. On the way back, Dave swam in to a little (~10-15 feet?) beach that seems attached to someone's private property. We didn't see much sea life, but it was a nice work-out and it was fun to go somewhere new. We have no idea which beach it was, but it didn't seem much better than Morningstar.

Last night we were reminded that living in the Caribbean is going to teach us patience. On the way home from work, a large utility truck was parked on our one-way road with two workers in the back. Dave said on his way out to pick me up, they'd had to move the truck aside for him to get by. This time though, the truck was braced with something, and the workers on the back were raised up to the power line after we'd been waiting about 5 minutes, so we realized they probably weren't going to move the truck for us. After sitting there for another 5 minutes, I abandoned Dave and the car and walked the rest of the way home so I could take a shower. It probably took another 10 or 15 minutes before they were done and could move the truck to let Dave pass. We've definitely learned that in a place where there are so few roads, if something is blocking one of them, you're just expected to sit and wait for it to get clear.

Agricultural Fair

The Agricultural Fair was worth our $2 admission fee on Sunday. We got to taste scrumptious things like fish jerky and frozen soursop juice. I had a conch pate and Dave had a beef pate. We also tried some guavaberry cake. The woman who sold us the cake insisted that we taste it right then and tell her what we thought of it. It was pretty good. She explained that sometimes she takes a shortcut and makes it with a pound cake mix to start. We also saw lots of jams and hot sauces for sale. We tried some mango candy and another flavor which I can't recall, probably papaya. There were tons of plants and trees for sale, but nobody had the kinds that Dave was looking for (guava and papaya was it?). Plenty of exhibits too on USVI agriculture. There was an article on the newspaper's website but it seems like it is already gone - a bit surprising because usually updates aren't made to their website that often. I'd definitely go again next year. But maybe this is just a sign that we live in a small community and just about any event is exciting!

Pictures, Turkey, & Ag Fair

Here are some pictures from my tour with Dave last week!

This is me shortly after we arrived at Cas Cay, sporting my brand new Ecotours hat. The blue thing behind me is the kayak we took. This is just about 20-30 feet from where I later got bit by a crab.


Here I am by the blow-hole on the other end of Cas Cay. No, it's not splashing me, that's just a splash from the waves from the Caribbean Sea behind me. The wind was strong enough to push my hat off though.



Snorkeling. I can't remember why i was holding up all my fingers, but maybe it was to show that we were using Vivid Mode (see, lots of Vs...), as opposed to holding up letter 'A's for Auto Mode, demonstrated here by my lovely tour guide:

As you can see, it's plenty of fun! Well, we saw Harry Potter on Friday. I thought it was the best movie of the series so far. The effects are great and it's action packed. Yesterday we had an early Thanksgiving since we'll be on St Martin on Thursday. Dave cooked his first turkey and made stuffing and pumpkin pie, and I made the scalloped corn, mashed potatoes and also the sweet potatos with marshmallows on top. All in all, it was a good Thanksgiving. The food was great and we ate far too much of it. It was about 85 degrees outside. No, we didn't eat outside, it was too hot!

Today is the Agricultural Fair on at UVI: "Keep Agriculture Alive in 2005 is the event's theme, and all manner of growing and grown things will be available – flowering and non-flowering plants, eggplants, chickens, fresh eggs, collard greens, all kinds of bush tea, jams, jellies, chutneys and local drinks. There will be booths selling everything from vegetarian dishes to local favorites, pony cart rides and a petting zoo for the children; locally made goods are featured." We're told it's a must-go event! So we'll be heading there later today.

Private Ecotour and Random Happenings

On Sunday, Dave took me on a private Ecotour! He wanted to try out some different settings with the camera he uses at work, so it seemed like a good excuse to take me out on a kayak and show me where he works. We went on the kayak-hike-snorkel trip to Cas Cay. We took a double kayak which meant that when I got tired, I could enjoy the scenary and let the expert do the paddling. No wonder Dave is getting so buff; that's hard work! When we got to Cas Cay, we "hiked" (really it's just a walk) to the end of it where there is a blow-hole. Along the way, Dave pointed out the things in nature they explain to the tourists, including the death apple tree and some coral. I think the vast majority of the cay is actually just coral, but maybe I misunderstood my guide. After we wandered back to the kayaks, we got our snorkel equipment and Dave led me through about 8 inches deep water along the beach toward where we were going to swim. That's when it happened.

I felt something hard under my middle right toe and suddenly I felt something biting my toe in a sharp pinch. I screamed "Ow!" and Dave looked at me like I was crazy. Through my tears, I explained I'd been bitten by something. Dave hadn't seen anything through the water and he'd been keeping an eye out for mangrove jellyfish. But I showed him my bleeding toe and we noticed it bit through my toenail in addition to giving me a puncture wound on the tip of my toe. Whatever it was had disappeared, as I probably scared it. We think it was probably a crab buried in the sand. Apparently nobody has ever gotten bit by one on the tour before.

I endured the pain, and we continued on the tour so I could check out the snorkeling and Dave could try different camera modes in the underwater shots. I didn't enjoy it too much as I was preoccupied with my toe and the fear that Barry the barracuda would show up because of the blood I'd shed. But there were some interesting fish and I plan to go back sometime. I highly recommend asking for Dave as your tour guide. :-) But be sure to ask him to keep an eye out for hidden crabs. I'll try to add some pictures from our trip sometime soon.

One thing I forgot to mention about my trip to St Croix last week... While at a gas station at 8:30 a.m. I saw a garbage truck driver walking out of the gas station shop with a beer in his hand. He opened it, took a drink and hopped back in the truck to keep driving. Seeing people drinking and driving is one thing, at 8:30 a.m. while that person is on-the-job is another!

In other news this week.... one of my former co-workers from TierraNet, Dan, is here on St Thomas with his wife Shannon for a conference this week. We met up with them last night and drove them around a bit so they could see the island as they've mostly been trapped on the east end the whole time. Even though it was dark, the full moon provided us with some picturesque views of the moon reflecting off the Atlantic Ocean on the north side and the Caribbean Sea on the south side.

Not much else is really happening here. Dave's been busy on the tours and I've been swamped at work. But I finished something big yesterday so that is a huge weight off my shoulders. We need to work on our plans for St Martin still. If any of you have been there and has suggestions, please leave a comment on the blog for us! I've got walking/running a couple of times this week at Magen's before work. My judge is a runner and he tells me the 20-29 age group doesn't really show up to a lot of the running races here, so I figure if I'm ever going to place in a running event, this is the time and the place for it. I recognize most of the people there in the mornings now.

I'm super excited about the weekend. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is out in the theatres today! I spent a great deal of effort last weekend trying to figure out the screen times and whether I could buy tickets ahead of time here. Turns out the manager didn't even know what time it'd be showing and he told me he wouldn't know until today. There is only one showing per day here on the weekdays! So tomorrow at 8:30pm, I'll be at the movie theatre, freezing cold for a change, enjoying wonderful air conditioning!

Three Strikes, Wild Animals, and Recovery

On Friday afternoon, Dave and I thought we'd head to the beach for a swim to cool off and get some exercise. We headed towards Sapphire Beach on the east end of the island but along the way, we decided to try a new beach - Lindquist Beach. Dave had been told we could find it by looking for an open fence along the road. We found the fence after a few U-turns and went about 25 feet along the road before deciding we probably shouldn't be driving on it without four wheel drive. So next we went to the beach at the Wyndham hotel. It only took us a minute or two of looking at the super crowded and very small beach that didn't have much space for safe swimming because of the jet ski launch before deciding just to go to Sapphire after all. Once arriving at Sapphire, we stretched, decided where to swim and jumped in. Within three minutes we saw a jellyfish and decided after three attempts maybe we just weren't meant to go swimming today, so we called it a day.

We did, however, see a bunch of iguanas at the Wyndham. How many can you see in the picture below? You can click on it to see the full sized picture.

We also saw the usual random goats along the side of the road, pictured here almost just across the street from the fenced road to Lindquist. And last night we saw a cow near Home Depot.

I've been asked by a few people whether we've recovered from our swim yet. Yes! I think recovering from a 5 mile swim is a bit easier than recovering from a marathon. (BTW, Congrats to Bree for finishing the Chicago marathon, and Good Luck to Liz in the Philadelphia marathon next week!) My left leg, the one that had cramped up during the race, hurt for a few days, and my right shoulder was a little sore for a day or two. But that's it!

Dave is still recovering from his injury at work last week. He is getting some funny tan lines from wearing bandaids on his shin covering the wounds!

St Croix Food

I just got back from a trip to St Croix for work - we had a trial there this week, so I was there Monday-Wednesday. Even though there was a lot of work involved, the judge is really great about making sure I get to see a bit of the island when we're over there for trials. This time we ate dinner at the Buccaneer's restaurant on Monday - some fabulous food, including a crispy eggplant dish with ricotta cheese that I'm hoping Dave will try to make some time. We actually drove around to check out quite a few places to eat but they were all packed, so we ended up back at the hotel. Last night we went to the Galleon for dinner. It's a nice place on the waterfront, actually by the same pier near Green Cay where Dave and I got on the boat to Buck Island for the swim a few weeks ago. Some of the yachts on the pier are pretty cool looking. If I had won the lottery this week, I think I might have been tempted to get a boat. I had a really tasty piece of duck with an orange glaze. Both dinners were great. I'd recommend either place for food if you're ever on St Croix!

For lunch both days we went to local places. I can't remember the name of the place we ate at Monday, mostly because it was something starting with a B that I could not pronounce. I got my standard local food dish - saltfish. Most lunches here come with rice, beans, and plantain (locally pronounced "plan-tin"). I like the saltfish because it's always pretty much the same and it's not quite as heavy as the chicken can be since some chicken ends up with a heavy sauce it seems. Yesterday we went to Zeny's - a well known old place on the island run by a woman named Zeny. Her daughter opened Zeny's II right around the corner, and I've been told Zeny's II has a better atmosphere but the food isn't nearly as good. At Zeny's I had the chicken and we also got some tostones - my first time trying them.

Tostones are made from green plantains. I was told that they get all mashed up and then split into small round bits and fried. To me it just looked like the regular plantain side dish, but they were cut in rounds rather than just chunks. So they look kind of like banana chips but thicker, and they are soft. Compared to regular fried plantains, tostones are less sweet and more of the consistency of french fries. Some people even eat them with ketchup. They're good and it's nice to try new food, but I'm not convinced they are as fabulous as people made them sound. I'd eat them again for sure though.

Since this post seems to be all about food, I figure I should mention our Saturday night dinner at Cuzzins. Cuzzins is a restaurant down town that serves local food, but the restaurant itself is somewhat Americanized. They've got lots of expensive alcoholic frozen drinks and air conditioning. I love it because it's non-smoking. Actually, a decent number of restaurants here are non-smoking. It seems like the only ones that permit smoking are geared towards tourists. Anyways, I got lobster for the first time. It was pretty tasty. We also had conch fritters. Fritters remind me of doughnut holes, but fritters are a little bigger and aren't always sweet. I tasted banana fritters a few weeks ago and they like a sweet banana cake, fried just enough to give it some crisp. Yum. Sure sounds like we eat a lot of fried food here, doesn't it? Don't worry. We don't eat local food every day!

Well, hopefully Dave will be done with his tour soon so he can pick me up and we can have some unhealthy non-local food. A coworker was in DC over the weekend and brought back a Cinnabon for everyone!

Gotta Love the Curious Predators...

Just thought I would post to say hi to everyone... Kendra is on St. Croix for work, so I have time on my hands. Today at work was pretty fun, had two good tours (translation, I managed to not maim myself today), and we made good money, which always helps the feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day.

I saw Barry today... he was acting super curious. When tourists (and the camera man) approached, he started to go back into the lagoon, but as we were swimming back to the beach, Barry came back up on our tail. (His behavior reminded me of a dog who is playing... you rush toward it, the dog retreats, you turn and run, the dog rushes back to nip your heels). Barry is definitely not concerned about lone snorkelers... when I took the picture below he was about 4ft from me (just out of arm's reach). Barry tends to project an aura of nonchalance; nothing messes with him in is his lagoon, and he knows it.


[Barry's Grin]

We also saw a shark while snorkeling in at Long Point. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of it (it cruised through pretty quick). The shark was a 3ft or so reef shark, I think we spooked it, as it was heading toward the channel to the Caribbean Sea.

I finally got a picture of an octopus in which it is possible to actually ID the octopus. Since octopi are nocturnal, they spend the days scrunched up in rocks, which doesn't lend itself to photos, but in this one you can see one of its breathing holes (big white-ish circle) and one of its eyes (rust colored with a black slit that is a bit down and right of the breathing hole).


[Octopus]

As a reminder, the USVI is now 4hrs ahead of Pacific Time, as we do not do daylight savings time changes.

The Ups and Downs of Work

The pictures interspersed are photos from work. For the paired photos, the first photo is the unedited, the second is “autobalanced” via Photoshop (and sometimes blurred as well). Derek showed me the autobalance command, and as you can see, it really improves the quality of the underwater shots. Keep in mind that these pictures have had their resolution reduced greatly at the expense of quality, so the “real” ones look quite a bit better.




[Angelfish]

This past week has been a bit rocky at work. My work week started out finding out that two guides, Kevin and Luis, got in a bad car accident over the weekend. Luis broke his shoulder and sliced up his head, while Kevin broke his neck (!!!) and got his face very scraped up. Fortunately, it seems that Kevin has no nerve damage. I will definitely miss Kevin… he was the most cheerful guy at work, and he went out of his way to make us newbies feel at home. Hopefully he will fully recover, but from what I hear he will probably have some serious scarring on his face.




[Caribbean Spiny Lobster. Outside the Sanctuary would = Dinner... mmmmmmm]

Anyway, on top of that, CD sales have been pretty mediocre, averaging 3 CDs per trip. This means that I didn’t make much money, which sucks; as I put in the same amount of effort regardless of the number of CDs I sell (I don’t find out who is buying until the very end of the tour). Also, one of the lead guides got in a shouting match with the office manager (after the guests left) which is never pretty.



[Blueclawed Caribbean Crab]

Today I managed to hurt myself three times on the tour, which always takes the fun out of things… first I slipped on Cas Cay on some coral debris, cutting my toe, then I slipped in a dingy and scrapped my shin, getting down to the nice white skin fat layer, then I managed to hit myself in the head with my camera (long story), getting a nice bump on my head. Needless to say, not the best trip for Dave. Barry the adult barracuda (~5 ft long) was cruising around the lagoon while we were snorkeling, I wonder if he was trying to find the source of blood in the water (me).



[Barry, the 5ft Barracuda]

On the upside, photography will be working a bit differently at work. For the next month, we are doing a trial where the photographer gets paid as a guide, and the proceeds from the CD sales and the guide tips are split among all the guides. This is nice because it levels out my income a little, and it makes it so the guides have a much greater incentive to work with, rather than against, the photographers (since they get a cut of the CD sales now too). I should make slightly more money overall, plus on slow days, it really helps me. For example, today we had a tour of 10 comprised of only 2 families, which means I only sold 2 CDs. Normally that would mean I barely made any money, but I also got guide pay (which is worth about 3 CDs) and a share of the tips (another CD worth) in exchange for splitting my measly 2 CD sale with the lead guide. So instead of 2 CDs worth of income I got 5 CDs worth of income, plus the guide is happy because he makes about the same amount plus he has me to help during the tour.



[Filter feeding polyp]



[Pirates]

Other events of the week… Kendra made dinner last weekend. She made a yummy coconut shrimp and jasmine rice dish which was good. In addition, she made an excellent ice cream pie dessert. The ice cream pie had (past tense, it is all gone) an Oreo cookie crust, vanilla ice cream with crushed peppermint candies and marshmallow bits. It was very delicious.



[Rainbow File Fish]

The garden is coming along okay… green beans, basil, corn, horned melon, water melon and honey dew melon are all doing well (only green beans have yielded food so far, but the others are growing well). Unfortunately the mysore raspberries, guava and papaya have yet to sprout. Hopefully they come up soon.



[Squirrel Fish]

November already?

We can't believe it's November. It's a sunny 86 degrees out, and the heat index is 93. And with even more cruise ships coming in each day, we just see more and more people who look and act like they are on summer vacation. Given the weather and surroundings, it's easy to understand. The Disney cruise is here today. Its horn plays the beginning of "When you wish upon a star", so at 4:45pm, we'll all be sitting in our offices waiting for the tune. The ships blow their horns just before they leave port and then on their way out. Not quite sure what the point is, but I like the Disney one....

We spent the weekend resting and relaxing. We swam a little at Sapphire beach on Saturday. Since we're weren't doing any serious swimming we were mostly just looking for interesting sea creatures. We saw a few sea turtles. Sapphire is where Dave has swam with sea turtles before, so I guess they like it there. On Sunday we decided to try out Brewer's Bay near the University of the Virgin Islands. It was super calm though occassionally quite loud because the airport is nearby. We had heard that Brewer's has lots of sea turtles, but we didn't see any. We found two big star fish though.

Last week, a bunch of us from work went to some local restaurants for lunch. One of them, Vio's, was actually started by a co-worker's mother. Dave and I returned this Monday so he could try it out. The first time I got fish soup; Monday I had salmon balls. Both were pretty tasty. I especially liked the johnny cakes that they make. Yum. The other place we went to last week was called Arian's. I definitely would recommend it for visitors, as it's very reasonably priced, good local food, and there is actually somewhere to sit and eat the food. There, I got the saltfish with potato stuffing, plaintain, and dumplings. Plenty of different types of local food to taste there. I also tasted someone's conch, green banana, and fungi. If anyone wants more info on what this stuff is, let me know.

Dave and I went for a walk at Magen's yesterday morning; it was very nice. I'm going to try to start getting up early (6am) and going for a walk before work, and eventually start running. There's not really time to do any exercise after work because it gets dark too early. Swimming before work is okay but definitely not if it's still dark. And I don't really like going swimming there by myself, so that means I have to convince Dave to go, which he's not really inclined to do if he's going to be kayaking and snorkeling all day at work. Also, there are lots of other people walking along the road at Magen's, but not very many people on the beach or in the water - the road and beach are separated by palm trees.

I made dinner on Sunday. I think Dave would agree that the dessert was the best part. I made the Peppermint-Marshmallow Ice Cream Pie featured in the August Cooking Light magazine. Yesterday Dave made a super awesome dinner. We'd been craving Rubio's fish tacos, so he found a recipe online that claimed to make them. They were excellent!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween.