June 2026
When I received a call from the head of the Saint Croix Pony Club in the spring inquiring about my availability to come teach their week /2025/06/cruzan-pony-club-camp-2025/ in June, Scott was in the background jumping up and down excitedly and whisper-shouting “Say yes!” I said yes, and we found ourselves back on the island a few months later.
Saturday, June 13
William Coles was our airport pickup, and on the way to the West end of the island he gave us a quick tour of some potential dive spots for Scott. The Coles had generously offered their car for us to use for the week so we dropped William off at his house and then headed on to Becky Merwin’s home. Rather than staying in her Hilltop House as we had in our previous visit, we had been graciously allocated the entire guest wing of her lovely Sprat Hall home, C’est la Vie, which sits atop the hill overlooking the Pony Club grounds and has the same unbelievable panoramic views of the turquoise Caribbean and the Frederiksted Pier that Hilltop House provided.
The island felt like home this go-round, and after we dropped off our luggage, Scott had no trouble remembering to drive on the left (“Ass in the grass!”) and drove us back into town in search of dinner (underwhelming and overpriced which would be the theme for most of the meals on the island all week unfortunately) and then a trip to the grocery store.
The lesson we learned on our previous visit was that food on the island was quite expensive, since everything has to get either flown or shipped in, so we had brought along many of the non-perishables that we would need for the week and only needed to supplement our supply with some drinks, dairy, bread, and eggs. I do the grocery shopping for us at home so Scott hadn’t seen the inflation stateside up close and personal recently, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the total for our modest grocery haul.
We returned to C’est la Vie and enjoyed catching up with Becky and Steve before retiring for the evening.
Sunday, June 14
I started off my Pony Club week the next morning by giving a D3 and C1 certification to some of the more advanced members of the STXPC, and wrapped up by lunchtime so that Scott and I could go use one of our restaurant gift cards before the Polly’s by the Pier in downtown Frederiksted closed.
After lunch we grabbed scuba gear for Scott and snorkel gear for me from where we had parked for lunch and walked just a few paces to the water. One of Scott’s favorite things about Saint Croix is the proximity of good dives from the downtown area.
I don’t dive, so this “parallel play” was fun and allowed me to observe Scuba Scott in his element. He explored the ocean floor along the pier, and I could watch him through the safety of my snorkel mask from my atop-the-water’s-surface vantage point as I hovered well above him. We saw so many sea turtles! It must have been sea turtle siesta time because most of them were down on the sea floor napping and it was interesting to see how they would wedge themselves under coral to anchor themselves.
Eventually I got cold and let Scott know that I was swimming back to shore. He wasn’t that far behind me and after stripping his scuba gear, we loaded up and headed a few miles southeast down the shoreline to Sandy Point. When we got to Sandy Point we found some trees to hang our hammocks and spent the next few hours alternating between lounging in the shade, taking dips into the ocean, and sunning ourselves on the beach. After our fill of Caribbean beachtime we packed it up and headed to Nacho & Louie’s for dinner. Dinner was unremarkable, but what was memorable was the sunset- we had front row seats to a blue and gold lightshow.
Monday, June 15
Today was the first day of camp! After coffee from our porch at C’est la Vie, Scott taxied me over to the STX grounds. I met the campers and learned their names. Many of them had never ridden before, or had very little riding experience, and I was thankful that each beginner had a helper assigned to them to make their first ride safe and productive. The other group was the experienced group (D2-C1 level) and their lessons were more similar to what I would typically teach at a Pony Club camp or clinic. I had taught all of them the previous year and it was fun to see their progress from last summer to this year.
After morning lessons, I had a lunch and siesta break while the campers swam, and then we regrouped for our afternoon session. After camp wrapped up for the day I shifted gears and taught lessons to some of the private boarders, all people I had worked with in previous years. It was good to catch up with them and hear what they had been working on with their horses.
While I was teaching, Scott dove at Sprat Hall beach, both morning and in the afternoon, reconvening with me for my midday break for lunch back at our house. He reported that the reef was beautiful and healthy, and he was excited to get to see some of the “submarine listening cables” that William had told him about, part of the Cold War era SOSUS System. 
Tuesday, June 16
Day Two of camp was another successful day and we built on what we had worked on yesterday. While I was teaching the Cruzan children how to ride that morning, Scott was diving in Butler Bay. He dove the Coakley Bay tugboat and the Rosa Maria freighter. 
To aid future divers, he redrew a hand-drawn map of the Butler Bay dive sites on the computer. 
I didn’t have any evening lessons so as soon as camp wrapped up, we grabbed our beach stuff, including my watermelon floatie ring that I had purchased in /2025/01/last-few-days-in-koh-lanta/, a bottle of Cruzan rum and some cold fizzy waters, and popped across the street to the Cowboy Beach. We caught the first half of the sunset as we bobbed in the warm water, and the other half of the lovely sunset a few hundred yards down the beach as we looked out over the water from Rhythms at Rainbow Beach. The sunset wasn’t quite as dramatic as the night before, but the meal was better, so we considered this a win.
Wednesday, June 17
Today was Day One of Scott’s Advanced Open Water dive certification. He had been planning on getting his official certification this year anyways, and was slated to do it with a local dive shop that does dive trips in the famously cold Lake Jocassee, but after some thought, decided to take advantage of the more exciting dive spots, small class size, and warmer water here in Saint Croix. He was excited and looking forward to the day. After our ritual morning coffee on the porch overlooking Frederiksted and the turquoise ocean, I wished him well and walked down the hill to the Pony Club grounds.
By Day Three of Pony Club camp, the beginners were starting to gain confidence and had better command of many of the fiddly details (rein shortening, how to capture a lost stirrup, etc) that are involved with learning how to ride. In the afternoon session I spotted an iguana, and when I went to get a picture of it, it showed remarkable speed and dexterity as it zipped away from me up into the safety of the tree canopy overhead. I taught one afternoon lesson after camp and then trudged back up the steep pasture hill to C’est la Vie.
Scott caught me up on his day of adventure as I showered and got dressed for dinner. He had chosen Crucian Adventure Divers for his certification. He was the sole student and his dive instructor Janette had taken him on three dives today. The first two were at the pier, and they
focused on navigation (turns out he has a left drift issue like some horses I know) and buoyancy control (she didn’t love that his feet and legs sink, even though he explained to her that he is super dense- Janette, I agree with you girl!) During these dives they saw lots of sea turtles and starfish. The third dive of the day was at Butler Bay for the Suffolk Maid trawler wreck. He was a tired boy at the end because all of today’s dives had been shore dives, including the wreck, which involved a solid twenty minute swim to reach (he was surprised that this dive wasn’t a boat dive for a commercial dive shop).
Once we were ready we headed into Frederiksted, close to Sandy Point, for dinner at the Sand Castle Hotel’s Beachside Cafe. As we drove there we were treated to a stunning and fiery sunset, and we arrived at the restaurant right as the sun dropped below the horizon and out of sight. Our meal was lovely although pricey. We both had the plantain lasagne and tried not to think about the fact that it was a $40 entree, although to be fair, the STXPC had generously given us a gift card for this restaurant. 
