Our friends Glen and Chris were celebrating their 25th anniversary as well as their 50th birthdays in one big splurge vacation in St. Croix. They invited us almost 2 years ago and we had been looking forward to it for a long time.
We arrived at Estate Belvidere in the late afternoon and enjoyed looking around the beautiful grounds.
That night we looked through a tour guidebook of the island and picked out a few things we wanted to see. One restaurant description caught our eye because it mentioned the tv show "Bizarre Foods". Mike is much more adventurous with food than I am, but we both enjoy the show and thought it would be cool to eat at a place that had been featured.
Jan. 7, 2012
In. St. Croix they have a huge parade around Ephiphany (or Three Kings Day) to celebrate the end of their Christmas season. The parade is held in Frederiksted on the west side of the island, and almost everyone goes to it. We of course decided to walk around the other town, Christiansted--kind of central/north on the island. We drove around (on the left side of the road!) looking for the restaurant first and couldn't find it, so we went on toward the marina. We saw the old Dutch fort and learned that Alexander Hamilton came from St. Croix (and was a bastard).
Mike was able to find an open shop selling cigars, and then we tried to find the restaurant again. It was called Ace Roti Shop and most of the people trying to help us hadn't heard of it. One person finally knew of it and gave us some directions.
It ended up being more fun trying to find the place than actually finding it--they were closed for the holidays and weren't reopening until the day after we left St. Croix. Doh.
Turns out, they weren't in "Bizarre Foods" after all, only their style of food. So we went to a different restaurant where the main draw was the fact that they were open :)
It was our night to cook dinner for everyone. We had gone shopping earlier in the day, so Mike just fired up the grill and cooked the meat and veggies. I did not want to try the blood sausage but I did try the white yam: it's the most Nothing I've ever tasted.
Jan. 8, 2012
Another featured event of the closing festivities on the island was the boat racing in Frederiksted. Our whole group headed there to watch. From what we could tell, there were 2 races and instead of starting at noon, they started around 2. Oh well. Island Time. We had fun anyway and it was a gorgeous day. It was a little weird listening to the pastor's sermon from the Church of Signs and Wonders being broadcast over loudspeakers on the street.
Mike with our new friends Zane and Cindy in Frederiksted.
That afternoon/evening we watched Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos win their playoff game against the Steelers. Way to go Tim! And way to go Demaryius Thomas for running that ball in for the win! I was the only Tebow fan in the room but that's ok. Chris hated him but was happy this time because she had the Broncos in a pool.
Jan. 9, 2012
This was the big event of the trip for me--snorkeling. I'd never snorkeled before, and was a little worried about being able to do it, plus I had picked up a cold and wasn't feeling the greatest. I didn't want to miss out on the day with the whole group though, so I put on my sunscreen (not enough) and swimsuit.
Once again we drove into Christiansted to get on the tour boat. Captain Steve and his crew (first mate Glen, crewmen Martin, and Greg) took us to Buck Island where there is some protected reef.
Cindy, Glen, and Chris
Our first stop was at a beach on the west side of Buck Island. The newbies got a chance to learn some snorkeling tips and do some practicing in nice shallow water. I spent most of the time on the south side of our boat and wasn't seeing much of anything except sand. I was going to go back on the boat and just wait for us to leave for the east side of the island where the reef was, but I saw some people excited about something on the other side of the boat. I put my mask back down in the water and saw some small patches of coral and my first view of fish while snorkeling!
When we did get to the big reef we had to have a snorkel buddy and go on the guided 'path' first. Mike was my buddy and we were in the first group. The guide led us on the short intro tour, marked with plaques set in the ocean bottom and then we were on our own. I had a blast! It was so cool to just look down at this new underwater world, I was laughing from the joy of it most of the time and thanking God for such an amazing experience :)
Mike got shaken up by a wave that pushed him into the coral and he went back to the boat for a break. Chris became my new snorkel buddy. I 'Tebowed' for her, but she didn't appreciate it ;) Here's someone else's video of the same place--our camera isn't waterproof so I didn't get any pictures myself. Glen said he took some photos from the boat, but he said it was mostly just "butts and blowholes" :)
After snorkeling the boat took us to a beach on St. Croix where the crew grilled us lunch--burgers, hot dogs, and wahoo fish. It was simple but very good. Also the gigantic cooler of rum punch was quite nice :)
When we got back into dock, most of the group wanted to go shopping in Christiansted. I was pretty beat and Mike needed to eat, so we took off and hit Singh's roti shop on the way back to the estate. Roti is awesome! It's basically a burrito but the filling is different--meat and potatoes in a sauce. It was so good! You'll just have to try it for yourself because I can't begin to describe the taste.
We all went out for dinner to formally celebrate Glen and Chris' anniversary. We had quite the adventure trying to find this restaurant as well, but we did make it there and have a fun time. Back at the estate we watched the BCS championship between Alabama and LSU. I told everyone Bama was going to win. No one believed me. Oh well. I only made it to halftime though--congestion won the energy battle.
Jan. 10, 2012
Our last day in St. Croix. Our group went to the Cruzan rum distillery. We learned that they import sugar cane from all the other islands around there because St. Croix doesn't grow enough on its own. They make the rum there but send it to Miami for bottling and any flavoring. Then it gets sent back to St. Croix (and elsewhere) for selling. We were able to bring back 6 bottles duty-free and it was much cheaper than buying it at home. Weird how economies work sometimes. The distillery also has the 2nd tallest building on the island--the tallest is the airport control tower :)
Outside the tasting room there was a game set up for playing. You had to try to swing a rope with a ring on the end of it and catch the ring on a hook in the post. Many tried, one succeeded. Way to go Zane!
We had a great time in St. Croix!
No comments:
Post a Comment