Christiansted – a day about town

Given that we toured the island yesterday, we spent today exploring the quaint streets of Christiansted. Much of the waterfront and shop fronts are maintained in their eighteenth century Danish style with Fort Christiansvaern anchoring the eastern end of the main area of town.

We are anchored off to the east past Gallows Bay near the fishing dock and Altoona lagoon. This has provided beautiful vistas of the sun going down over the yellow, peach and blue facades of the buildings. Now was our chance to explore up close.

Actually, we started the day with returning our jeep which put us walking back into town from the western side. First stop was St. John's Church built by the English in the mid-1700s and just like an English country church it was replete with old trees and a churchyard. Here the similarity ended as we clambered around the wonderfully eccentric Caribbean graveyard where you really do feel the spirits just below the surface.

Further on into town we took a personal tour of, actually we wandered around, Government House. This building is used as the seat of government on St. Croix which is actually administered from St. Thomas. But, the original house was built by a Danish merchant and the upstairs ballroom with ante chambers opening to the courtyard and the street was beautiful. The peace and calm of the inner courtyards, the neo-classical styling with Caribbean concessions to the heat and the ubiquitous yellow, leads to peace and quiet just yards from the bustling streets below.

Loved this - the Danish sentry boxes were decorated with hearts!

We meandered on to the eastern end of town where we found the scale house and Fort Christiansvaern. In the scale-house we met up with a tour of school-children and I was amazed at how politely almost everyone of them said good morning to us. This would never have happened back home. In fact, all over the island you are constantly greeted with a smile and at least good morning, good afternoon or good evening, if not further enquiry as to how you are enjoying your day.

The fort is pristinely maintained by the National Parks Service and while you get a feel for the architecture and the cramped quarters (it is not very big), it is so incredibly clean it is almost impossible to imagine the deplorable conditions the soldiers and imprisoned slaves or citizens would have found themselves in. The whipping post was tastefully removed by a former governor and with every surface freshly painted yellow, white or green, there is not a trace of the former conditions. The views of the bustle of the anchorage however, were pure delight and we happily watched Mowzer bobbing in the distance.

Lunch rounded out or visit of the waterfront where we scooped up some free wifi (we're a bit distant in our anchorage) and then back to the boat for some R&R. We have a dinner reservation at Rum Runners where we'll be heading once we've charged up the boat's batteries and lazed around on the trampoline in the sun and afternoon breezes.

Addendum: Funniest thing just happened in the anchorage. Suddenly this noise started up near the back of the boat and we rushed out to see what might be wrong with the engines or dinghy. It was a strange sort of pulsing noise. Luckily we were quickly put out of our worry as a fellow swam by with his horse - it was the horse puffing through it's lips that was the noise we could hear. He calmly headed off to the boat launch and I'd like to say he rode off into the sunset, but he was going the wrong way.

St. Croix - a magical isle

We love St. Croix!

Puerto Rico is known locally as the "Big Hurry" and Vieques, which we visited in November, as the "No Hurry" and here on St. Croix they claim to be the "Little Hurry" island.

We have two days to spend on the island and we planned on one walking around the alleys and gades of Christiansted and the other hopefully driving over the island and discoving the sights, sounds and smells away from the 'city'. It turns out that the Agricultural and Food Fair is this weekend which endeavoured to change out plans vis a vis car rentals. After visiting the big agencies (Avis, Budget) we ended up with the local Olympic rentals. At first they didn't have anything available, but after much entreaty the ladies at the counter did indeed have a jeep that we could have for the day. In actual fact we could keep it til the morning! This set our plans in motion, literally, and we headed off from Christiansted to explore the corners of the island.

The east end, also known as Point Udall is the easternmost point in the U.S. and as such, they have erected a millenium, sun-dial type monument on the point. The views are spectacular over the Caribbean with only a very hazy St. John in sight to the north.

From the east point we headed along the south shore where the volcanic hills to the north slope gently into the blue of the ocean. About mid-way along, the industrial heartland of St. Croix is located with the Hovensa oil refinery and other busy-looking sights. The sheer magnitude of the refinery and the adjoining workers' estates aparently places this as one of the 10 largest refineries in the world. We rounded the airport and then not much further along the road, found the Cruzan Rum Factory - nirvana! We picked up a tour, did the requisite looks into vats of fermenting molasses and yeast, smelled the wonderful sweet sugary smells, admired the oak barrels and finally arrived at the bar where for the $5 admission we could enjoy any number of concoctions or mixes of the various Cruzan flavours. Wonderful stuff!

Fredericksted, on the western shore was next on the list and wandering the streets of this sleepy waterfront town led us to a delicious lunch of roti. The waterfront has been fabulously developed, including a massive cruise ship dock, but there is not much else infrastructure to support the influx. We enjoyed the stop but I imagine the big ship passengers head for other interests. The bay is surrounded by a wide sweep of sand to the south and we could definitely see ourselves coming back for a visit.

The north west corner of the island is covered in rain/cloud forest and the jeep that we had landed in, came in handy on the pot-hole strewn roads.

The end of the day brought us past Salt Pond where Columbus first landed on St. Croix in 1493, and killed some natives thereby cementing western relations with the locals, and then on into Christiansted where we enjoyed the sunset view from the boardwalk. All-in-all we enjoyed the variety the island has to offer from the steep uninhabitable hills of the north, to the arid, cattle-grazing slopes to the south and tucked inbetween the damp sugar plantation ruins of the rainy areas.

St. Thomas to St. Croix – via St. John

Have we got all the saints in there yet – definitely for the U.S. Virgin Islands!

We set off from St. Thomas and although the initial plan was to head straight for St. Croix, we decided that we would take a shake-down day and head up along the southern shore of St. John to spend the night. This would ideally put us on a better angle of sail to St. Croix and we knew that Lameshure Bay would provide an idyllic quiet spot after the hectic hustle and bustle of St. Thomas. And what better place to spend Valentine's day than a nice secluded bay with only a handful of other boats and no beach-bar in sight.

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early and were off our mooring ball by 8:30am. The direct line to St. Croix put us with 36 nm on a nice line just above beam to the wind. All in all the crossing took 6 hours and by the time we dropped the anchor off Christiansted it was about 3 in the afternoon – our longest passage yet. The sailing was absolutely spectacular with seas only 3-5 feet and the winds from 12-18 knots. The trades are a joy to sail in, especially after the shifty winds of the Ottawa River, and for much of the journey Henry had the sails so beautifully balanced that the boat steered itself to the perfect point of wind – and with no auto-pilot sucking up power!!

Christiansted is a pretty little town of Danish heritage that has been preserved in the store fronts along it's little narrow streets. We didn't do much exploring today but headed to Rum Runners for a coldie and appetizers (on Kirsten's excellent suggestion).

Generally the plan is that tomorrow we will explore the town and harbour and then try to explore the island on Thursday. We've heard that rental cars are hard to come by, but if we can't find one we can always enlist one of the local drivers to take up on a personal tour. Of course we'd love to get over to the Cruzan Rum distillery near Frederiksted and could find us at the eastern-most point in the U.S. There are great-houses left over from sugar plantation days, a rain-forest and numerous other sites to explore so we shall see what we can make of it.

Island-Time Notes

Given that our trip down was extended by about five hours due to a return to Charlotte after we'd been in the air for two hours, and our checked bag's arrival 24 hours later, provisioning and a day on the island was called for.

On St. Thomas there are a number of choices for provisioning if you have a car. For walkers there is the Pueblo but with independent transport there is the Plaza Extra, Food Center, Fruit Bowl and Cost-U-Less. There are numerous other little shops as well, but these are the big ones. We visited the Cost-U-Less but decided that we really didn't need a TV, a whole pork loin or 10 lbs of hamburger on our little boat. Last time we were down we tried the Plaza Extra so this time we headed for Food Center. Budget Marine is also located nearby on the south-shore road so we picked up a few boat needs and a chart for St. Croix as well. When all was done, we liked the size of Food Center but I think it was slightly more expensive and a little less selection than Plaza Extra and with the latter there is a K-Mart close by for other needs. The other small factor is the road with the heavily loaded car with cases of water nestled up to the veggies traversing potholes and steep hills. Don't get me wrong, nothing was really the worse for wear, it was just a little nerve wracking listening to things shifting in the back as we climbed up and down. The road up to Plaza Extra is just a little less extreme.

Speaking of driving, I love driving on St. Thomas. Left-hand drive cars on the left with the passenger staring wide-eyed into the oncoming traffic while the driver hugs the safety of the curb, steep hills with a sharp curve at the top so neither can see where you're going or what's coming – who needs a carnival ride? We're getting to know our way around though so navigating, at least in daylight, is becoming much easier. Henry even found the Home Depot, replete with palm trees, and couldn't resist a quick visit. I must say, with the trade winds blowing through, I've never smelled such a pleasant Home Depot.

Oh joy, oh bliss – promptly 24 hours after we all should have arrived, our bag was delivered. Now we're all set to head off in the morning.

CoverGirl

Surprise, surprise! I had an email from Adam at SAIL magazine this past week responding to a message I'd sent him back in November when the article for CYOA featuring Mowzer appeared. Along with some great comments about a "great boat in a great location" he commented that Mowzer was once again gracing the pages of the magazine - this time on the cover of the January issue!

And... we're back on count-down til we're back aboard in February. This time we're thinking of heading south to St. Croix for a week and then Caitlin and Jim are going to join us so we'll probably return to the BVIs. This will be Caitlin's first time there so the visit wouldn't be complete without heading to Foxy's or The Bight.