To go see Star Wars, of course.
C’sted Puppy Parade
Just as we were enjoying our last painkillers yesterday before leaving for home, the annual Puppy Parade was assembling on the Boardwalk. This year’s theme was “Arabian Nights.” Most of the dogs were stoic, or even enthusiastic, about the whole thing. That little puppy is available for adoption…
It looked like a fun chance for the townies to get together, even though it was rainy.
High society dogs. But if you look carefully in the background, you’ll see that this sort of thing is not for everybody. The Dude Abides, but he’s going diving and not wearing a sweater. 
Don’t eat fish on Monday
All week long, it’s been fresh wahoo on the menu just about everywhere. The first night, it was a big steak cooked pretty rare, yummy. The next night, a smaller slab, cooked through. Also good, but not as luscious. Then, we saw it blackened, creoled, gumbo’d, etc., and it became a joke about how long they could stretch out the fish before finally giving up and tossing it out to the tarpons who hang around the boardwalk waiting for scraps.
Yesterday, then, imagine our surprise to see this walk by… next week’s wahoo!
There’s another commentary here about fishing. Although we didn’t go out on a charter boat this tip, it’s instructive to compare the big cabin cruisers, $300 reels, etc., with the two guys in flip flops with a string who actually catch fish…
Armageddon
After Hurricane Hugo destroyed the old F’sted pier, they towed all the wreckage a couple miles away and dumped it in 80-120′ off the coast. Now, it’s a pretty cool dive site, a real-life Waterworld set.
Enough diving already
My intrepid divemaster Jenny takes on a lionfish
A Southern sting ray unimpressed with my desire to get up close and take pictures
A playful smooth trunkfish
Seahorse
Seahorses are one of the stars of St. Croix’s western side. Getting close enough and steady enough to shoot a decent picture of the little critters is the best test of Peak Performance Buoyancy I can think of. Even though I passed my PPB dive, which involved swimming through a hula hoop suspended from the bottom, I still have a lot of work to do in that regard. And how do you kick backwards in flippers???
The Angel’s Share
The distillery tour, which debouches (debauches?) into the tasting room and bar, turned out to be the cheapest drinks on the island. Here, our tour guide shows what 12 years of evaporation looks like… the missing volume is called the Angel’s Share.
And then demos her skills behind the counter… Incidentally, the guy on the left was on the dolphin dive with me earlier in the day, so we got to coach each other in how to make people roll their eyes at the story.
Signs of the times
If only the hand rail hadn’t been pulled out of the wall a few years ago…
Our Apartment in Christiansted
Our digs on this trip sit at the rear of a compound. The little lizards seem to be everywhere, but so far not inside, which is as it should be. The old coral wall is awesome for keeping the neighborhood noises out, but also blocks the cross breezes.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 