After the Pony Club certification ended on Saturday, Scott picked me up from Sprat Hall and we headed into the rainforest in search of the Mount Pellier Domino Club, combination bar and grill/domino club/roadside attraction/quasi petting zoo, and most importantly, home of the famous beer drinking pigs. As Scott carefully nursed Ms. Bettye’s Escape over the impressively potholed Mahogany Road into the jungle, he excitedly told me all about his morning dive at the Frederikstead pier. He saw such abundant sealife, the most noteworthy being a pair of eagle rays, stingrays, and several sea turtles.
When we reached the club we went inside the rustic open-air building to get a lay of the land. We were told to go ahead and order lunch and once we finished our meal it would be time for the pigs to get their next round of drinks. Evidently it is hard work being a beer swilling swine and they need some down time between rounds. We ordered from the sparse handwritten menu board and sipped on our own drinks while we waited. Our burgers came out, and as we ate we struck up conversation with some other folks that were also divers. They were using STX as their jumping off point for a British Virgin Islands sailing expedition with friends and Scott picked their brain about their trip since that is also on our radar in the next few years. Our waitress then announced that it was time to go see the pigs and gave us a rundown of the pricing for the experience: you paid a small fee to go see them and then paid for however many cans of non-alcoholic beer you wanted to give to the pigs. We each got one and followed the group to the pigpen.
We got brief instructions for how to give them their beer cans and were then allowed to go to whichever of the pigs we wanted to give it to. I chose to give mine to “Hammy,” the outlier of the group. Unlike the other pigs who were already standing on their hind legs with their front feet on the stall doors eagerly awaiting their brews, Hammy needed to be shown the goods first before she would hop up on the door. As instructed, I walked over to her stall, showed her the can, and then she jumped up to receive it. I held it as she nimbly grabbed it out of my hand, pierced it with her tusks, spraying beer everywhere, and then proceeded to tilt her head back and chomp-chomp-chug-chugged it to get every precious drop of brew. These pigs put frat boys to shame- they can consume a 12 oz beer in a matter of seconds and their pens showed the evidence of today’s bender. It was now Scott’s turn to get sprayed with beer and he chose to give his to Chester, who did nearly an exact repeat of Hammy’s performance except that Chester was already eagerly clamboring over his stall door for it. We enjoyed watching the pigs routine for a few more minutes as other visitors gave the pigs their drinks before deciding to wrap it up and head out.
We were now headed to the north side of the island, to a spot called Cane Bay so Scott could do another dive. He suited up and after asking instructions for where to head to see the “North Star wall”, he walked into the water, dipped down to put his flippers on and started walking out into the surf before finally ducking below the surface and out of sight. I set up my beach towel in a partially shaded spot on the beach and hung out, alternating between sitting and reading, people watching, taking in the sights of Cane Bay, and then wading chest-deep into the water when I would start to get hot. He was gone for about 45 minutes and finally I happened to see him pop up out of the water.
He got out of his scuba gear, and then we hung the hammock between two trees on the beach and he told me about his dive. He had been a little nervous because the wall drops off over 2,000 ft and so was a little conservative, but he saw a barracuda, lots of schooling fish, unique coral, and the sand trenches along the way that led down to the wall. Someone had told him that if you banged on your air tank with something metal it would attract Caribbean reef sharks who associated this sound with the sound of spearfishermen hunting for invasive lionfish and they would appear in hopes of getting a tasty treat, but he was not successful in summoning them. (Only Scott would purposefully try to conjure up sharks while diving…)
We enjoyed laying in the hammock and going into the water some before deciding to wrap up our beach day and walk just across the street to the restaurant here at Cane Bay where we would be having dinner. The STXPC had given us a gift card for The Landing, a popular open-air beach bar that overlooked the bay. We sat at the long bar and gazed down over the beach and water.
Dinner was wonderful and I was tickled when I discovered that they carried Duke’s mayonnaise which is made in nearby Mauldin, SC and is the world’s best (and only acceptable) mayonnaise.
On the drive home we passed a common STX island scene- a few horses tethered via ropes around their necks, grazing by the road, the common way of containing them while also allowing access to grass. They often get loose and if they don’t get reunited with their owners, or if the owner decides not to reclaim them, they end up at the public impound auction. A few of the horses at the STXPC were the products of this- essentially strays that were picked up by the dogcatcher/horsecatcher. Many of them bear the scars of having been restrained via tether, sporting white scars around their necks and legs, evidence that they’d been tangled up in the rope and injured at some point.
When we reached the west end of the island where our homebase of Frederiksted was, the sun was quickly setting and we were treated to the most spectacular sunset of our trip with fiery oranges, pastel pinks and lavenders splashed boldly across the horizon. We stopped at the aptly named Rainbow Beach and got out to savour it, relishing in the dramatic and shifting colors.
The next morning we headed to the Christiansted marina as we had booked a full day catamaran trip to Buck Island, a nearly 200 acre protected island that has National Monument designation. It became a National Monument during JFK’s presidency and received that status because his family frequently visited it and he wanted to preserve it for perpetuity. Its most unique feature is the underwater snorkel trail which is a marked “path” through the elkhorn coral and grottoes.
We parked in downtown Christiansted and had a minor domestic spat as Scott insisted on parking in a handicap spot, deploying Ms. Bettye’s handicap tag to make it legal. I was horrified by this but couldn’t convince him otherwise so I spent the next hour or so pouting over his sleazy and socially questionable decision.
We had chosen Big Beard’s as our tour company and found their outpost and checked in. Once we boarded the boat, I recognized a former STXPC member, Charlie, who was serving as first mate on the 42’ sailing catamaran. I had met her on my first trip to the island and Pony Club grounds in 2023. We spent a few minutes chatting and reconnecting before she had to get back to work. We got the mandatory safety briefing and then finally set sail towards Buck Island.
When we finally reached the island and got close to the shore, they anchored the boat and we all got off to test out our snorkel gear and explore the island. The snorkelling wasn’t great here but it served as an opportunity for beginner snorkelers to get acquainted with their masks, flippers, and buoyancy vests in a more tranquil body of water before we tackled the snorkel trail.
Scott and I snorkeled for a few minutes and then swam the short distance to the shore to investigate the island. We were amazed at the white sand and insane amount of conch shells on the beach. I spent some time reading the placards (I love reading placards) and learning about the ecosystem and history of the island. Hurricane Hugo had hammered STX in 1989, and Buck Island in particular suffered its wrath; the reef crest on the south side of the island was shifted by an astounding 90 feet in some spots and the damage to the coral is still evident today.
We were eventually summoned back to the boat via conch shell horn which sounded remarkably similar to a foghorn. We then set off for the snorkel trail and were sorted into three groups and received instructions for once we reached it.
Once we reached it we followed our guide into the water and headed out in search of the trail. I loved that I could read placards and snorkel at the same time and got a kick out of following the signs and learning about the various fish I was seeing. The underwater grottoes were impressive and made it feel like we were in a cave. The reef protected us from the rougher water outside its borders and it was remarkably calm and easy to swim within it. We followed along our guide for a bit before peeling off and exploring on our own. I was proud of Scott for staying somewhat close to me because sometimes he disappears and goes off and does his own thing. The most impressive sealife we saw was a 7 foot juvenile bull shark that had been notoriously hanging around the grottoes the last few months. I was proud of myself for staying calm when I spotted him, and honestly was more startled by the huge and intimidating looking barracuda that we spotted lurking under our catamaran when we made our way back to the boat.
We boarded the boat and it was now time for the Mutiny vodka punch to start flowing and the crew made their rounds handing out cups of it. Scott and I sat on the front of the catamaran and enjoyed the views of Buck Island and the mainland and another couple snapped a cute photo of us (reminiscent of the sunset cruise a few nights ago). We chatted with the crew a bit before they needed to start sailing us to their hidden beach for our barbeque lunch. When we reached the beach we disembarked and had to swim in to reach the shore. They prepared hot dogs and hamburgers for us and as we waited I made friends with the island kitties that were eagerly awaiting our arrival because they knew we would all share our lunch with them. Scott and I talked to some of the other passengers while we ate and learned where everyone was from. 
Eventually it was time to swim back to the catamaran and set sail back to the marina. When we arrived back in Christiansted and got off the boat we spent some time walking around the downtown area. I had hoped to get one of the famous and iconic Cruzan “hook” silver bracelets that are popular but sadly both the jewelry stores that came highly recommended were closed for the day. I was glad to see that Ms. Bettye’s car was still in the handicap spot where SCOTT had left it and we hadn’t gotten a ticket or been towed despite the tag hanging from the rearview mirro. I had imagined that the parking authority would have somehow known we were imposters but thankfully they hadn’t. We headed back towards Fredriksted and stopped by Napolean’s pizza on the way in to redeem another one of the gift cards that the STXPC had given me before making our way back to Sprat Hall and our Hilltop House.
