Thursday, June 18
Pony Club Camp was already more than halfway over and I was starting to get sad with that realization! We did some horse swapping for the beginners to make some better pairings and all the riders seemed to be happy with their new steeds. The advanced group was making progress although I could tell that the horses were starting to get tired- two lessons a day in the summer heat absolutely takes a toll on their energy levels and endurance.
Meanwhile, Scott was on Day 2 of his Advanced Open Water Dive Certification. At Scott’s suggestion, they went to Cane Bay, on the north end of the island, for both of their dives. He wanted to dive here rather than at Butler Bay again.
Since he was getting his certification, like yesterday, he was tasked with various objectives on each of the dives. We joked he was getting various Boy Scout badges! They dove The Wall both times, and the first dive’s objective was to do a “deep dive” and to reach a 100 foot depth. They encountered a reef shark, which you may be able to faintly in the video and sea urchin “walking” along the bottom. Towards the end of the dive, he and his instructor Janette both “rode” the underwater rocking horse that was in about 30-40 feet of water. The objective of the second dive was fish and aquatic life identification. He was successful and I was proud of “Scotty Cousteau” for learning how to identify various types of fish and plants and becoming an underwater naturalist, because at least on land, that is not a strong suit for him!
Our evening plan was to take a sunset sail on our friend the Jolly Mon with Lyric Sails, one of the gifts that I had received from the STX Pony Club. We were happy to see that the captain and first mate on the catamaran were the same crew from last year and they remembered us. We jokingly reminisced about the lady with the epic rat’s nest tangle in her hair who spent her entire sail unsuccessfully hacking away at it, imagining that she is probably still working on it. We sipped on rum punch, saw sea turtles and spinner dolphins, and enjoyed watching the sun set. Once we were back on shore we grabbed a pizza from Napolean’s and headed home with it.
Friday, June 19
Today was the last day of camp! Instead of riding twice, everyone just rode as one big group and we had our own gymkhana (mounted games). Mounted games are a wonderful way to test the skills that everyone had learned in a very real setting and horses and riders both find them fun. The beginners mostly walked each of the games but the more advanced group trotted and cantered at times during them and the beginners enjoyed watching them- hopefully it gives them something to aspire to.
In the afternoon we had a Question and Answer session where they could “Ask the Expert” (me) whatever burning horse questions they had. Some of them were good but a fair number were silly- no surprise when dealing with a group of mostly elementary and middle school aged boys. The older girls had some more thoughtful questions and I was happy to help answer them. We wrapped up with an awards ceremony and each camper got a certificate announcing a particular skill or milestone I felt they had achieved and it was fun to watch them celebrate their successes from the week.
Scott’s last day of his self guided summer camp involved mountain biking the Mount Eagle trails overlooking Cane Bay on a bike he borrowed from Becky and Steve. The trails were made possible by the Virgin Island Trail Alliance and Department of Planning and Natural Resources, and were built by Rock Solid Trail Contracting, the group who designed and built some of the famous Bentonville, Arkansas mountain biking trails. He did two laps on the trail and said that he biked about six miles in total. He said that after working his way up an old road to reach the top of Mount Eagle, the trail was a well built flowing track with gorgeous glimpses of Cane Bay.
After his biking adventure he decided to check out the Christopher Columbus Landing where a year after his American “discovery,” ol’ Chris had come ashore with an expedition in 1493. Scott said it must have been prettier in the 1400’s because currently, it was serving as an unofficial Cruzan dump, and for some reason was a favorite spot for locals to dispose of their tires. Not one to be discouraged, he pushed onward to the waterfront, hoping it would be better. It was not. The water and shoreline were inundated with an abundance of malodorous kelp. Giving it a one out of five stars mental review he left and went to inquire about kayaking in the nearby Salt River Bay, where the bioluminescent plankton are found, in case we ever come back to the island.
That evening we headed back to Cowboy Beach and did a repeat of our hammock and floaty routine, enjoying the sunset from the warm and placid water before heading back into Frederiksted for dinner.
We had initially hoped to be able to go to the monthly street fair that occurs in Frederiksted on the third Friday evening of the month, Rhythms at Sunset, as we had thoroughly enjoyed it last year when we had stumbled upon it. Unfortunately this month the timing was different, and despite being the third Friday of the month, the festival had inexplicably occurred the week prior. We had heard a few people recommended a restaurant called Alba’s so we decided to give it a try.
It was a rather interesting experience.
We were seated, and then once the server came to visit us at our table, began a very unusual guessing game process in an attempt to order our dinner.
Server: What would you like?
Us: Do you have a menu that we can see?
Server: Well, tell me what you want.
Us: Well, what do you have?
Server: Tell me what you want and I’ll see if we have it.
Us: Can we see a menu?
Server: We might not have what you want from the menu.
Us: Well, what do you have?
Server: What do you want?
And, on it went, in this rather perplexing infinite loop, until finally the woman who must have been the owner or manager noticed the communication struggle that was ensuing in the dining room between server and patrons, came out of the kitchen to our rescue, placing physical menus in our hands. As it turned out, they were in fact, out of what we wanted, but it was an effective jumping off point and they did have our second choices, so that is what we ordered.
My review of Alba’s: Unusual ordering practices followed by somewhat mediocre food. 2.5/5
We returned home to C’est la Vie, rehashing the oddity of our dining experience the whole way home.
Saturday, June 20
We awoke on our final day to a notification from the airline that our evening flight was already delayed by an hour. We were not sad because this meant we would have more time to soak up the last bits of Cruzan sun, sand, and sea before heading home. (As it turned out, it was delayed by nearly two hours and thankfully they gave us plenty of warning so it was nice to be able to have more time to spend doing something fun rather than being captive at the airport as often is the case.)
Our plan for the day was to use our West End Watersports gift certificate for a jet ski rental and then to hang out on their beach and take advantage of their beach chairs/umbrellas.
On the short drive to the beach we took a quick detour so that Scott could show me the Creque Dam. At this point, he has explored much more of Saint Croix than I have and can act as a tour guide. He had seen it last year on his Sprat Hall Preserve cruise excursion hike with Steve, and the dam had come up in conversation with Becky and Steve the night before, when they mentioned it was currently dry. When we arrived at the dam we were able to verify that it was, in fact, dry.
We arrived at West End Watersports right as they were opening, signed the pages upon pages of release forms that were required for the 30 minute jet ski jaunt, and then a few moments later were turned loose on it. We had instructions for where we were allowed to go and as we worked our way between the buoys that showed you the boundaries, Scott remarked that it felt a bit like “mowing the lawn,” and he was kind of right. I commented that jet ski’ing together was a relationship milestone for us since he also loves when I acknowledge relationship milestones, being the mushy and sentimental fellow that he is.
When our 30 minutes of jet ski fun were up we returned to the beach and an employee escorted us over to beach chairs and set up an umbrella for us. We hung out and alternated between sitting in the beach chairs and floating on our floaty before we had finally had enough sun- despite the umbrella’s shade we were starting to get cooked. So Scott went in search of potential hammock spots down the beach. He came back a little while later and reported that he had scouted a spot out. We packed up and headed that way. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in better shade and taking periodic dips in the Caribbean. Eventually we figured it was time to pack up so we could head back to the house to shower, finish packing, and connect with William who would take us to the airport. 
It was another fun week in Saint Croix, and we are already hoping we get to go back to our favorite island in the future!
Footnote: Our flight to Charlotte was uneventful, but attempting to catch the hotel shuttle to reach our car for the drive home was a whole ordeal. We had parked at the Radisson- Charlotte Airport, and were nearly ready to throw in the towel and Uber there at the 90 minute mark when they finally showed up despite three calls to the hotel to see where they were. 0/5 stars. Do not recommend. We will use another commercial offsite lot or a different hotel in the future.
