Rick and Janell's News: St. Croix USVI

For one of my Christmas presents last December, Rick purchased a trip to St. Croix for the week of March 12th. It is THE Virgin Island that we had never been to. We had been to St. Thomas (which we adore) as well as St. John and a couple of the British Virgin Islands. We left SL at midnight and arrived to St. Croix after a four hour redeye to Charlotte and then a three hour layover and then another three hour flight to the island. Needless to say we were happy to arrive at our destination. Redeye flights are just hard on an aging body. Namely mine. They don't seem to bother Rick too much.😑

We made it to the Renassaince Carambola Resort which is located on the North end of the island. It is settled on a nice bay surrounded by rainforest. Just really a picturesque place. Right off the bat we could tell that this resort is not kept up quite like all of the other Marriott resorts that we have been to but we were very pleasantly situated in our ground floor room with beautiful views of the ocean and it's LOUD crashing waves.

The first order of business after getting settled in our room was to find a place to eat. We drove a couple miles over to Cane Bay where we had dinner at a little beach bar called Spratnet Beach Bar. The food was just ok but we were happy to eat and to just sit and watch the ocean.

We got a good night's rest and then headed over to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast. They had a nice spread of eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage and pancakes. We filled up and then got ready for the day for some exploring.

(Some shots at our hotel)

After breakfast we drove over to The Market, a large grocery store in the middle of the island. We grabbed a few things for our day and then headed over towards Fredriksted to see what was there. Frederiksted is where the cruse ships usually dock. Which Covid, of course, there are no cruise ships. The place felt somewhat ghost towns with only a few stores open. We found a dive shop and Rick was able to set up a night dive for Monday night. After perusing the area we drove over to Sandy Point NP. It is the largest beach on the island but is only open on the weekends in the months of September through March because it is a prime place for turtle nesting. Being March we were able to get onto the beach. There were no facilities so we just changed in the car. Not my favorite thing to do but we made it work! 😉

The beach was gorgeous with just a few people hanging around so that was great! It was so fun just hanging out in the water letting the waves roll off of us. So relaxing and sort of romantic:)

After the beach we were famished so we stopped at a Beachside cafe close by and had some good food. We ordered a cheese dip with home made chips. It was so tasty. I ordered a salad and flautas and Rick had shrimp with a sweet sauce and Mahi Mahi bites, which he loved.

After dinner we stopped back at the Market for some food for Sunday. We picked up some ingredients for spaghetti with meat sauce, salad , and bread. Of course, we got some dessert items too:)

We came back to our room and relaxed to a British Baking Show on my laptop.

Twas a great day!

The next morning we woke up to Pachelbel's Canon in D. We opened up our doors to a wedding happening just steps from our room. The groom was in shorts and a short sleeved button down and the bride had on a flowy white dress. There were a handful of guests. We had to laugh because really the waves are SUPER loud here. We were imagining the officiator yelling the ceremonial words over the sound of the waves. After the nuptials, a cooler was brought out with beer and the party lasted for a few hours. While it was a beautiful location this wedding was very different then a traditional wedding.

We had a nice sabbath day. After breakfast Rick had his Bishopric Meeting while I did some Sunday study. We then watched our Sunday meetings via zoom. They were very uplifting and nice. When our meetings were over it was already three o'clock so we got out of our room and went for a drive thru the rain forest. The roads were super potholey but the drive was beautiful! We drove all the way to the end of the road on the west side. So nice!

When we got back to our room we fixed up our spaghetti dinner and enjoyed feasting!

The next day was Monday and we drove over to Christiansted and then East end of the island. We stopped in Christiansted and had lunch at a place called The Mill. It is locat4ed on the boardwalk and is housed next to an old sugar mill. While there we shared a wood fired pizza and it was super yummy! We both had some St. John's rootbeer to wash it down.

After lunch we walked along the boardwalk and walked into some shops. Didn't buy anything but had fun perusing.

We then walked over to the historic fort to have a look. The fort was built by the Danes in the 1600's. This is the commons house where everything coming into port had to be assessed.

The Fort was used as protection for many years. It was trying to protect its resource of rich island soil from other Countries. It also housed the islands prison. It had cells for runaway slaves and those committing crimes. Oh, how awful it would have been to have had to be in one of these little cells! Those poor slaves! They had to endure so much hardship and if they tried to run where were they to go? This is an island with not a lot of place to hide and no way off.

The view from the fort was beautiful. Protestant Cay was just behind us.

The Steeple Church was closed to visitors but we got to peek in because there were workers inside and they left the door open.

We left Christiansted and drove to the east end of the island. Here is our picture with Buck Island in the distance.

We got back to the hotel in time for Rick to grab his Snorkel gear and head over to Frederiksted for his night diving gig. He was in a group of five divers and they just walked in from the shore as it was getting dark. Rick had never been on a night dive so this was exciting for him. The group stayed in the vicinity of the pier where the cruise ships dock. He said there were lots of coral on the pilings and they saw tropical fish, sea spiders, lobster, turtles, a squid and some puffer and burrfish. He was hoping to see an octopus but didn't.

While he was doing that I stayed at the hotel and read beside the pool. I tried to get int he jacuzzi but it was just lukewarm and that lasted about two minutes. I changed clothes and then went to hang out at the restaurant. I ordered a pina colada and a bbq sandwich and just enjoyed hanging out. Rick joined me after his dive where he ordered some sweet pork nachos.

We got back to our room with the news that back home Darrell's doctor had decided that he would have open heart surgery the following day. We decided to start a fast that night along wth the Allen Family.

This was the picture that DeeAnn sent to us. All of their sons and SIL (except Dalton) were able to be in the hospital to give Darrell a blessing. This was a tender mercy because the head nurse was so against it so DeeAnn didn't think it would happen. She was very prayerful an then there was a shift change and the new head nurse said it would be fine. I love this picture! Matt blessed Darrell that he would be well.

We fasted the next day. Rick had a lot of school work to do so we just stayed around the hotel for the whole morning. In the afternoon we started a hike to the tide pools but I knew that with no food or water in my system I could not make it. Rick had already ran/walked five miles (crazy man) and was ready for a hike. We turned around after about a half mile. Maybe another time. We lounged on the beach for a couple of hours and then by five were ready to end our fast and go find some food. We had heard that Darrell's surgery seemed to be successful.

We drove around trying to find a place to eat (three places that did not work) so we ended up driving clear to Christiansted. We found a street taco place and ate to our hearts content. We didn't stay long because the partiers like to come out at night and when you smell marijuana in the air...it's time to leave.

Anywhooo....

After returning home we found out that Darrell was not doing so good. He was very sick and they could not close his chest back up after surgery. We decided that we should change our flights and get home. Rick got on with American and was able to get us return flights for Thursday. Two days earlier than expected but it feels wrong to be here having fun when Darrell is on the brink of death.

We had one last day so after Rick's schoolwork we took time driving around again. We wanted to try La Reine Chicken Shack cause it sounds like its a place that the locals love.

The food was super delish! The best food we had eaten all week!