Virgin Islands

Posted Wed, 2009-03-11 16:42 by Nick

There's nothing like a working vacation in paradise to really mess up your blogging schedule.

Last month, after spending a week at our annual photographers' convention in Las Vegas, we got on a plane with Chelsie and Matt bound for the Virgin Islands.

We landed in St. Thomas where we spent a couple of days at a resort hotel on the beach.

We rode the "locals" bus into town to explore and do some shopping. The Virgin Islands is a little like the wild west -- the rules are a little more relaxed than we're used to in the US.

Even though St. Thomas is in a US territory, they drive on the wrong side of the road....

1671 on the front of the building is the date, not the address! This is Fort Christian, the oldest standing structure in the Virgin Islands, built by Denmark and used to defend the island from French attacks from nearby St. Croix. A sign at the gate says the restorations will be completed in summer 2006, so plan accordingly :-)

This is a view of the bay from the ruins of the Pedersen Estate. I'd like to know more about Pedersen.....

You can have your hair braided just like this for cheap!

Mr. Crabs!

We didn't eat here, but we did try some local Caribbean food at Cuzin's....buttered conch!

So then we got on a 50ft. sailboat to tour the British Virgin Islands for a week! Captain Rob and his first mate Michele were awesome! They took care of everything so the four of us could work at relaxing...

We did a bunch of snorkeling.....

Saw lots of sea critters....

This is one of the fist harbors where we anchored

We climbed a trail to this ruin

And then got back on our boat, the "Island Skipper," for dinner and sleep. We slept on the boat every night, and ate all of our meals on it too -- Michele is a gourmet cook. I got pretty good at boat living.....

We sailed to a lot of different islands. One of the islands we visited was inhabited by Conrad and his cats

Another had an abandoned estate

with beautiful tile pictures. Here's a detail:

One of the islands was called Virgin Gorda

Signe and I took a walk into town at night down a dark an narrow road. It was exciting, to say the least; this restaurant looked more friendly during the day

We also went to a place called "The Baths" -- it is a beach littered with giant boulders. Really neat place

This boy is walking home from school in Virgin Gorda

The harbor entrance at Virgin Gorda

Between islands there are lots of reefs and islands that are just barely islands, great for wrecking your ship if you don't pay attention. If you look closely, you can see the tip of a large cargo ship wrecked at the right edge of such an island. Most of the ship is submerged....

We were on an island, walking a trail on the way to taking pictures, when I encountered a large vertical animal crossing the trail in front of me. For some reason the first thing that entered my mind was "Bigfoot!!!" but then I saw it was just a mama goat standing on its hind legs to break through the jungle. There were a bunch of goats, including these kids

Another critter that startled me the first time I saw one, just because I didn't know they were part of the island wildlife, was an iguana. They are big, kind of smelly, climb trees, and the ones at the hotel aggressively beg for french fries! They were everywhere. This is a wild one on a beach

Well, we got used to the "Castaway" lifestyle and didn't want to come home

but alas, we had to.

I'll be posting more often now :-)

• Add new comment
• Thumbnail