Now that Wayne has his sea-legs, we raised the sails and headed for St. Croix. It was a magnificent day to sail with an easy beam reach, full sails up, good seas, and blue skies. It took a short 5 hours to get to the largest of the Virgin Islands. There are two anchorages, Christiansted Harbor and Frederiksted. St. Croix is three times the size of St. Thomas and they have roughly the same population. I found a funny Crucian (local person and language of St. Croix) dictionary so I will be peppering new phrases into this blog. “Limin” in the title means “hanging out”. We decided to anchor in Christiansted which has well marked channels, but if you go outside of them, or miss a buoy you will be aground quickly as this bay is filled with reefs. We tried anchoring in one spot but quickly realized it was not a good hold and moved to the side of the channel where we had 2 meters of water (6’), we draft 1 meter (3’) so it is shallow. Good thing we moved, as the first spot is in the direct path of the sea planes.
Cool graffiti art!
We received some good intel from the local bartender who told us we should take a Tan Tan Tour around the island, so we scurried up to their location only to be told that they could not give us a jeep tour until Wednesday. Well, that won’t work. So we rented our own jeep and headed to the east side of the island. Of course, Matt had to get used to be being behind a wheel again, and driving on the left side of the road. No easy task for someone who has been on a boat for 6 months. Since we were our own tour guides and had a four-wheel drive jeep, we took a lot of roads less traveled and found many beaches, paths, and sites off the grid.
Observation deck at the top of the hill with great views of the reefs below.
Sun dial celebrating the turn of the century.
Super huge castle that I so wanted to tour, but it is privately owned.
We quickly came across the Captain Morgan Distillery or as they call it the “welcome center” and had to stop. “Fa True” (do you mean it), yes! Really nice plant they have here, you are buzzed inside, buy a $10 ticket, watch a short 15-minute video on the history of Captain Morgan, and start your tour. They load you into an open-air cart and take you around their huge plant where they can produce 2 billion gallons on rum a year! After your tour, you are given two tokens that you can exchange for drinks made from a variety of their flavored rums – “Fa True!” (do you mean it) and yes I do! So, basically you get the tour for free. We each tried different concoctions and shared- Sweet! (see recipes)
Visitor Center or drinking adventure?
Matt gettin some captain in him.
Love this quote – wish they had a flag!
What? This is for “Captain Morgan” not “Christine Mitchell”
We hopped back in the jeep and continued our adventure. We did not make it far before we came to the Cruzan Rum Distillery. “Wha, leh we go nuh” (What? Let’s Go). Cruzan Rum is a local rum that is currently co-owned by Jim Beam and a Japanese company. They are still operating under their own label and producing many types of flavored rum. We arrived just in time to hop on a tour. You can certainly tell the difference between a national rum tour from a local rum tour, but none the less it was a lot of fun. There was no movie in a fancy theater, or open-air cart, but we had a “sweet mout” (person who flatters) tour guide with lots of energy. She told us a little about Cruzan Rum’s history, how their rum is made, and showed us around the plant. They distill their rum differently than Captain Morgan, but both plants get their molasses from other parts of the world and both have their final product and bottling done in the U.S.
Wouldn’t it be sweet if this were filled with rum?
Variety of rum drinks enjoyed by all
Local Cruzan Rum workers (I’m in my beach attire, not slutty dress)
Matt found barrels of rum from 2009. They will be well aged.
It was getting late and we wanted to get back to The Brew for their Monday night entertainment, crab races. “Cheese and bread” (denotes surprise). Yes, we wanted to see crab races. We arrived just in time to pay $2 per crab, we named them “Larry, Curly, and Mo” and awaited the start. The ring leader was very nice, said that he gets new crabs every two weeks, puts tape on their shell to write their names so as not to damage the shell, and handles them with care. They had several races and to be honest it was pretty funny. Our little crabs did not win, but it was fun.
Crab races in St. Croix. We had “Larry, Curly, and Mo” and they did not cross the line.
Since we did not get to see the entire west side of the island, we decided to keep the jeep an extra day and continue our self-guided tour.
Funny Phrases:
“Lala” means “Talking nonsense”
“Skylarking” means “Talking about oneself”
“A crab never forget he hole” means “There’s no place like home”
“Dutty han mek greasy mout” means “Work hard and you will eat well”
“Wha’ sweet got mout” means “We pay for everything in life”
All fish does bite but shark does get di blame” means “Those with a history of bad behavior are always the first one accused”