Life, Crazy life

I feel like my life has been crazy. What am I saying? Life HAS been crazy and I don’t see it getting any easier in the next few months either. SIGH  Between school, family life, and trying to keep us going on a sane schedule, we made the mad, crazy decision to leave St. Croix.

SSIIGGHH. 

Don’t get me wrong, we are excited to start a new adventure, to expand our horizons, and try new things, but you know, leaving is SCARY, hard, and WAY too much WORK!  There are tons of reasons why we chose this time to leave here, and tons of reasons why we could have stayed, but once we laid the cards on the table, it made more sense to leave STX than stay right now.  I know those of you living up where it gets cold and whom have know us since I was little are probably just shaking your heads right now in disbelief. I don’t blame you; I shake my head in disbelief and can’t really grasp the thought that in (hopefully) less than a month we will no longer be on this bright little jewel in the Caribbean. St. Croix will ALWAYS be where my heart is and a HUGE chunk of my heart will be consumed with my love for this island; but it is NOT the island of my youth anymore.  It has changed so much in the last few years- but especially in the last 8 months – that I almost don’t recognize her. 

People don’t seem to care for our way of life here anymore, yes things are getting hard economically, but that isn’t even what I mean.  What I mean is that there are so many more people here now who are being bad elements. There are more burglaries, shootings, hold ups, rudeness, drive by shootings, and just general disrespect going on that it saddens me and makes my heart feel burdened. I feel that we have lost our way and need good government and sensible people to help bring us through our rough times.  We need visionaries who can give up their own agendas to bring St. Croix through her hours of darkness and back into the light.

Will St. Croix be what she was when I was growing up? Probably never again – we have gotten too big, been exposed to too many outside “values”, and been shown how the outside world lives to ever return to the good ol’ days. Will St. Croix once again become a place where many people can live in harmony, support one another, look out for their neighbors, and where people will stop to help those in need? Yes. Will that happen over night? No.

I think this transformation needs to start in the home – if you see your child being mean to another – STOP them. If your child disrespects you because you haven’t been a parent who has rules – make some rules and give your child consequences. If you allow your children to be disrespectful, take wheat doesn’t belong to them, and have no consequences then you will get more of the same as they become adults.  

Maroon ridge view

After giving our children consequences for their actions, we need to look to our governmental leaders. If they aren’t working to better this place we call home, why keep them in office? Why do we pay them the money we do? Is it so they can pass legislation renaming roads? Maybe it is so they can return money that the Feds give us for our schools so our children fall further behind in education? Hmm, no? Oh, I know, it’s so those politicians can steal more money from us and further weaken our economy.   Heck, if I didn’t do my job, I’d be fired in an instant – why can’t we fire our Senators if they don’t do a good job?

ANYWAY – this post wasn’t supposed to be about St. Croix’s ills, it was supposed to be about our crazy life and how by leaving I have made it crazier.  SO yes, I have been a hermit these last 4 weeks trying to do school, pack, not kill my husband or kids when things got crazy, empty the fridge, learn all about the moving process, and not tear my hair out trying to figure out how to do EVERYTHING I want to do before we leave. Life is CRAZY here right now, but we enjoying all of our remaining time on St. Croix because I want to impart my love of this place to my children before we leave. 

We have gone hiking, chaney hunting, ruins rambling, Taino Indian learning, taken part in food events, gone to the farmer’s market, spent time with friends, played on the beach, etc.

There is still so much to do!

Sunrise over St. Croix

If you don’t see me out and about it is because I am trying to get in a last minute dive, go to Buck Island, walk the beach at sunset, watch the sunrise over Point Udall, go down that road I ALWAYS wanted to explore, climb that mango tree, snorkel the reef at Jack’s and Issac’s, and generally just explore this beautiful island paradise.  I want to drink Tamarind juice, eat Armsrong’s Ice Cream, have another Pate, eat another Roti, have a rum drink at Buck Island, swim a beach I have never swam before, take pictures of everything, lime in Christiansted, explore the back streets of Frederiksted. I want to go horseback riding in the rainforest on a fast horse, see the tide pools at Annaly, go to Maroon Ridge, I want to breathe in our salt air, smell the rain on the hot ground, feel the Tradewinds caress my skin after coming out of the ocean. In short, I want to take all my favorite parts of St. Croix wrap them up in my heart and carry them with me so that when the going gets tough on our new adventure I can pull out each memory or experience and remember what a charmed life we had here and what a truly special place this little island in the Caribbean is.

St. Croix is where my heart is. Where is your heart?

Fun with Donkeys

I don't know of anywhere else in the world where children and adults can take part in the highly comedic biannual ritual of passage where half wild donkeys are gathered into one spot and then you either ride, drive, or simply watch them being used for personal enjoyment.  What in the world? Why it's the Gentlemen of Jones Donkey Races!

We first went and took part in the Donkey Races with children in tow about 2 years ago. I do remember going to one race donkey years ago that was held at Canegata Ball Park, I think I was in high school or maybe middle school.  When they first started I have no idea.

Well, this year we decided to hang on the beach in Frederiksted until the children wanted to go to the races. Of course we stayed at the beach way later than anticipated, but it was fun. We got to the Donkey Races at the Paul E. Joseph Stadium about 3:30 and poor A was too late to sign up to ride.  I was a secretly relieved Mama as I had C and didn't know what to do with him while I was leading A around the track with her donkey.



Those beasts are some of the most stubborn animals I have even met! Have you ever tried to lead a Donkey around and have it go where you wanted to? It's freaking IMPOSSIBLE! Especially if you have stuck a person on their back, but honestly in defense of the donkeys they only get someone on their back once or twice year, other than that they get hang out in the bush and not be bothered at all and then one day when they are minding their own business a human or two come along, grab them up, stick them in a trailer with a bunch of other donkeys that they don't know and then take them to Frederiksted. Now, while they get a free ride, I am not too sure if standing nose to ass in a crowded trailer while zooming down the highway is their idea of fun.  Then once they get to Frederiksted, they are stuck in pens, bridled surrounded by loud music that ranges from Quelbe to Shakira, petted by children and adults alike, pointed at, not allowed to request any particular type of music, and indignity of all indignities have people tossed on their back and are expected to simply do what you want them to do? FORGET IT!!!!

For the people in attendance, this leads to many many side splitting laughs, guaffaws, and ass jokes. The above video isn't from this year, but I thought it would give you a good idea of what goes on during a Donkey Race.

First place finisher! Woo hoo!

Anyway, once we got to the Stadium, and found out that A couldn't ride we decided to hang out and watch one, maybe two races because frankly standing around watching people and asses make asses of themselves with a cranky toddler just isn't fun. ANYWAY, as we were standing around a little girl backed out of riding her donkey in the 12 and under race so A was able to hop on ride her donkey around the ring.  The course consisted of two laps and A did a phenonomal job on hanging on as her helper lead her around the ring twice.  She did fall off in the homestretch and was able to get back on.  A ended up placing first for which she got a trophy and a ribbon. She also got a sore arm and jammed pinky but hey, if you don't get hurt it isn't fun right?

If you are ever around for the Donkey Races, you should go out west and watch and if you are brave enough, participate. I did two years ago and got my trophy tons of good memories and the title of chief ass rider(for at least one year). Seriously, where else but St. Croix are you going to see something like this???

Leatherback Turtle Watch at Sandy Point

Aerial photo of Sandy Point taken
from stcroixtourism.com

When I was a little girl, I remember going with my parents to see the Leatherback turtles come and nest on Sandy Point.  I tried to take A about 2 years ago to do the same, but the group we were with decided to leave at 10 and we didn’t get to see anything. So, in the spirit of homeschooling and experiencing the island I decided to give it a go this year. 

Let me just tell you, it was AWESOME, AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, and COOLIO!!!!

This was our group minus a few adults because
taking pictures in the dark is near impossible!

So, here’s the lowdown. Anyone can go see these amazing animals come up on shore and lay their eggs at Sandy Point as long as you have reservations and the turtles cooperate.  You need to get a hold of the Fish and Wildlife personnel to do this. If you have a large enough group (15-30 people) it’s like your own private tour, if you are a small group, they might be able to sneak you into another group.  Oh, and it’s FREE.  Of course if you want to make a donation to a great group you can pay St. Croix Environmental Association to make your reservations for you as they block off certain dates in advance.  Anyway, you need to make your reservations, confirm your date, and then on the day of gather at the Refuge entrance at 7:45 pm. Bring bug spray and PLENTY of it.  I brought drinks and snacks for my kids, but we ended up not needing anything but drinks. 

photo from simonsen.photoshelter.com

This is how it went for us. We got there, all the homeschoolers who had signed up for the field trip were there. We listened to Jennifer from the FWS talk and tell us the rules. We got back into our cars and headed into the refuge. After driving down some amazingly well paved roads, we got to our beach spot.  Then we waited – it was POURING for about 30 mins.  Eventually we got out of our cars and this is what happened according to A:

            When we got out of the cars it was wet and damp and I could smell the wet sand and the sea and it smelled wonderful. Then we went on a path to the ocean and there was a bridge that we had to pass. We went to a spot on the beach and we stayed there for an hour and a half until we got the first call on the radio and there was a leatherback sea turtle! When we got the call I was so happy that we were going to see a turtle nesting.

photo from thew2o.net

After getting the call on the radio, we packed up all our stuff and moved back to the road and booked it to the next parking area where we walked/ran to get to where the turtle was.  All this time, we were only using the light off the moon and the stars to navigate by. It was amazingly cool. We could hear the surf the whole time too because it was a rough night.  Once we got down to the beach were the turtle was, we had to walk along it until we actually found her.  The beach sand was a luminous white with ribbons of black seaweed all along it, so walking was a big difficult, but not bad.  All of a sudden, there appeared before a huge, hulking, black mountain that hardly moved at all but was quite substantial.  It was our leatherback momma.  She was in the process of laying her eggs. The researchers had started to collect her eggs as she was laying then in the area of the beach where the waves broke and could potentially have been washed out to sea if it had gotten rougher.  After being able to touch her carapace(shell), back flippers, shoulders, and even sides we got to see the researchers measure her from the front of her carapace to her back, measure her width, and put in new tags.  She did NOT like the new tag bit – can’t say I blame her. Then she disguised her nest for a bit before “the mother sea turtle clumsily slid into the black ocean.”

The kids named her Friday as we saw her on Friday the 13^th! She measured 164.5cm from the front of her carapace to the back. If you added her head into that she was at least 184 cm long if not longer.  She laid 132 eggs that night. Can you imagine doing that?!

Sadly out of those 132, probably only 1 will survive to sexual maturity and come back to nest. 

photo from youthgo.gov

If you have never been to a turtle watch before you NEED to do this. Email the Fish and Wildlife Service, call SEA, find a group, sell an arm or leg to do this. It is an AMAZING experience. It touches you in ways that you didn’t know possible. It makes an impact on kids. I REMEMBER each and every time we did as a child, I remember helping hatchlings on other beaches find their way back into the water. I remember being so amazed at these turtles size that I thought it was as big as a VW Bug when I was little.  This event only happens between April and Jule/July so if you are here during that time, it is well worth the effort to go and see these animals up close and personal.

Monk’s Baths, St. Croix

One of my earliest memories of growing up here is going to see the Monk’s Baths in Frederiksted. I clearly remember going down the incline of death, and stepping into this HUGE pool of clear, warm water that I was going to drown in. I also remember the GIGANTIC waves that splashed over the baths and soaked my Dad and Mom.  I remember the feeling of being somewhere magical, somewhere where no one else was around, and somewhere that just had discovered. 

In reality, was that how the day went?  Probably not - I was younger than 5 and older than 3.  Somewhere in my childhood mind, this memory stuck. It actually faded into the background quietly for a LOONNGG time, but recently it has been popping up and nagging me. I think it was telling me that I needed to do it again and I needed to do it 1. soon and 2. with my kids.  So, since there is no day like today, I called/texted a bunch of my friends, my kid’s friends, and even some distant acquaintances to see if I could get a group to go with us. 

What are the Monk’s Baths you ask? Good question. They are not on any tour of the island, no reference is made to them in any literature that is given to visitors, they are not talked about, and there are only obscure reference made online to them. 

Aislin and her friends clowning around.

Here is what I remember my parents telling me.  WAY back in the 1600s, the Knights of Malta (click on the link for an interesting look at the Knights of Malta – a group still in existence today), a group of French monks who were commissioned by the King of France, lived on St. Croix and they had two “outposts”. One in Judith’s Fancy; and one in Frederiksted.  These monks, being cleanlier than regular people (cleanliness is next to godliness, maybe) decided that rather than bathing with fresh water – which was hard to get here - they would carve out some “Roman” types baths in the hard coral outcroppings along the beach in front of their monastery.  So with much hard work, and I am sure “praises” to God, they carved two rectangular baths into the hardened coral outcroppings, carved stone steps into the sides of the baths and “Viola! Zey had a baz for warshing!”(say it with a French accent, it’s quite amusing).

A few interesting side notes that I stumbled across when looking up the Knights of Malta: 1. They still exist as an organization and were created in 1085 to protect hospitals, not for fighting in the Crusades, 2. They made St. Croix profitable and used mainly Catholic indentured servants as slaves and then used enslaved Africans, and 3. It is thought by one historian, that they brought the Ark of the Covenant to St. Croix and hid it here. My Dad would have liked that last factoid.

Pretty cool, n’est pas? I mean, this stuff should be mentioned to tourists, it should be on some sort of guided island tour on cruise ship days, and it should at least be marked so that the intrepid tourist or newbie islander could stop and say: “oh, what’s this?” This is history that is accessible to everyone, the location is free for everyone to use and admire as it is on the beach, and all our beaches are public property, and it is really super neato (if for nothing less than the history alone)

We meet outside Rainbow Beach in F’sted at 9 and caravanned out to where I thought the Monk’s Baths were, we only had to stop once before I found the right spot. Went down the incline of death (JUST as I remembered!): 

After walking about 5 minutes north, this is what we found:

Beautiful!

So, if you live here and haven’t been or are visiting, or planning a visit, the trip is well worth it.  To get to the Monk’s Baths you go out of Frederiksted going North, pass Spratt Hall, pass Butler Bay plantation, go around the curve (look out for the random pillars on the right hand side on the curve), go a bit further, and look for the sign on your right that says “Northside Valley”. Stop there just after the orange house on your left.  If you look carefully, you will see a 4X4 with ropes leading down the incline of death. 

Here is a video of the Baths both outside and in, as well as a review of what the girls thought of the Monk’s Baths. Listen to them, they are after all the experts on what is cool.  Excuse the choppiness of the video, I was trying to keep my balance. There is also some weird banging noise going on, no idea what that is from, but you will get a general idea of what the Baths are like.

Have a great week!

Weekend Bliss(iness)

What a weekend!  It was filled with Crucian Christmas finales, weekend warrior events, and reconnecting with friends and family. On Friday it looked as if nothing good was going to happen this weekend as my sciatic nerve as acting up and I could barely walk.  My Mom came over to watch the kids and take me to a massage appointment at Tropical Therapy in Gallows Bay.  Can I just say that Debbie is a miracle worker?  Then my Mom made me lie down on the couch for the rest of the day – Thanks Mom!  I don’t know which it was, whether it was a combination or what, but Saturday morning I was feeling 98% better!  Since the kids were driving Stephen nuts – specifically The Little Monster, I decided to brave the Three Kings Day Parade with my Mom’s help.

C and friend R playing with street dirt.

After limping down the street to join up with some of our very best friends on the island that always camp out across the street from the Lost Dog in Frederiksted, we proceeded to make merry. We talked, laughed, danced – surprisingly the whining movement didn’t hurt the sciatic nerve – go figure! It was a slow starting parade, and we almost left, but then it got MUCH MUCH better. Aislin jumped the barricades time and time again to go across the street to say hello to some of our friends. The barricades are new as of last year, and I personally HATE them. They make it so much harder to cross the street and say hello to other people; you can’t easily join in on the tramp, and if you have a stroller, forget about making it through the crowds.  I KNEW I was feeling better when the Trini floup came by because I jumped the barricades with my Mom and Aislin – leaving the Little Monster in the care of my friends, and danced down the street with the rest of the revelers.  I also got to blow some random guys conch shell – it felt good, I hadn’t done that in years – need to find my old conch shell and start blowing it again J

Dolphins Swim Team members before the swim.

Sunday, we hauled ourselves off to Frederiksted AGAIN – boy is the car getting some mileage!  This time, we were there for the Dolphins Swim Team annual Sea Swim.   The Sea Swim is in its 7^th year – I believe – and is a one mile swim from the pier in Frederiksted to Rainbow Beach. People of all ages and abilities come out to “race”.  I started swimming it with Aislin about 4 years ago when she was the tender age of 5.  At first, my Mom, my Dad, and I took Aislin – along with a boogie board, or other flotation device, but this year I told the fish like child, that she had to do it on her own. No emergency floatation device was going with us.  At first she balked, but then, figured I wasn’t going to relent, so she had better do it.   I KNEW she would be able to do, the question was, would I be able to keep up this year or not?

Top three finishers in the under 11 age group with fins. 

So, we get to F’sted bright and early, get our numbers, our timing chips, our beautiful BRIGHT yellow caps, and set out to wait. We saw a few turtles, enjoyed chatting with friends, enjoyed keeping the Little Monster from diving off the pier, and waited for the start.  I somehow ended up in charge of 2 other girls from the team, so I figured I would have my work cut out for me in keeping up…. As soon as the Conch shell blew, away we went!  One of the girls I was watching took off and I never saw her again – good wrangling skills on my part huh? Another girl I was watching had mask problems and ended up having to haul out, and Aislin swam off with another friend and her Mom.  So, there I was all alone……. I did what any non-competitive person would do in that situation – I hauled @SS and swam like a ray out of hell in order to “catch up” with Aislin. Needless to say I never found her. I did end up beating my own personal best, and getting out of the water WAY before Aislin!  You should have seen Stephen’s face when I asked him where Aislin was.  (Sorry, no picture.) It was priceless! As if I would leave our first born out there all alone – husbands!  Anyway, Aislin ended up coming in within the top 3 of her age group – way to go Aislin!  After she came in, we learned that she had developed MAJOR blisters that had popped while swimming. I am SUPER impressed that not only did she swim the mile with no help, but also she swam it while nursing blisters.  What a champ!

digging to China - again!

Fun in the sun.

The rest of the afternoon was passed in idyllic fashion, imbibing on the beach while playing with the kiddos, talking with friends, eating the best onion rings I have had, and just relaxing.  The whole weekend was a blast, and I would love to do it again sometimes soon, but just not this weekend….

Enjoy your week!