June 18, 2025

Today marked the halfway point for camp and I was amazed at how much progress the riders were making over the course of the week. It was nice to have two sessions a day to drive home some of the corrections and principles so that they could really make some fundamental changes and improvements in their riding.

While I was teaching in the morning, Scott had decided to take the borrowed mountain bike out for a spin. He started out from the Pony Club grounds and headed into the Sprat Hall Nature Preserve that he had hiked earlier in the week. He covered 11.5 miles in a little under two hours and had fun exploring an abandoned Coast Guard station (he loves abandoned buildings) and an old lighthouse. He hung out at the lighthouse for a bit and took in the panoramic views of the island that it provided. From that vantage point he could see the Anallay Bay tidal pools and all of Cane Bay. The trail to the lighthouse was quite steep so he said that the way back down was much easier and faster!

He got back to the STXPC grounds and watched me teach for a while before heading over to nearby Rainbow Beach to hang out in his hammock until I was done and ready to be collected. He scooped me up when my morning session was over and we headed back up to Hilltop House for lunch and our now customary midday siesta.

After he dropped me off for the afternoon camp session and evening lessons with the Sprat Hall boarders, he headed to the north end of the island to do one last dive at Cane Bay. On his 40 minute dive he saw a lobster, a black tipped reef shark, and the biggest sea turtle that he had seen yet on his dives in STX.

When he was done diving he picked up dinner for us from the famous La Reine Chicken Shack. When it was his turn to order he asked them what their most popular items were and used their suggestions to order that meal for each of us. He stopped at Rainbow Beach on the way back to kill time before it was time to get me from Sprat Hall.

We ate at our favorite spot at Hilltop House and looked out over Butler Bay as the sun set. The chicken plates he got us came with a few classic Cruzan sides like rice and beans, and also came with “johnny cakes” and I was hooked once I tasted them! They weren’t as sweet as a doughnut, but came pretty darn close and were absolutely delicious.

June 19, 2025

We woke up obscenely early this morning and hit the rough Cruzan roads by 4:30 AM to make our way to Point Udall, the easternmost spot in the United States, to catch the sunrise. It took us every bit of the hour we had allotted, and we arrived just in time to join the crowd of 50 or so other people who had gathered there before us to watch the sun make its way up, emerge above the horizon, and eventually break through the clouds. After we had done this “thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it” we headed back toward Christiansted in search of breakfast. We were initially puzzled that many of the breakfast spots that had come recommended in Scott’s research weren’t open until we remembered that today was a holiday: it was Juneteenth. We eventually found a breakfast spot in downtown Christiansted that was open and sat outside on their patio and had breakfast before returning back to Fredriksted for me to teach.

Scott had a quiet morning at his “summer camp” after several action packed days and just lounged around at Hilltop House until lunchtime when he came back to get me. I told him that everyone at camp had been impressed that we got up so early to catch the sunrise at Point Udall, have a relaxing breakfast in Christiansted and make it back to camp in time to teach. On our way back up to Hilltop House he pointed out something funny: a man driving a pickup truck had stopped earlier at a series of epic potholes along our route that we had been diligently avoiding all week, and had emptied out some construction waste directly into the holes that were apparently chips of concrete; a DIY civic improvement. To his credit, it was a vast improvement from its previous state and was a rather resourceful way of disposing of the concrete.

Scott dropped me back off at Sprat Hall for the afternoon sessions and then headed to Rainbow Beach for the afternoon where he strung his hammock between the trees right at the water’s edge and enjoyed looking out over the bay and occasionally taking a dip in the warm Caribbean. When he picked me up that afternoon we headed straight to Sandy Point to spend the rest of the evening.

Earlier in the week he had bought me a colander and I used it in my hunt for seaglass. I was now on the quest for vibrant blue sea glass since it was the least common color I had come across. The colander made it easy to scoop up quite a bit of sand and be able to capture the glass that had caught my eye rather than having to spot it, and quickly make a grab for it before the next wave rolled in and the glass got away.

When I was somewhat cross-eyed from my glass search and my back was starting to complain from being crouched over, I headed back to the hammock where Scott had positioned himself. He poured me some of our Cruzan pina colada mix and we enjoyed watching families celebrating their holiday at the beach, swimming and picnicking. From our hammock we bore witness to the sunset over the Caribbean, the day made special by having said both “hello” and “goodbye” to the celestial body around which our planet revolves before we called it a day and headed back to Hilltop House.