Tag Archives: Virgin Islands

Our trip to St. John and St. Thomas

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We flew from St. Croix to St. Thomas via Cape Air in order to catch the ferry to St. John. (Not on the seaplane, but I definitely want to try that at some point.) We walked around Charlotte Amalie and had some lunch while waiting for the ferry. I think there were 6 or 7 cruise ships in port that day. There were people everywhere. I think we walked around maybe five minutes before I realized that I did not want to live on St. Thomas. One of the reasons I wanted to move to an island was to enjoy a slower-paced way of life. Crowds are not appealing. I am positive that you could get away from the crowds if you wanted to, but it probably takes some effort. Luckily the ferry came quickly and 45 minutes later we were in Cruz Bay.

If H and I were independently wealthy, we would live on St. John. This island was laid back, and words cannot describe how beautiful it was. We had decided to stay at Estate Concordia on the far southeast end of the island, which is the complete opposite side of the island from where the ferry arrived. I’m so glad that we made this decision as it forced us to travel across the island. We rented a car and started out on the “short” drive from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay. I think the actual distance is 8 miles, but it probably took us at least thirty minutes. These were the craziest roads I have ever been on. The hills were so steep that I thought we wouldn’t make it up them at points. The curves were so sharp that I was sure we were going to die before we made it to our room. And don’t forget – they drive on the left side of the road. I yelled “keep left” more than a few times on that drive as I was not driving.

Concordia was really cool. We stayed in the studios, not the tents. I felt really good to be staying in an environmentally friendly resort but not good enough to stay in a tent. The tents really didn’t look anything like my definition of a tent, and it probably would have been just fine, but I was freaked out by the compost toilet, and that sort of thing. I haven’t ever done any actual camping where I didn’t have a toilet and a TV so I was too afraid to try the tents. The hermit crabs that were our “natural” garbage disposal were close enough to nature for me.

Our studio had a kitchen with a microwave, refrigerator and stove. We were in a partial-view studio, and I guess if we squinted, we could see a little slice of blue between the trees. I wish we would have sprung for the full-view studio, but environmentally friendly does not come cheap.

Salt Pond Bay was just down the hill from Concordia. The snorkeling there was some of the best we have ever experienced. We saw so many different fish and our first sea turtle. The cool thing about Salt Pond Bay was that even during the “busiest” part of the day, there were only a handful of people there as it involves a slight downhill ½ mile hike to reach the bay from the parking area. Another very intriguing aspect of this particular bay is a hiking trail called Ram’s Head. It was a gorgeous hour hike to the top of this peak, but well worth it. The views from the top were breathtaking as you could see some of the BVIs to the north and St. Croix to the south. We only saw a couple of people on our hike so it felt like we had the whole island to ourselves from this vantage point.

We also snorkeled at the world famous Trunk Bay early one morning, and it was truly spectacular. There is an underwater trail, but it is obvious that many people have snorkeled there before you as we did not see the variety of wildlife that we saw at the more secluded Salt Pond Bay. Also, Trunk Bay has great facilities, changing rooms, showers, food, etc., and as a result, the park got crowded fairly quickly.

We made our next stop at Cinnamon Bay which is also a campground. It had a lot of facilities, but it did not feel as crowded as Trunk Bay was becoming when we left there. I didn’t get in the water here – it was a little cold for my Texas blood, but H got in and thought it was great – so great that he was distracted and lost our underwater camera with our Key West and St. Croix scuba diving pictures. Oh well, we’ll just have to take more.

St. John is so laid back that there are animals everywhere. I’m talking goats crossing the street and wild donkeys grazing on the side of the road. One of our meals at Miss Lucy’s was complete with goat families and chickens. Miss Lucy’s is supposed to be a must-do restaurant on the island. It’s local food and outside on the water at picnic tables – nothing fancy, but charming nonetheless. However, my chicken sandwich was hard to eat with its relatives walking around.

We had a really incredible meal at Aqua Bistro in Coral Bay. It was not cheap, and again was outside on patio furniture, but the food (I had pork chops with garlic mashed potatoes and H had some type of fish) was something that could be served at any fancy restaurant here in Dallas without the snooty airs. Coral Bay was really cute and quaint. There is a shopping center where the restaurant was located that had little shops with all types of offerings. There was also a VW bus that was converted into a shop for bikinis – otherwise known as the Bikini Bus. The bikinis are homemade, hence the name 3 Virgins (islands – get your mind out of the gutter) Homegrown Bikini Company. I got one, and it is still my favorite bikini.


We finished our trip in St. Thomas – not a lot to report here. With our first experience in Charlotte Amalie, we had already decided that St. Thomas was not the island for us so we took the opportunity to get in some relaxation time to complete our whirlwind vacation. We stayed at the Frenchman Marriott. It was very nice and comfortable and felt like the Ritz since we had just left Concordia which had no air-conditioning and one towel per guest for our 3 night stay. We hung out on the beach everyday, and never left the hotel. To go along with our wildlife theme, we took tons of pictures of the iguanas that were all over the hotel. I am not talking little lizards here – some of these guys looked like they could have easily weighed 30 pounds. They looked very menacing but honestly, they could not have been less bothered by all the guests.


Our first trip to St. Croix

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This past February we decided to visit the US Virgin Islands. The thought of moving to a US territory would be like moving to an island with training wheels. We would have the support of the United States federal government, relative stability and infrastructure, but we would still be living in a beautiful environment. I’ve heard stories about Americans who purchase (or in actuality, lease) land in Central American countries, and then one day, the government revokes their land lease and they lose their property and their investment.

We visited each of the 3 Virgin Islands for a few days a piece. (There is actually a 4th Virgin Island, Water Island near St. Thomas, but it is very small.) The first island we visited was St. Croix. It was absolutely beautiful. It is also the largest of the three islands, and its size is a great benefit. St. Croix and St. Thomas have roughly the same population, but because St. Croix is approximately twice the size of St. Thomas, the people are more widely dispersed. As a result, the island feels less crowded. In doing some preliminary research before our trip, we were already leaning in favor of St. Croix. It has all of the relative creature comforts – it has 2 K-Marts and a Wendy’s for crying out loud. It also has several major industries which would provide more employment opportunities.

We stayed at The Buccaneer thanks to a winning bid through skyauction.com, otherwise we likely wouldn’t have paid their normal high season rates. This resort is arguably the nicest place to stay on St. Croix. It is fairly close to Christiansted, and the property is enormous. We were upgraded to an ocean front room which had a little 1-2 foot brick wall around our patio so we could literally hop over the wall and head to the beach. There is a golf course on the property that is supposed to be fabulous, but I don’t play golf, and H plays maybe once every three years. One thing I liked about the golf course was that it provided a safe and protected place to run. Since I was training for my first marathon (Rock n Roll Marathon in San Diego), this was a nice amenity. The roads on St. Croix don’t really seem to have shoulders, and there are a lot of blind curves so I was afraid to tackle a run on the roads for this first trip.

The Buccaneer had very good service for dinner, but breakfast service was not as attentive likely due to the fact that breakfast was a free buffet included with your room rate. We were there the night of the Super Bowl, and despite the fact that we had a “reservation” for the Super Bowl showing, we watched most of the beginning of the game huddled in a corner waiting for a table. This one glitch in our stay would not prevent me from staying there again. In fact, I would definitely recommend the Buccaneer.

On our second day, and first full day, we went scuba diving in the afternoon with St. Croix SCUBA whose dive shop is downtown Christiansted. I can’t say enough good things about them. They were fabulous. Kalen was our guide, and he was so friendly. He really put us at ease since this was only our second time diving.

On our third day, we hired a cab driver (Phillip from St. Lucia) to drive us around the island. Our first stop was the Cruzan Rum factory. The tour wasn’t so much of a tour as it was a brisk walk through several buildings. We finished the tour with some rum-tasting which of course led to rum purchasing. We next drove to the west side of St. Croix, checked out the Fredericksted pier, then headed into the rain forest to see the much hyped beer drinking pigs at the Mt. Pellier Domino Club. Upon arriving we purchased a non-alcoholic beer and followed the waitress across the parking lot to the pig pens. I handed the can of beer to a pig the size of horse standing on his hind legs with his front feet prooped up onto the stall. He crunched into the can and sucked out all the beer before spitting the can on the ground. Fascinating, but I couldn’t get over the feeling that I was helping exploit these animals. Our next, and final stop, was to Christiansted where we did some shopping and had some lunch.

During our drive with Phillip we got a feel for the island, and we felt like our preliminary research had been accurate. There was such a varied topography – everything from a rain forest to an arid, almost desert-like area, to mountains (or at the very least, large hills). We felt like we could definitely live here, but we still had two other islands to visit on this trip. On to St. John.