June 20

I blinked and the last day of Pony Club camp was here and I was sad! I had enjoyed the week and getting to work with the riders and didn’t want our time on the island to end.

Scott and I started our morning off with our usual coffee time from atop the Hilltop House hill before it was time for me to head to Sprat Hall and for him to light out on his adventures for the day.

While I was teaching the morning sessions he went on his last dive at the Fredriksted cruise pier and it turned out to be his best and favorite one of the week. He was out for a little over an hour and came across a puffer fish and a little sea turtle that was perched atop some coral on one of the pier piles sleeping. His most exciting discovery of the dive was a trio of octopuses and he was able to watch them for a few moments, fascinated by their ability to change their color on demand to correspond with their surroundings as they glided around the seafloor.

After my lunch break Scott dropped me back off at the Pony Club grounds so I could teach the last session. We did some mounted games as our grand finale. The kids loved the various games and it proved highly entertaining for everyone watching. Watching them do the “egg and spoon” was my favorite since it is the most telling test of balance and independence (the ability to isolate a body part so that it doesn’t bounce when you go to kick or steer for instance- think of getting groovy on the dance floor while holding a drink that you don’t want to spill) and the horse’s cooperation was starting to waiver by day 5 of camp and they didn’t always want to go/stop/steer. After we finished and the horses were taken care of we all reconvened for awards and a goodbye. The kids had made me the sweetest thank you card and had adorned it with sea glass, not actually realizing my new found passion of searching for it!

Scott picked me up from Sprat Hall for the final time and we headed straight to Rainbow Beach. While I searched for sea glass he told me about his afternoon. He had taken Ms. Bettye’s car to get it washed and then after he hung his hammock at Rainbow Beach. While he was lounging he had seen the popular “Cruzan Cowgirl” tourist beach ride come through.

All week he had been complaining about us not being able to ride on the beach. I had been the “bad cop” as usual and explained that just because there were horses at the STXPC, it didn’t mean that they were available or appropriate to use to ride on the beach. I tried to explain all the ways this could go wrong, the least of which is the fact that it is actually illegal to ride them on the coral but I don’t think he heard me. I had told him that he was welcome to book a ride with the Cruzan Cowgirl but he never did…

When I had collected sea glass to my heart’s content we headed back to Hilltop House to shower so we could head into Fredriksted for our last dinner on the island. When we got into town we were surprised by the hustle and bustle because all week it had seemed so sleepy. It turns out that they have a Rhythms at Sunset, a street festival with “live music, local vibes, and good company,” the third Friday of every month, and we had stumbled right into it.

We went into the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, a gift shop/art gallery featuring works and pieces from local artists that I’d spied earlier in the week but never got a chance to visit since it had always been closed until this evening. Scott asked the clerk about the festival and she also told him about the “Free Flow” session they were hosting upstairs. Participants were invited to “unleash your inner CREATOR” and try their hand at art. She hadn’t even gotten the words out of her mouth before Scott was bolting up the stairs, leaving me in a cloud of dust. I trailed after him trying to see where he had gone and found him upstairs talking with the volunteer docent.

Tonight’s medium for the public was oil pastels and she sat us down at a table with some other budding artists and handed us paper and directed us to the crayons. Scott brainstormed with her about what he should draw, and he decided to depict one of the octopuses he had spotted on his morning dive. He jumped right into it. I thought for a moment about what I wanted to draw and settled on a purple and teal parrotfish I had seen on our Buck Island snorkel. As we sat drawing our chosen sealife, I was reminded of a similar festival art experience we’d had when I painted a paper umbrella at the Bo Sang Umbrella Festival outside Chiang Mai in Thailand.

A gregarious little girl took the seat directly across from me and sat thoughtfully staring at her blank paper before finally looking up at me, making eye contact, and asking if I would mind if she drew me. I gave her my blessing, amazed at her confidence. I had Google’d a picture of a parrotfish¹ and set about drawing it as Scott worked on his octopus. We both eventually finished and I reluctantly informed the girl that we were leaving. She assured me that it was ok because she knew what I looked like and would be fine and showed me what she currently had before we told her goodbye and headed in search of dinner.

We decided on Flyer’s where I’d had dinner while Scott was doing his night dive. We sat looking out over the street and enjoyed people watching while we ate. We savored our last dinner in STX and talked about all of the fun things we had done over the last week.

June 21

While my summer camp might have officially drawn to an end, Scott still had one last half day at his “summer camp.” Jane Coles, one of the STXPC volunteers, had connected Scott with her husband William who works for US Fish and Wildlife and runs an archery program for them. William had invited Scott out to shoot on Saturday morning before we flew home and Scott leapt at the opportunity.

So after enjoying one last coffee time on the hill overlooking the Caribbean, Scott dropped me off at Rainbow Beach with my beach bag, colander, and the hammock, and headed to William’s field to shoot. I spent the morning floating and glass hunting, savoring the last few moments of island beachtime before we would head back to SC.

He came back to Rainbow Beach and found me scouring the water’s edge for the dark blue glass pieces that were my favorite. We waded into the warm water and he told me about his morning of archery.

It had been probably ten years since he had last shot and he had never received any formal instruction, so today was enlightening to have the rigor that William’s instruction brought. They worked on posture and the shot sequence and refined those details. While William was working with Scott, eventually another couple showed up so he went over to work with them. The program is free and serves to get island residents interested in the sport of archery. It seemed fitting that Scott end his “summer camp” experience with such a quintessential summer camp activity.

After lounging in the hammock for a few minutes it was time to get back up to Hilltop House to shower and pack so that we could meet up with Jane, William’s wife, who was taking us to the airport. We dropped off Ms. Bettye’s car back at Steve and Becky’s and enjoyed the drive with Jane as she served as our tour guide, highlighting points of interest along the way.

When we got to the airport we said goodbye to Jane and then tried to figure out how to check Scott’s dive bag. The STX airport is mostly open air prior to customs and security and when we figured out the baggage check situation the agent informed us that our bag was 8 lbs over. We had packed the dive weights in the bag so we grabbed them out to help make weight. This brought the bag into an acceptable range. She tagged it and then instructed us to carry it over to the customs line ourselves. In a moment of sneakiness I decided that no one (aside from the guy that had to lift the bag into the airplane) would know we put the weights back into the bag since it was already tagged as “acceptable” so I did exactly that. I am one rebellious rebel.

Our flight home was uneventful and we had the whole row to ourselves which made for prime napping. My parents were waiting for us at the Charlotte airport when we arrived and as they drove us home we regaled them with tales of our Cruzan summer camp experience. When we got into Greenville, we stopped at Sabroso’s, my parent’s favorite restaurant, before going to their house to get our car. When we finally got home Andi was beside herself after not seeing us for 10 days and she leapt and jumped around as she showered us with wet kisses.