Moving

All of our stuff got packed on Thursday - including my laptop's power
supply, so no more internet access at home for us. Blame the movers
for delays in our blogging. But we will post about Dominica and
Anegada once we're back in the states. We're on St. John right now, at
the Deli Grotto. One last relaxing lunch here. They have a new treat
today - butterscotch coconut bars. It's in our to-go bag for an
afternoon snack. We had a few friends over last night and they
graciously helped clear out our liquor cabinet - the movers don't move
liquids, and customs probably wouldn't allow it anyway. All that
inexpensive rum is gone now! It'll be weird to be back in the states.
All that land we fly over tomorrow on the way to California will be
such a different landscape than we're used to!

Harry Potter Weekend

While Harry Potter seems to be popular in the rest of world - it doesn't create quite the stir down here. The 5th movie came out 2 weeks ago (I think?) but as we were on islands without movie theatres, it didn't really matter. I heard it just opened up on St. Thomas this weekend. I'm waiting for the IMAX in the bay area! The final book went on sale yesterday. The only bookstore on St. Thomas didn't do anything special for it - no midnight opening for all of us anxious Muggles awaiting the book. I reserved my copy months ago, and I was told the store had ordered 100 copies. (Amazon wasn't an option - the release day delivery is only for the lower 48.) We showed up at the bookstore at about 8:50 yesterday morning to find only about 4 or 5 people waiting. We don't queue up here generally - you're expected to know who was waiting when you showed up and know that when they're all gone, it's your turn. Dave finished the book yesterday too. I haven't started it as I'm rereading book 6 first.

Other than reading, we've been cleaning up the apartment, swimming, and planning one last quick vacation. The movers come on Thursday to pack our stuff up. It's kind of tough packing our two suitcases with everything we need for the next 6-8 weeks, while our stuff gets shipped. At least we should be able to buy anything we need in the states! Looking forward to the life of luxury again. We also spent some time swimming at Sapphire Beach yesterday and Friday afternoons. Many sea turtles were seen eating the seagrass at the sea floor. We spotted a few rays both days too. Tomorrow we're going to Anegada - a British Virgin Island that is the farthest away from us. We haven't been there yet and wanted to get a visit in before we leave. The ferry only runs three times a week; you can't do it as a day trip from St. Thomas. We come back Wednesday afternoon, just in time for some more packing.

St. Kitts and Nevis (Part 2)

On Thursday, we made it home safely from our vacation. A bit more about our time on St. Kitts and Nevis, then I'll move on to the week on Dominica. First, it's official name is the Federation of St. Christopher and Nevis. But it's known as St. Kitts and Nevis. St. Kitts became the first British territory in the West Indies in 1624. The islands got their independence in 1983 from Britain. Christopher Columbus allegedly named St Kitts after himself because he liked it more than any other island he saw. Nevis was also named by him – something about snow capped mountains – because Mount Nevis is always in the clouds, which look like snow. (We took the photo of Mount Nevis here during the hike - definitely in the clouds.) Like most of the islands around here, they are volcanic in origin. While they have mountainous interiors, the outside areas are fairly flat. Sugar cane is the main export, and St Kitts was the last of the Caribbean islands to have a state owned sugar cane company which closed in 2005. Also, I am fairly sure that St. Kitts is the only Caribbean island that has a train on it. It used to help with the sugar cane system but now serves as a scenic 3 hour ride around the island for tourists. As I mentioned in a previous post, together the islands make up one of the smallest country's in the world. Nevis is about the size of St. Thomas - 36 square miles with 15k people on it. St. Kitts is bigger - about 68 sq miles, with about 35k residents. English is the official language; English Creole is common too. There is no US Ambassador to St Kitts and Nevis (or Dominica) - the one on Barbados covers these islands. Tourism is the biggest industry.

The ferry between St Kitts and Nevis is about a 45 minute ride that doesn’t take the shortest route between the two islands. The channel itself is only about 2 miles. There’s actually a swim race between the islands every march, but we missed it both years. We toyed with swimming the route on our own while we were here; taking turns kayaking and swimming. But the water was so uninviting looking – the sea bottom covered with seaweed instead of coral and fish – and dark water instead of pretty turquoise. We had plenty of other things to keep ourselves busy.

As a stamp collector, I like to visit post offices when we travel to other islands. I was surprised to discover that St. Kitts and Nevis have their own stamps. But given the rivalry between the islands (more below), I suppose it is not unexpected. The ones sold on St Kitts all say St Kitts. However, you can use the stamps interchangeably on the two islands. St. Kitts has stamps for tons of international events that they had nothing to do with – 50th anniversary of lunar landing; Nelson Mandela meeting the Pope; Mao Se Tung; D-day and Vjay day with an atomic bomb on it; aids awareness; Prince William’s 21st birthday (okay, it is a former British territory); and their World Cup 2004 soccer stamp is of the German team. Also, some images were very low quality; others very pretty.

Dave and I also collect local beer labels. St Kitts and Nevis has (have?) a few beers they brew on island, but none that are actually unique to the islands: Stag – "the man’s beer"; Skol; and Carib (from Trinidad) and Mackeson. One local drink is "Ting with a Sting" - Ting is a carbonated grapefruit drink like Squirt (I think it's available in the US?), and the "sting" is CSR - Cane Spirit Rothschild, an alcoholic beverage made from the sugar cane, but tastes more like vodka than rum. CSR is made on St. Kitts.

The plantation on Nevis that we stayed at, Golden Rock, was pretty neat (and monkeys nearby - seen here on the hotel's nature walk!). There are only a dozen rooms - little cottages, or you can opt for the sugar mill as your room. The owner, Pam, was very helpful and people renting houses nearby would come to Golden Rock for meals and seek her out like a concierge. We picked up a souvenir based on her suggestion too - she directed us to a local man who does wood carvings, and we brought a carved monkey home with us. Pam told us there is a lot of rivalry between the islands. She explained that one of the owners of the mountain biking/windsurfing shop was eligible to go to some international games and represent the country but St Kitts officials kept him out. Perhaps it was because he was from Nevis, or perhaps because he is Rasta. The Nevisians toy with both theories and are pretty upset about the whole thing.

Plantations-turned-hotels are abundant on Nevis, and we'd heard that Montpelier Plantation was a must-see. We disagree, but we did indulge in their famous lobster salad. It was good, but overpriced. We moved on to St. Kitts that day and tried to do some budget balancing by having a more reasonably priced dinner. We weren’t super hungry so we thought we’d see what we could find at the grocery store, and grab some breakfast items at the same time. After some navigational problems, in which we got to see some neighborhoods on St Kitts – people actually ride bicycles here! – we arrived at 7:15 – and they had just closed for the night. Defeated, we went back to the hotel and grabbed pizza and salad from the shack by the pool. When trying to decide if we wanted the Caesar or tropical salad, I asked the employee what was on the tropical salad:
“cucumber, onion, lettuce, tomato”
“so, what’s tropical about it?”
“usually we put mango on it, but it finished.”
We got the tropical salad. It came with Caesar salad dressing – the only dressing they had. I expect this at an average Caribbean restaurant, but was a little disappointed at the Marriott here. It was only later that I realized there were so many mangos on the island that they couldn’t seriously be out of mangos – they were falling off the trees rotten because they couldn’t be picked fast enough. Oh well. The pizza was very tasty though and we had leftovers for breakfast the next day!

One last thing, while the driving on these two islands was easy enough, the speed limit signs are in miles per hour, but the car’s speedometer is in kilometers per hour. On an island though, these things don't usually matter - you drive however fast seems right, and that's usually below the speed limit for us. Unless you're super familiar with the roads, it's difficult to drive fast, as you have to be ready for potholes, goats, and other road hazards. Just a few more photos on Shutterfly.

St. Kitts and Nevis

Dave and I are in the St. Kitts airport right now, waiting for our
flight to Antigua for a layover, then off we go to Dominica. We are
having a good time, though today we had some stress with the rental
car (flat tire, trunk didn't open, tools to change the tire weren't so
great, nobody at the agency when we needed to return the car to catch
the flight, etc...).

We stayed at a plantation on Nevis, where we did a short nature trail
hike the first day, and a 5 hour hike the second day. The 5 hour hike
took us to The Source - i.e. the water source. It was pretty
strenuous, very technically difficult, though we saw some wonderful
scenary, and we really felt like we were in the rainforest. Dave took
tons of photos. The short nature trail walk took us through monkey
territory and we saw them eating mangoes. The trail smelled of
fermenting mangos - the monkeys take a bite or two and leave the rest
of the mango. Nevis is fairly small, and it is easy to get around. The
road that circumnavigates Mount Nevis is about 20 miles long.

St. Kitts is also fairly eas to drive around. It seems like there is
more to do here. Nevis is more of a true escape, where you can relax
and get away from everything. We planned to mountain bike on St.
Kitts, but discovered that the tour company listed in our book was
actually an ATV tour, not a bicycle tour. We didn't end up hiking or
windsurfing as we'd planned - plenty of relaxation and driving around
to see various things. We saw a parade in town - some school kids on
their last day of summer church school. We also went to a huge Fort on
St. Kitts. It was amazingly beautiful and well-restored. It really was
a photographer's dream. Dave took tons of panoramic photos - as the
views were amazing 360 degrees.

I have to go - my time on the airport computer is out, but we'll write
try to check-in again sometime in Dominica.

Vacation

Tomorrow, Dave and I are going island-hopping. We're flying to St. Kitts on LIAT, where we'll take a short ferry ride to Nevis. We'll spend two nights on Nevis at a plantation. We plan to hike, maybe mountain bike, and play with monkeys. Then we go back to St. Kitts for two nights there.

After four days on the eighth smallest country in the world (St. Kitts & Nevis are one country), we fly to Dominica for seven nights. We went there last year for 4th of July weekend, though we never got around to posting a blog... Anyway, we loved it, and are very excited to return. I promise we'll blog about it this time.

This map of the Eastern Caribbean should give you some idea of where we're going. St. Thomas' name doesn't even make the map, but it's the island I circled in red in the upper left part of the map.

Going Away Parties

Dave and I both celebrated our last days of work yesterday. The court had one of their infamous breakfast parties in my honor. Everyone chips in and brings their specialty and we end up with enough food to feed each of us for a couple of days! Here is a little sampling of what we had. The first photo shows some deviled eggs, tuna, and crab, complete with crackers to eat them with. Also featured is coconut bread - white and wheat. Then there is the variety of pastries. The second photo has the fruit salad, mini donuts, bananas and fresh mangoes from someone's tree. Finally there is the tray full of johnny cakes, more pastries, and cheeses. Missing from the record is half of a cake from Dave's work that I brought in, as well as the plate of lunch meats and the pot of chicken soup.

Chicken soup is very different here from in the states - at least from the states I've been to. Everything goes into the pot. Just toss the chicken in, bones and all. Throw in some corn on the cob, ON the cob, and carrots, celery, etc. Everything but the kitchen sink. Chicken soup was one of the only things I hadn't tried until yesterday. I am not a fan of eating around bones to get to my food, and having bones in soup just seemed more complex than necessary. (In the Caribbean, if something you're eating could have bones in it - it will. Sometimes if you order fish, you'll get the whole fish. yes, including the head.) I had my first (and second) bowls yesterday. I was careful to avoid getting any bones in my bowl. As for the corn, I just picked it up and ate it with my hands. It was very tasty - soft and juicy. Yum!

Everyone at the court has been very welcoming and kind - really bringing me in as a family member. They have made sure that Dave and I got to experience the VI as they know it. They've told us which local restaurants to go to - the ones hotels sure don't tell their guests to go to. They laughed when we said "we're going to swim 5 miles" but they offered their encouragement nonetheless. They've given us local cookbooks so we can make our favorite local foods when we return to the states. Any time I had a question about the culture, food, another island, or where to get the car's a/c fixed, I always got great answers and advice. I will miss them all!

Friday night we celebrated with Dave's coworkers. Dave's boss treated everyone to sushi at Buddha Bar. So much fun and very yummy. Dave's work experience has been so different from mine here. The turnover at Ecotours is pretty high, as it is in general among young people who move here from the mainland. Someone at the dinner last night said he thought two years was about the average amount of time people live here before they head back. He also warned that once you're here for seven years - you can't go back. Dave has seen many people come and go at work. As his manager said, it really gets to you after awhile - it's so hard having going away parties all the time, saying goodbye to the friends we've made. And now we're those people leaving. Hopefully we will have the chance to come down here for a swim race, a triathlon, or just a visit sometime in the not-so-distant future.

Houseguests, Moving, Random Bits

We've been keeping ourselves very busy recently. The rumors are true - we're moving back to the states later this month. We definitely gave the idea of staying in the Caribbean forever some serious thought over the past two years, but the decision has been made and we're moving back to California. It really boils down to us wanting reliable medical care and less crime coupled with a reliable law enforcement department. Of course, we want to be closer to our family and friends too. It gets expensive traveling thousands of miles and we don't like missing important milestones in the lives of our loved ones.

We have been fortunate to have many of our friends and family visit us while we've been on St. Thomas. We have enjoyed showing everyone around our island. Most recently Dave's parents were here for a week and right before that my sister and nephew were here for a week. When Kris and Story were here, we went to Waterlemon Cay on St. John and discovered that it's easy to catch a ride with strangers in the water too. We swam across a harbor to the cay and got offered a ride by a guy in a dingy along the way. Story saw some barracuda, starfish, coral, rays, sharks, and turtles, among other interesting wildlife. We've figured out that we can pretty much guarantee a turtle sighting at Sapphire Beach. Mostly Kris and Story had beach afternoons, and one day I took them to Udder Delite - the famous milkshake place near Magen's Bay. Liquor-infused milkshakes. My favorite is the one with almond crunch ice cream, bananas, and banana rum. It was right after Dave and my first trip to Udder Delite that we realized we were drinking and driving on the way home. It's not illegal here!

We took Dave's parents to Sapphire too, where they saw a few turtles. And at Virgin Gorda, Dave's parents saw a manta ray too. Of course we also took them to St. John. We went on the little hiking trail to Caneel Bay again. We swam a little at the fairly empty Salomon Beach, and were lucky to have it rain shortly thereafter, so we could rinse most of the saltwater off before having brunch at the resort. That day was also the St. John carnival food fair. I did some shopping and came home with a turtle necklace made from coconut shell and Ah We Band's CD.

Dave saw a few sharks at work yesterday and got some pretty good photos and videos of them snacking on a dead fish. Apparently one of the guides on an earlier tour saw this appetizing event and told Dave, so while the tourists on Dave's tour did the hike (which comes before the snorkel), Dave ran into the water to play with the sharks. Don't worry. This can't happen many more times - this is the last week of work for both of us!

Today is a local holiday - Emancipation Day. On July 3, 1848, the Danes said "Alle unfrie paa de Danske Vestindiske oer ere fra dags dato frigivne" - "All unfree in the Danish West Indies are from today free" and thereby granted emancipation to the slaves in what is now the USVI. Apparently it was the first time African slaves demanded their freedom and won. July 2, 1848 was the beginning of the uprising, with the blowing of conch shells to rally slaves to march. It continued on July 3, with the slaves threatening to burn down Frederiksted on St. Croix. The governor then granted emancipation. There are still ongoing discussions between the USVI and Denmark regarding reparations. Emancipation Day is a big day here. This morning I went running at Magen's Bay and lots of people were setting up for barbecues. St. Croix seems to celebrate the most - they have donkey races, an emancipation reenactment, quadrille dances, kayak races, and fireworks.

Bunny Wailer (of the Wailers...) is performing tonight on St. John along with some other reggae artists. We're going to skip it though - yes, I know I'll sound old saying this, but the concert starts at 8, and Bunny Wailer isn't the first one to perform so calculating island-time and the ferry trip on the way back, I just can't stay up that late! Even though tomorrow is a federal holiday, it corresponds with the peak of Carnival on St. John. They throw J'ouvert, the parade, and fireworks all in one action-packed day. I'm hoping to hop over to St. John for some carnival fun, so I'm saving my energy for that. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Hope everyone has a Happy 4th of July tomorrow!