SCUBA at St Thomas

One of my main enjoyments at ST Thomas is SCUBA. Hank and I get a 10 tank package from Coki Beach Dive Club and this gets us 5 boat trips to various locations. It is a small boat and is licensed to carry only 6 paying passengers so it is a nice personal situation. Here is Pete the owner, Hank and me at about 40 feet under water somewhere around St Thomas.




















Here is a spiny lobster, one of many we saw. If you click on the picture you will see it larger and if you look closely you will see there are actually 3 lobsters in the picture. We saw plenty of other sea life such as a small nurse shark, sting ray, eels, barracuda, sea turtle and a shovel nose lobster.

We do not normally do any "hunting" for sea life, but on one of the dives the dive master brought up a spiny lobster for me. I had told him how Carol was wanting to have one for dinner and he got it for her, not me!! Here it is back at our condo waiting to be dinner for us!!

And here it is ready to be eaten for dinner!! Caribbean Lobster do not have claws as do Maine Lobster and I was surprised how much better the tail meat was on this lobster. Much better than Maine Lobster. It was a large enough tail for us to share with a salad and have enough .... with some rum of course!!!

Yum Yum. Can't wait until next year and maybe I can talk them into several lobsters.

Partying at St Thomas

We always have a great time at St Thomas but his year was even more fun as Hank, Jim's dive buddy, had his sister visit for about a week. Also Rich and Wendy were there during our second week and we had not seen them for several years. Here is Carol with Hank and his sister.

The Room With A View is our favorite place to have happy hour appetizers and drinks. Here is Carol, Wendy and Rich (plus some others ?? in the background) getting ready to party. How can you go wrong for $5 drinks and appetizers. The appetizers are large enough for Carol and I to make them our dinner.

One of the evenings we went to Red Hook and had drinks and dinner at Duffy's Love Shack. Here we are in the outside dining "room", a parking lot!!!! It get to be a little wild there at times so we did not spend the entire evening. We did run into a fellow that works at the Ritz Carlton (very plush place) and he invited us to come over to use their beach and pool.

Here we are at the Ritz Carlton enjoying the style of the Rich and Famous. You know it is a plush place by the price on a hamburger .... $21 and drinks for $9 to $12 and more!!! They also have their own beach and the grounds are quite beautiful. A fun day for all.

After rubbing shoulders with the Rich and Famous at the Ritz, the next day went to Sapphire Beach and hung out with the more common folks!! The beach was in good shape but the condos and other facilities were run down and in need of a lot of work. At one time this was a fine place but time and lack of money has taken it's toll. And then while Carol was lounging under the trees, an Iguana above her in the trees decided to relieve him self on her!!!! At least the poop was small round pellets but there was some juicy stuff at first!! Naturally she went into the water to get washed off.

Of course we always have fun in St Thomas and are already looking forward to the next trip.

Virgin Gorda, BVI Trip

Last year Carol won a two- for-one trip to Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. So we took the trip this year. Baths does not refer to taking a bath in a tub as you do at home. Baths is a shortened term for the gigantic volcanic rocks but I do not recall the proper name for them!! You can see some of them in the background of this photo. There is a trail which winds through these rocks and some of the caverns formed by them. It is an interesting and rigorous walk as there are some really tight places to squeeze through.

After leaving the baths we went to Norman Island and did some snorkeling. There were three caves you could snorkel into but they were not deep enough to be scary!! Carol, did get off the boat and did some swimming while I was snorkeling. When I got back to the boat there was a large Barracuda swimming around under the boat. It was about three feet long but was not bothering anyone. It is a frequent visitor and they have named it Homer!!

After leaving Norman Island we went to Jost Van Dyke Island home of the world Famous Soggy Dollar Bar. It is named that because there is no boat dock there and you must swim to the beach to get to the bar. It is said that this island is one of Jimmie Buffet's favorite places. Naturally we had to have at least one drink there and you can see Carol getting ready to head for the bar!!

The following two pictures show us in the water with our boat in the background. The water is deep enough that you have to swim in very close to the beach before you can stand up. Getting your drink back out to the boat is the real challenge!!

After having left at 8 AM and returning at 5 PM we were tired!!

St Thomas preparations underway

It is only two days until we depart for our annual 2 weeks in St Thomas. I already have 10 boat SCUBA dives scheduled and will probably do a couple of shore dives at Coki Beach. Both Carol and I are looking forward to the relaxing time we have there.

We need the R&R as both of us are hurting some. Carol has been having problems with her back more than ever the last month or two. Right now she is at the doctor's for a routine checkup but he want to get some xrays of her back to see what might be causing her problem. Her back has been bad enough that she decided that bowling this year was out of the question.

I have been having problems with my right thumb joint which the doctor said is arthritis. At times it is so painful that I can't even hold a pencil. Then for extended periods there is no pain!!! About a month ago I pulled some muscles in my right arm while using a lopper to cut down a bush in our yard. The arm is still very sensitive and I have trouble reaching higher than my head. It is slowly getting better but bowling is out of the question for me also.

Saturday we will drive to Miami and park our car at a hotel near the airport (at a low cost) and then fly direct to St Thomas. We don't leave MIA until 430 PM and arrive in STT at 730 PM. We will be staying the first week at Bluebeard's Beach Club, right on the Caribbean, and the second week at Bluebeard's Castle, above the town. These are the same places we have been staying for most of our 20 plus years of going to St Thomas and we enjoy them.

When we get back I expect to have some pictures of our trip to post.

More later.

Beach Drummers

Every Wednesday and Saturday there is a group of drummers who play their drums at Nokomis Beach to celebrate sundown. Carol and go when we think the sundown will be a good one. We went last evening and here is a video of some of the dancers.

Yard Work

The shrubs in the front and side of the house were getting slightly out of control so we finally go around to trimming them. Since we had installed a lamp post in the yard several weeks ago I finally got around to re-installing our flag pole. It was not as much work as I expected and it does add to the front to the house. Here is a picture of the front of the house with the flag and lamp post.

Since we had our lamp post installed our neighbor across the street had one put in also. The our next door neighbor got one installed!! Friends several doors away returned from "up north" and we heard they are also planning to have one installed. We may have started a trend!!

I got an email from the SCUBA shop I deal with and they are having a shark's tooth dive this coming Saturday. It will be done from the beach and they will have a food and drinks available. I called my dive buddy, Val, and he and I are planning to do the dive. If the surf is up I will just sit on the beach and watch the others struggle with the surf!!

The group we camp with are making arrangements to camp at the Tampa RV show again this January. We have been doing this with them the last several years and they are lot of fun.

I also called and spoke to Hank my St Thomas dive buddy to firm up our plans for that trip. We will be there starting OCT 23 and returning NOV 6. We already have 10 dives scheduled and may get in a few more from the beach.

The weather here is finally getting a little cooler and more comfortable. Temperatures are finally in the mid 80's instead of 90's.

More later.

Work and Play

We have been busy since our return from St Andrews and we have been also "playing" a lot.

While on or trip I found that the spotlight on the roof of the RV had burned out and also the CB antenna finally broke from hitting trees. Replacing the antenna was easy but finding the right bulb for the spotlight was not easy. The GE bulb had no good marking on it to identify it. Tiffin Motorhomes finally gave me some good information but I bought it from them for $86.00. Then I found another source for the same bulb for $46.00 after I had already installed the expensive one!!

While on the roof, I also sealed up a small opening that leaked rain occasionally.

On that same day, with the help of Gus and Marilyn we installed the curtain rod for a drape to cover the bingo board in the Clubhouse. I had to revise the brackets for the rod so they would extend far enough for the drape to hang over the front of the board. Also had to lower the bingo board from its original hanging position. Here are the before and after pictures.










Earlier in the week we did a major trimming of an overgrown shrub and we both wore ourselves out on that job. I even pulled some muscles in my right shoulder and couldn't play racquetball.

But we still were able to go out to dinner and dance 2 evenings in a row! That is always fun with our friends.

It is only a month and we will be in St Thomas for our annual 2 weeks there. I have already scheduled SCUBA dives on 5 days for 10 dives. I hope they don't have a hurricane to cause our trip a problem.
More later.