Camping at Goat Hill

We havent been camping since Puerto Rico! It was high time to pull our our camping stuff before it got completely overgrown with mold (yuk!) and stop making excuses, push chores to the side for the weekend and head up to Goat Hill. We discovered this little serene spot a couple of months ago and knew this would be the first place we would go camping. From here you can see the whole St. Croix - and being one of the highest peaks on the island, its perfect for watching sunrise and sunset, and listening to nothing but the waves...

A very beachy weekend...

What to do with a 3-day long weekend in St. Croix? :-)

Hit the beach up!!!

On Sunday I had a long-time-coming girls day out at Hibiscus, a brand new bar/restaurant on a beautiful beach on the north shore. Cant remember the last time I had a 2-hour-long lunch with cocktails and my girlfriends!

Today Geoff, Alpie and I loaded up the truck with the kayak and explored someplace new - Sand/Shell Island (depending on who you ask)! This little island is located off the south shore of St. Croix, and since its right by the refinery, isnt such a popular spot. However, we were in for a suprise when we got there - it was beautiful! Unspoilt by people, this little island was brimming with all sorts of wildlife - exotic fish, colorful birds and conch galore! After exploring for about 2 hours, Geoff decided that we must just try to cook up some conch ourselves.. so we grabbed a couple, put them in our cooler we had brought with us and are just in the process of cutting it up now! (Well Geoff is, I wont touch the slimy things).

We plan on going back here soon and camping the night!

(The first couple are from Sunday, with my friend Dana and the others are of Shell/Sand Island.. note the pic of the conch shell in the water.. you can see his eye peering out at us!)

Chapter 2: St Croix

I'm still trying to figure out how to change the name of my actual blog.. now that we've moved it seems a bit funny that its still labeled Puerto Rico - so if anyone can help out in that department, it would be greatly appreciated!

So - our first few days here have been BUSY! We managed to load up Alpie's crate with an air mattress, towels, bed sheets and about 10 cans of tuna, as well as her food, a Costco packet of batteries and some other bits and bobs. Yes, all of a sudden our little puppy ended up being almost 90lb!!!! We got away with it though ("Yeah, she's just big boned") and Alpie didnt seem to mind the plane ride over at all - she was as happy as a clam once we arrived in St. Croix.

We got ourselves a little Suzuki rental and made our way to our new home - only to find that it looked like something out of a candy store - it was painted bright yellow with a bright red roof...right next to the pink and purple house next door to us .. oh well, as long as it's got a kitchen, bathroom and someplace to sleep, thats all we were worried about.

We set up our room (with whatever we had - air mattress and a backpack full of clothes) and set out to door some chores and a whole lot of job hunting.

On Tuesday Geoff went to apply for his V.I. licence - the process was really easy. Since his Washington licence was still current, all he needed was a print out of his driving record and it was a straight swap-over. Mine involves a little more work - I need a medical exam done by a doctor, take the written test and thats it. No driving test like I was originally told!

On Wednesday Geoff and I went to Carambola Resort, as there was a huge job fair on. There were about 500 applicants! We spent a good two hours there, chatting with people and conducting our interviews and I left feeling pretty confident (Update: I got a phone call yesterday with a second interview on Tuesday).

Yesterday (Thursday) we went to the Department of Labour - now this is something that Puerto Rico can really learn from. Its a small office in Sunny Isle (mid-island) and offers unemployment benefits, resume-writing and career building workshops, and helps you to find work. Centerlink, I'm sorry but even a tiny island provides a more efficient and effective service that you do. We walked in, and were seen within 10 minutes of arrival. A short application form, and then we could look through a book with all the job postings from the last week. We could pick as many as we wanted, and then had to write why we thought our skills/abilities/training matched the job description. We were then introduced to our own careers advisor and she talked through with us about what we were looking for, and if she thought that the jobs we applied for were right for us, then she would go ahead and fax our resume through to the employer. Geoff applied for a couple, and so did I.

He's had some luck already - he had an interview that same afternoon as a plant operator for a corrugated roofing factory!

Alpie is settling in a lot better after her first day being a complete and utter pork chop. She was really confused and upset when we had to leave her on the first day for our errands, but she's getting used to it now -and as long as we do something active with her every day (beach, jog etc), then she's a happy chappy.

Overall we're feeling really happy and positive about this move. The response, support and opportunities regarding jobs has been overwhelming, and although people are still on "island time", things still GET DONE here.. unlike Puerto Rico.

Signing off for today - its back to job hunting for one last day before the weekend!

Note: The one pic is of our new home - and the view from our front porch (yes - no skyscrapers!!!) The other two I put in just for fun.. when Geoff and Alpie were wrestling.

Leaving San Juan

Finally some good news regarding our moving plans.. as most of you know we were having trouble co-ordinating a moving company to pack/load/ship our things on the day we wanted (and were originally booked for!). Yes, Monday was a public holiday in Puerto Rico even though they do not celebrate 4th of July here. None the less, our moving company failed to tell us that the port wont be operating on Monday after having that date set for THREE WEEKS!! (note: Do not use Capitol Transport)

We've finally found a smaller, local trucking company (GTS) that is organizing our move - and is even doing more for us - for less money than the original one. They will be coming this Thursday (8th) to pack up our things and we will be flying out of San Juan on Monday morning. We will be without possessions and car for about a week, since the container needs to be inspected by USDA and the truck needs to be checked by the police (no fines, not a stolen vehicle etc).

We're excited that its all coming together now!

St Croix, USVI Part 3

This beach was the first that Christopher Columbus landed on in the USVI

Love the roadsigns!

An absolutely beautiful beach right next to Sandy Point - and we had it all to ourselves!

St Croix, USVI

Where to begin?

We had a WONDERFUL three days in the U.S Virgin Islands... it was paradise, truly paradise and nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city for a few days.

We started our adventure on Thursday morning, at the tiny airport in Isla Grande, in a tiny plane. We were 2 of just 6 people aboard! We got beautiful views of the ranch, the city, Fajardo and Vieques as we flew into St Croix. It was raining a little, but the excitement took away any disappointment we may've had. We quickly got settled into our little Ford rental and away we went! No plans, no ideas - just a map.. and we found ourselves on a coastal road heading east. I should start by saying that people here drive on the left - in the left hand side of the car.. weird, but we got used to it pretty quickly. We stopped a lot at little lookouts, stuck our feet into the (very warm!) water and collected seashells. We passed a hotel, but that seemed to the only building, other than a couple of residential houses on the east side of the island.

We made it - the most eastern point of the U.S! Of course Geoff and I had to take it one step further and jump the fence and hike down the cliffs to the VERY most eastern point :-)

On we went, the weather has eased up on us now. Our tummies were grumbling and we were ready for some local tucker.. we met a random elderly man who took us to the "best in town!". Christiansted, a quaint, historical town on the north east shore of the island, famous for its old forts and laid back lifestyle.

"Harvey's" - recommended not only by random elderly man but also Frommers in 2001 to have great food.. and so it was. Since we were out of town, we were given a sample platter with our choice of meat - Geoff had curried goat and I chose the conch with sautéed onion...along with it came sweet potato mash, rice and beans, salad, coleslaw, yucca and fried plantain - far too much to eat, but too much is always better than too little!

With our bellies full and satisfied, we went on our way after checking out the forts. We made it to Cruzan, the little local rum factory on the way to the west end, Fredericksted. Unfortunately it POURED with rain, so we werent able to do the tour (it was fully outside). We were pondering on what to do when another group of 3 people came up to do the tour, who werent able to do it either. We ended up sitting at the bar, having a drink and chat together and they ended up inviting us back to their place - what a suprise! Something we've noticed about this place though is that people are SO friendly.

We met Sunny, their beautiful Boxer they adopted. We hung out with them for a little bit and got to meet quite a few new people in the short amount of time that we spent with that evening. They even gave us some tips and advice on how to get cheap accomodation.. since we were camping we didnt want to camp in the only campground - the rainforest - so they directed us to Bogeys, a little guest house right on the ocean - for almost half the price of what the regular rate would be! Cute rooms, fully self contained kitchen, ocean views, pink walls - what more could we ask for?

The next day we wanted to meet with our new friends again but ended up having a flat tire on our car - so we needed to get that fixed. Once we did, it was back to the beautiful North Shore for more viewing and back to Cruzan in hopes of a tour - we got lucky! It was a short, but very interesting tour - followed by the offer of more free drinks, but we declined.. 10am was a little bit early for us!

Along our walk around Fredericksted, we met someone named Stephen who happened to own a little cafe called Polly's (http://pollysatthepier.com/) I highly recommend it! We ended up having lunch there and it was delicious - I had a chicken wrap and Geoff had a toasted triple cheese sandwich.. followed by locally made icecream - yum! St Croix has its own dairy farm and sell only their own milk - cheese and yoghurt too!

Fredicksted has its own fort, so we had to check that out too :-) Luckily for us they are doing all the repainting at the moment, so we didnt have to pay entrance fees!

Up into the rainforest, away from the coastal road lay Mt Victory, the campground we were supposed to stay at the previous night. It was still heavily wet with rain and the skies were threatening more rain, so we made the decision to look for alternative accomodation.. this time we found the last room left at the rotary club for a great price, so anyone that complains that accomodation is expensive in USVI, it pays to look around at the most obscure places!

The last little bit of daylight and the sun was out! We raced to the beach and went for a swim.. the water was just too inviting and the swim at sunset was beautiful. Nothing tops off a night like that than a yummy seafood dinner - which is just what we did!

We didnt want to leave St Croix - but we already spent an extra night than we had planned. It was off to the ferry terminal to head over to St. Thomas. The ride on the catamaran was smooth and sunny, but from already far away we could see the dark clouds looming over the second smallest USVI. We arrived - and it felt like we were back in Old San Juan. It was busy, bustling with cruise ship passengers and lots of taxis. 'Food' was our first thought (but then, it always is anyway) and we found ourselves at "Gladys Cafe", on a tiny little side street away from the main drag. Geoff once again ordered the curried goat and I had a mahi-mahi, jerk style, paired with Soursop and Pina Coladas. Have to make the most of it all whilst you're in a foreign place, right?

Our final few hours were spent jetskiing and driving around in the back of an open cab high up on the mountains of St. Thomas - to the right we could see the British Virgin Islands and the left was the cruise ship terminal - simply breathtaking!

A sunset plane flight ended our amazing getaway to the USVI, but St. Croix - you have not seen the last of us! We also St. John left to explore!