Pirates! of the Caribbean's
True Tales, High Adventures    on the Bounding Seas,
Sailors Tales, Treasure, Gold
Get "Lost" in Your Own Island Paradise
Captain Chuck Shows You
the Thrills of
Caribbean Travel to Pirate Islands!
St. Croix, USVI
  CD: Sailing Adventures,
Cruising the Carib!
Hilarious True Tales
© PHOTOS BY CAPT. CHUCK
Caribbean Travel Guide
22 ,OF 50 TC)
                            
                      St. Croix

       Enjoy the quiet.
     Liquid, fiery sunsets, palm studded mountains thrust up
from glorious sand beaches, enchanting crescent coves and
keys dolloped like green jewels on the sapphire Caribbean –
they’re our perennial summer.
    Visiting the American Virgin Islands invites comparison. St.
Croix, St. John, St. Thomas, alike in many ways, not identical
triplets; three individuals.
    St. Croix may resemble the St.Thomas of 20 years ago.     
“On a clear day,” said my large, complacent Cruzan guide,
Denzel Jefferson, “you can see St. Thomas from here, but we
are a world apart.”
    St. Thomas is smaller, but it’s a carnival of people and
traffic jams, off-loaded from cruise ships. St. Croix has but two
major cities. The big tourist stop is Christiansted. It’s cruise
ship passengers are bussed in from Fredericksted, 20 miles
away.
    “No traffic problem here,” assured Denzel.
    St. Croix is laid back, with miles between major resorts,
some a long walk without casual traffic. St. Croix’s
comfortable resorts are equal to any Caribbean island, sporting
quality and quantity, sweeping beach expanses, lovely island
architecture and planned activity centers. Some sparkling new,
others edging grey, remote, charming, hardly ever full bore.
    Christiansted nestles into a quiet harbor at Gallos Bay, a
tumble of gaily painted Victorian houses perched on quaint
streets. Modern descendants are mostly from Danish; St. Croix
was fought over by England, France, and the Dutch; then
purchased from Denmark by the U.S. in 1917, as a naval base
for WWI. Hardly used, it became one of our tropic island
jewels, as it is today.
    Many buildings still standing were designed by Danish
settlers who lived here as early as 1733.
    For the born-to-shop tourist, it’s a paradise of chic
emporiums: perfumes, fine watches & jewelry, china, silks,
crystal, priced perhaps 20% less than its neighbors.
    On King’s Alley, saleslady Monika Roker saw me furtively
eyeing a sleek Tag Heuer dive watch, a bauble I’ve long
coveted. A duck on a june bug, she pounced. “It’s usually
$2,295,” she smiled, “but today for you, it’s $1,600.”















     Like a small boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, I
glanced at my own watch. “This one was $19.95,” I shrugged,
“and it ... keeps time.”
    U.S. Customs allows $1,600 duty free goods, five bottles of
liquor, a 6th if it’s a local product. Overages pay 06%. The
famed liquor is Cruzan Rum, made right there, tasty for sipping
or mixing. Benedictine, Sambuca, Stolichnaya go for $8.95.
    St.Croix’s pace is different, yesterday revisited. The Cruzan
(Cru-zshun) way means never put off until tomorrow what you
can delay for a week. If you simply can’t abide being away
from TV or the stock market, they’re here; but not breathing
down your neck. The idea is escape. It was that way when
Alexander Hamilton grew up here, in 1760. Relax, it gets easier
after a day or two.
    After breakfast you might amble out on a nature trail to espy
those elaborate tropical plants – bird of paradise flowers
sprouting from a banana-leaf palm. Even the non-horticulturally-
inclined will marvel at the splendor.
    For physical buffs, a trip to Buck Island National Monument
features a world- famed underwater area. Special charters visit
the reef and its perfect sugar-sand beach. Go barefoot, tasting
nature with your toes.
    Don snorkel gear and paddle an underwater trail, giant
columns of elkhorn coral. Brilliant tropical fish don’t fear
humans, so they don’t scurry away. It’s a wondrous, exotic
world. You may forget you’re merely human.
    Leaving, I had a lesson in Cruzan tourist care. I had
forgotten my shoes; dummy! left them on the dive boat with at
least 25 strangers, and was well into relaxation at the bar when
I realized my new, $100 Nikes were missing. Oh my, who
could resist that opportunity. Then the yacht Captain appeared,
forsaking his current passengers, to deliver my prize.
    “Nobody there wears a size 12,” he laughed.
    Sport fishing is A-1, teeming with blue marlin, tuna, wahoo,
sailfish. Reef fishing for snapper, grouper etc., is popular as
well.
    Adventurers thrill at parasailing from a speedboat off
downtown Christiansted docks; horseback riding in the tranquil
hills. Golf at Buccaneer’s 18-hole course, or Carambola’s Trent
Jones. Tennis rules more than 40 courts, hard and clay.
    Dining in St. Croix can be a connoisseur experience. At Top
Hat’s smorgasbord; tasty escargot with walnut butter, duck
liver pate, smoked eel, goat bris with champagne grapes, or
frickadeller – Danish meatballs.
    Scads of other restaurants; West Indian soup at Tivoli
Gardens; lobster at Gallows Bay Crab House; Greek Souvlaki;
conch Creole with fungi, a cornmeal patty, at Commanche Club.
    Lodging is also varied, backpackers to expensive, ordinary  
people on their nights in paradise. Perched on the Caribbean
with seas crashing  just below your balcony, or snuggled deep
along a mountainside. Red roofed villas, or fine continental
spreads looking onto a palm-studded beach.
    Botanical Gardens’ ancient machinery once pressed sugar
cane; the ancient windmill and cook house still stand. A
rainforest is 15 acres of tangled thickets where parakeets and
wild mountain doves soar above tropical lianas. Native wood
carvers fashion tables, chairs, mahogany artworks.
    Here a timeless quality reigns, as though longing for
colonialism, when sugar was king. Leave early, you arrive
before the traffic.
    When Columbus tried to land in 1493, the fierce Carib
Indians drove him away. Those times have changed.
    Go soon. You’ll enjoy, St.Croix.
                      
                              #####
www.usvi.net
www.virgin-islands-hotels.com

                                             
Download the Book
Click 'Home' to order!

The full text: 247 pages of fun,hilarious adventure, sailing
the Bounding Main! Just $16.95   
-OR-
CD only $12.00 free ship.
Order Your own Pirates Pearls & Paradise Today! Avast,
Me Hearties, Ye'll Love the Voyage!