We
had to take a taxi to our excursion this morning to meet our tour at
9 am so we had to leave the ship at 8 am when it docked. We
pre-ordered breakfast and Peter brought it to us at 7 am. Wade and
Charlie joined us for breakfast at our dining room table.
We
left the ship at around 8:15 am and stopped in the market at the dock
for Charlie to buy a hat and then paid our taxi fare ($16 per person
round trip – they gave us return tickets) to get to Cristiansted
about 25 minutes away for our snorkeling excursion.
They
crammed the little van full of people and drove the half hour or so
to Cristiansted where they dropped us off almost directly in front of
the Big Beard store. I didn't care much for the taxi ride – they
were pretty stingy with the A/C and weren't very friendly. We went
inside to check in for our tour and paid with a credit card. We also
picked up some croakies for our sunglasses amd got Rhys a pair of
sunglasses since he had left his glasses in the car.
I
was so surprised to see that not only was AT&T available but the
4G was pretty darned fast and I had connection the whole time we were
in St Croix.
We
had a short wait before taking off on the Renegade catamaran so we
doused ourselves in sunscreen and took some pictures. I'm really glad I brought a cap with me because the catamaran was so windy and by the time we were done snorkeling, my hair would have been all over the place if it wasn't for my cap.
After
one more potty stop at the dock (free public portable) we soon
boarded Big Beard's Renegade catamaran bound for Buck island. It
would be a 45 minute trip out to the island. Our captain was Steve
and his assistants were Gabe, Chrissy, and Michael. Before we got on
board, though, they had us all take our shoes off and leave them on
the pier to be put into a large community bag. I guess it makes
things a lot easier to keep track of. We were on board with a large
group that only spoke Dutch so they had their own translator.
 |
| Captain Steve steering the catamaran (with his foot) |
Once
we got underway, we were allowed to sit on the front of the
catamaran. It was a very nice trip out to the island – the breeze
made it much more pleasant.
 |
| Buck island |
We anchored near the beach and they
lowered a staircase down into the water which we made our way down
and then dropped off into about chest-height water.
We were given
about an hour to practice snorkeling although there really wasn't
anything very interesting to see.
After
swimming around for a bit and trying out our snorkels, masks, and
fins, we re-boarded the catamaran and sailed around to the opposite
side of the island where there was a boat “parking lot” in the
middle of the water where they anchored. We went down the steps into
the deep water and Gabe took 6 of us out to the national monument. I
should have changed the settings on my iphone – in retrospect,
since I had the Lifeproof case and life jacket, I should have turned
off the auto-off feature and turned my camera on just leaving it on
for the duration of the snorkeling tour. It was too hard to manage
swiping the phone on while snorkeling because you have to turn it on
outside the water. I think I missed a great opportunity to take some
pictures of the reef underwater. I didn't expect to see the reef
marked with signs and arrows. The entire “trail” probably only
took us about 10 minutes to swim. The coral was pretty and I saw a
lot of blue fish.
I didn't think about it but it would have been much easier to disable the auto off on my iphone, turned the camera on and then left it on while I went snorkeling because you can't swipe the phone on underwater and I had trouble managing that while treading water. I thought I was taking pictures underwater but you have to use the (+) button on the side of the iphone to take pictures under water rather than hitting the button on the screen. I didn't find this out until later on our trip.
I
kept getting worried that I was getting lost or getting out too far
from the boat or drifting into stronger currents. I snorted ocean at
least 3 times and got water in my snorkel a couple of times. After
maybe 20 minutes, I think I was pretty much done snorkeling. Seth
and Rhys both ventured out further and saw schools of fish and even a
stingray.
We
got back on board the catamaran and Amina wasn't feeling well as was
another of the Dutch passengers (who actually threw up overboard I
heard later) so they were instructed to lie flat on their stomachs as
we cruised back toward St Croix for our BBQ lunch. We were offered
rum punch along the way which was really good. They took us to a
small beach where we got off and sat on the beach for a bit while
they prepared the BBQ: hamburgers and hot dogs with chips and more
rum punch, regular punch, or water.
I
was regularly updating Facebook because even on Buck Island, my 4G
signal was really good – I was so surprised. After the
all-you-can-eat lunch, we hung around for a bit and then re-boarded the catamaran and for about half
an hour, the wind carried us back towards the dock really slowly.
They kicked the engine on as we got closer and we arrived back into
Cristiansted to catch a taxi back to Fredericksted. The crew of the
Renegade did a great job – very professional and friendly. I wish
I liked snorkeling more than I do but it is what it is.
We
got back to the Summit and cleaned up – canapes were already
waiting for us on the dining room table. We decided that we didn't
want to get dressed for dinner (it was a formal night) so I went to
meet Wade and Charlie in the martini bar, ordered a drink, and then
went to the MDR to tell them to cancel our reservation and to pick up
a MDR menu. The lady at the restaurant was very courteous, thanked
me for letting her know that we wouldn't make it for dinner, and
immediately got a dinner menu for me to take back to the suite. We
watched a movie in the suite and had some drinks, ordered off the
menu (I just gave our written order down to Peter and he took care of
it), and when the food arrived, Peter served it course by course. We
really enjoyed having dinner in our suite and tipped Peter really
well for serving dinner to all 6 of us on such short notice.
We
were in bed and asleep before 10 pm – it had been a fabulous day.
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