Desperately seeking Pisces (What, you expected Susan?) - 2015

Now, on to us. As you know, we are always kayaking and looking for snorkel spots. After kayaking in Greece in 2013, and then Dalmatia in 2014, and seeing no fish whatsoever, I got frustrated and planned a kayak snorkel trip to the Caribbean to celebrate Mark’s 66th. Surely the Caribbean wouldn’t be as warm and salty as the Mediterranean and would have fish! We headed down there through Puerto Rico for a short stay. Didn’t kayak or swim in PR but truly enjoyed our time on the beach and touring the old forts. So much history we hadn’t remembered from our schooling. Gee, did they ever touch on the battles that took place there or did we learn it all from Pirates of the Caribbean? Either way, lots of fun. From Puerto Rico we took a short hop in a SMALL plane to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands.

 We stayed in an expensive hole (note that is not a misspelling of hotel) …sadly, lots of the island was that way. The island has shut down their refineries and other main jobs for the locals, so there is extensive unemployment, an increase in crime, and a sad loss of dignity for many. Of course, as the crime rate went up, the tour boats stopped coming. A beautiful struggling place. I can attest the fruit flavored rum made there is top notch, though.

 Buck Island off the NW shore is supposed to be some of the best in the world for snorkeling, but the coral was almost all dead and there were few fish…My oh my. Off we flew to St. Thomas, jumped in a car and caught a ferry to St. John. This island is quite prosperous with few big hotels, lots of little ones and beautiful beaches (and sun!!) and restaurants, but still few fish and not a lot of healthy coral. In search of more fish, we took a long day trip tour to the British Virgin Islands…more fish…more rum. Most ports we went into were too small for the boat to dock so we simply jumped ship, swam into shore and ate or drank our way through the visit before swimming back.

St. Thomas

Jumbies on St Croix at a jump-up

Lunch on shore, sort of, our boat in back

Lovely beaches on St. John

 The most interesting (challenging?) spot was the “Soggy Dollar” bar on Jost Van Dyke island. No credit cards…they simply set up the glasses, poured 20 mixed drinks at a time and collect the dollars. Apt name! Getting back to the boat was a hoot. One of the locals was making quite a profit picking up drunk visitors, flopping them into his zodiac like dead whales, steering out to the moored boats and shoving them, hands deep into buttocks, till they kerflumped (onomatopoeia) back in to their yachts. Like landing 300 pound flounders. Fortunately, we were classy, we had stairs out of the water. After our lovely time on St. John and the BVI, we took the last few days at St. Thomas. The USVI are lovely (and sometimes expensive) places to visit. I expect we will go back, but no fish or coral to speak of. There is a rumor that if you go further SE along the island chain .....