St. Croix sprint triathlon trip

It's been a busy month, so please forgive us for the lack of blog posts! Dave and I spent the first weekend in March on St. Croix so I could participate in their first sprint triathlon of the season. (Triathlon season in most places is more of a summer sport - here it's March-May and then September-November.) We love St. Croix! It's so spread out with lots of flat areas and it is less crowded than St. Thomas. It's more laid back and makes St. Thomas seem like the big city. Really.

After all this talk about the seaplane, we thought it was time for a photo of the inside of the plane - as you can see there aren't very many seats and the windows are huge. (And for some reason the pilots always make me feel really old. I'm sure there's a pilot who is older than me though. There must be one....) Taking a bike on the seaplane is relatively easy - unlike every other airline I know of, you don't have to box up your disassembled bike. You take off the front wheel only. The tricky part is balancing the bike on a small scale that is used to weigh luggage. Everything gets weighed at the seaplane. My bike didn't make it on our Friday afternoon flight but it came over first thing Saturday morning. Luckily living on the island has transformed me into more of a type-B person. We recognized someone on the seaplane from previous sporting events and he invited us to join the weekend swimming group (the finfolk) to do a little 2 mile swim Saturday morning. We thought about it but decided going to our favorite breakfast buffet at the Buccaneer was more important!

We stayed at the Divi Carina Resort (yay for local discounts! half price!). It's on the far east side of the island - nothing else is out there except Point Udall. Point Udall claims to be the farthest east bit of the U.S. (Forget Wake Island.) Point Udall has a monument and it was the place to be for the total lunar eclipse. Dave took lots of photos while we watched the moon disappear and reappear. A metaphysical fair was happening on St. Croix that weekend so some of the participants came to Point Udall and played in a drum circle during the whole event.

Saturday we drove around the whole island exploring. I wanted to drive up the legendary Beast - it's part of the big St. Croix triathlon in May that triathletes have nightmares about. It's 0.7 miles but steep enough that less than half of the hundreds of triathletes who compete in the big half ironman race are actually able to ride up it. The rest walk. After that, we attempted to find the rain forest again. A year ago we made our first attempt but missed the road. Since most roads don't have names, and maps are not exactly super easy to read when not all of the roads are on the maps, and there aren't road names, it's not too surprising. Well, we drove through half of it this time before we took a wrong turn. We didn't feel like we missed much though. The "rain forest" isn't a real rain forest. We found out later than to really experience the rain forest, you need to park your car (along the two way road that is at times barely wide enough for one car) and bushwack your way through with a machete.

After the rain forest, we went to Fredericksted - the town on the west end. There is a big pier there and it's where the cruise ships dock when they show up - but St Croix only gets about 6 or 7 ships a year. Unlike the main town on St. Thomas, or Christiansted on St. Croix, there was no strip of shops selling souveniers. There was a dive shop and a KFC (the fast food restaurant of choice in the Caribbean). We found the emancipation monument which shows a slave with a machete blowing a conch shell to signal the beginning of a revolt. Also in Fredericksted was the fort and seven flag poles. The seven flag poles represent the seven flags that have flown over St. Croix: Spanish, Dutch, British, French, Knights of Malta, Danish and U.S. There were no flags flying that day, but I'm not sure if that's because the flag poles are just a symbol, or because nobody felt like hoisting the flags that weekend.

While on the west side of the island, we also went to Sandy Point, which is a national wildlife refuge on the southwest point of St. Croix. It's a 327 acre nesting habitat for leatherback turtles. Leatherbacks are the world's largest sea turtles, and Sandy Point is the largest nesting place for them in the U.S. There is an amazing beach there, but it is totally exposed to the sun and is quite hot. To protect any turtle eggs buried in the sand, you're not allowed to use beach umbrellas, volleyball nets, or push anything into the sand. I would recommend visiting this place to anyone who goes to St. Croix, but unfortunately it is only open on the weekends, and it's closed entirely during the peak of turtle nesting season. Here I am enjoying the cool water on my feet. Dave took tons of photos at this beach. The contrast between the sand, sea, and sky was great. It looked fake. But there we were! This is the place to photograph postcards and computer wallpaper.

We also ran a few errands - taking my bike to the bike shop to get a tune-up. The bike shop on St. Thomas closed months ago, and the one on St. Croix closed shortly after we were there. This means the only bike shop in the Virgin Islands is on Tortola - a British Virgin Island. Not convenient for triathletes!! We also picked up the Caribbean hook bracelet Dave won last October by finishing 10th in the 5 mile Coral Reef Swim. Caribbean hook bracelets are THE jewelry to buy in the USVI. The typical has a U shape. Locals wear them facing inwards if they're in a relationship or outwards if they're looking. The swim bracelet must have been made with non-locals in mind as far as I can tell. It's an S for swimmer. Dave gave me the bracelet and I wear it regularly - so far nobody has asked if I'm looking or not. We also called our parents so they could see us wave at them on the St. Croix webcam.

Sunday morning was race day. It was super windy so the water was very rough. Dave decided to do the swim portion of the race and he managed to beat local celebrity Misty Hyman (formerly of Phoenix, AZ!) who has a few Olympic medals in her pocket. (maybe that's what slowed her down? seriously, though, she's really nice and always shows up to swim for a relay team at the local triathlons). I enjoyed the swim, it was kind of fun to get pushed around by the water. Then came the bike - the east end has tons of hills and plenty of wind. It was rough! But the scenery was beautiful as the road followed the coast for most of the 13 miles. The run wasn't much easier as it went over the same hills. Overall though, I came in third in my age group, and seventh among the women. This would be great if there were more than 3 people in my age group, or more than 7 women who participated. You can probably guess how I did compared to the men too.... and the relay teams.... At least Dave was there at the finish line, and someone had stayed to get my time for me.

Every time we visit St. Croix we love it more. St. Croix has fabulous weather, tons of space, it's cheaper than St. Thomas, and there is always some athletic event to do. But, no, we won't be moving there - same problems as St. Thomas - a distinct lack of good health care and a good educational system. I'm sure that somewhere we can find a nice tropical island with everything we want. We're still looking though....

We have more photos online on our Shutterfly account.