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.

St. Croix Agricultural Fair

Every year over the three day President's Day weekend, St. Croix has a huge Agricultural Fair. St. Thomas has an annual Ag Fair too, but it's nowhere near the size of St. Croix's. (We went to the one on St. Thomas our first year, but this year it was when I was in the hospital with appendicitis. My co-clerks bought us an ornamental pepper plant, and some baked goods, so we didn't miss out entirely.) The St. Croix Ag Fair includes people from all over the Caribbean who come to sell foods, spices, and crafts. [This photo is just one example of the many fruits that were on sale that we hadn't seen before.]

After hearing about the St. Croix Ag Fair for so long, we decided it was time to check it out. We waited too long to book a hotel - even the week before the fair the hotel receptionists were laughing at me when I asked if there were any rooms available. And then it looked like we waited too long to book transportation. We'd planned on the unreliable ferry, as it's cheaper ($90 RT) than the local commuter flights ($150-200 RT). But even the ferry was full. When I called them2 days before the fair started, I just got the machine which said"We're really busy so we're not answering the phone." Luckily I kept checking the Seaplane website and they added some flights at the last minute to accommodate the St. Thomian procrastinators like us.

Sunday morning we arrived at the Seaplane at 7:15 for our 8:00 flight,45 minutes early just as they request. They moved us to the 7:15flight which was about to depart! Flying the Seaplane is not like flying any other airline I've ever encountered in the US. First,there's no airport - it's just a building along the harbor that you go to for check-in. Second, there's no security to go through - just show the person at the desk your ID, tell them how much you weigh, let them weigh and take your bags, and they hand you your boarding pass. Then when your flight is called you walk down the dock and get on the plane. Depending on the plane you get, the seats may only come up to your mid-back. But it's fine since the forty mile flight to St. Croix is only 20 minutes.

We took a taxi to the Ag Fairgrounds. St. Croix (STX) really feels so different from St. Thomas (STT). It's a much larger island (84 sq miles on STX v. 32 sq miles on STT)) and less populated (around 40k on STX; 50k on STT). It's the flat island, though it still has some serious hills. (St. John is the really hilly one, St Thomas is more like St. John than St. Croix though.) St. Croix is also more laid back than St. Thomas. The work days on St. Croix are a little shorter too. Although, that could just be the rumor....

Because we got to the Ag Fair early, we had time to walk around and check out all the booths setting up and see the lay of the land before it got too hot. There were six components to the Ag Fair - 1) the very important food pavilion and food booths, 2) the regular booths, 3)farmers' market, 4) livestock pavilion, 5) the entertainment stages,and 6) the rides. It's a lot like a state or county fair, except the rides are only for the kiddies, as far as I know. (But that's okay because I've read enough newspaper articles about injuries on those rides here in the past year.)

Food is a major focus of the Ag Fair. We have tried lots of foods since we moved here, but there were still many foods we had never heard of that we encountered last weekend. Also there were foods we had heard of but hadn't had the opportunity to try yet. We started the day splitting a salt fish pate. A pate (pronounced paah-tay) is basically some meat, veggies, or fish inside fried dough. Terribly unhealthy, but delicious. Salt fish is popular here - fish is salted to preserve it, then soaked to remove the salt, and then usually cooked, unless it's "pick up saltfish" which isn't cooked but is made into something more like tuna salad and is eaten with crackers. After our first rounds of the grounds, we also had a johnny cake (just plain fried dough, a hint of sweetness) - often eaten as the bread with a meal; and a conch pate (say conk - you know, the thing that grows in a conch shell, those beautiful shells you can "hear the ocean" with), which was absolutely delicious! It had garlic in it, which is not a popularly used spice here. [This is a photo of Dave with a johnny cake and his carambola drink.]

Grenada is the "Spice Island" - it's fairly far down the Lesser Antilles island chain. Grenada was well-represented at the Ag Fair. [Here's a photo of their spice table.] Dave bought some cocoa sticks, and we bought some of the spices they're famous for - saffron was the best buy. One of the booths also sold fudge - we tried both coconut and ginger - it was fairly dry, but I suppose if it's too moist it would just melt in the heat.

We tried pumpkin fritters in the morning too - think pumpkin, flour,sugar, then fry it. (Are we sensing a theme?) Also, many people told me to try benye (ben-yay). I found some, but was disappointed - it tasted like greasy banana bread - probably fried. I looked for another booth selling benye but by the time other booths had it, I was stuffed. Dave and I did most of our eating before noon, and unfortunately didn't have room for any "real meals". Because of our poor planning, we missed out on the "conch water" (aka soup) and the kallaloo (a very green soup usually made with pork but sometimes seafood). I deliberately avoided the "goat water" (soup) and the oxtail. We did save room for desserts though!

In the farmers' market, we saw some men preparing sugar cane to be chopped up and sold in baggies. [Here's a photo of a man peeling it.] They kept saying "come back in 15minutes". An hour later (and many walk-bys later) it was finally available and we enjoyed chewing on the raw sugar cane, sucking out the sweet water and trying to avoid getting stabbed in the mouth with the fibrous remains. [Me with a baggie of sugar cane.] We also bought some cookie-type baked goods called "dried mattie" and "laba bad". The la ba bad was in the shape of a bar cookie, but it tasted similar to biscotti. The dried mattie was long and cylindrical and less sweet, though it was similar. I think we bought them both from the St. Kitts and Nevis booth (two islands making up the smallest nation in the Americas, I believe). We also bought some dried fruits called Juju - which we saw marketed as Jujube and Jojobe too. They tasted a lot like dried plums to me.

To wash down these fried foods and tasty desserts, we enjoyed homegrown bananas, sorrell drink and starfruit drink. Bananas that grow here are often referred to as "figs" - I think they're marketed as "finger bananas" in the states. Dave has a starfruit (carambola) tree on our deck which has made fruits twice. We bought it from the booth that had won "best carambola drink" the day before. We hadn't tasted sorrel before though. Sorrel is a red fleshy flower that is boiled in water to bring out the taste, then strained, and sugar is added to the drink to sweeten it. An alcoholic version is also popular around Christmas here. Dave bought some sorrel at the farmers' market so he could make the drink at home. He decided he likes it more like an iced tea without too much sweetener.

Later, when everyone else was lining up in the food pavilion for lunch, we got ice cream. Armstrong's is a local ice cream company that makes local flavors. At Christmas time they made guavaberry ice cream- there were ads in the paper notifying people that it was available at the ONE place that sells Armstrong's on St Thomas. I bought some and Dave and I loved it. Sadly, we were told it's only made at Christmas. But the ice cream truck had some guavaberry, which Dave chose easily. [See how happy he looks with the purple ice cream?] I tried the banana and soursop (a local tart fruit).

We didn't just eat at the Ag Fair though! We wandered through the livestock section which had lots of cattle, goats, emus, puppies,rabbits, chickens, and baby chicks. There were bands playing at various stages, including P'your Passion (pronounced Pure Passion) - one of the more popular bands on St. Thomas - they play lively reggae and soca. We'd heard them before on multiple occasions. Another stage seemed to have evangelists all day. Dave seemed to most enjoy the large variety of plants on display (and the guavaberry ice cream).

It was hot and we had seen everything we wanted to see, so we decided to head back towards Christiansted and check out the Fort. We tried to catch a taxi but they were all going the other way, or had some other explanation that we couldn't understand as to why we couldn't get in. (Most of the time we can understand what locals say, but sometimes the dialect is just a big communications barrier.) We joined a few people by what looked like a bus stop and hoped a taxi would stop. One stopped and was heading towards Christiansted. We've learned to always ask how much the fare will be before we hop on, though sometimes we can't quite understand the taxi driver's answer. I heard something like "two fifty" or "two fifteen". It was $16 for our trip out there, so we hopped on. Soon we realized this was not your average taxi, and perhaps it was like the dollar bus on St. Thomas. Dollar buses look like regular taxis here (large vans on STX), but they charge $1 or $2 and only go on certain routes. They're better than a bus system though because they will pick you up and drop you off anywhere along the route they travel. Some passengers were giving the driver coins, some dollars, and some didn't seem to pay at all. When we arrived near the Fort (pictured here), we paid $2.50 total and that was that. A pleasant surprise. More photos from the St. Croix Ag Fair are online here, and more photos from our exploration of the Fort are available here. We're heading back to St. Croix this weekend for a sprint triathlon and are excited to explore the island even more!