First day back from spring break in St. Croix USVI and I'm already back into the grind with our first New Venture Challenge class from 6:00 - 9:00pm on Monday nights...but I'll get more into that later. Now for more interesting stuff...

St. Croix was awesome and a nice respite from both the weather and schedule back in Chicago. Here's a recap of our week events.

Monday
Took the Big Beard Renegade out to Buck Island accompanied by two dolphins the entire trip!



The Buck Island coral reef is amazing and according to National Geographic it's one of the top 10 places to snorkel in the world. The reef is so dense that there are just a few paths to get from the interior of the reef to the outside and the park management put in tiles on the ocean floor to guide swimmers in and out of the reef. While snorkeling we also saw 5 huge barracuda.

On the trip we met Lindsey and Steve who recommended Dashi restaurant on Company street for good sushi. Dashi was okay, the sushi rice was hard and practically unedable, but the flying fish tempura “Tabiko” was amazing and so was the Escolar. We enjoyed the escolar so much that we ordered an extra five pieces of Escolar sashimi.

Tuesday
We explored Christiansted some and stopped for lunch at “Luncheria” and outdoor taco stand on King street. The food is good and super cheap there. Two tacos are $3.00 and we enjoyed awesome $1.50 Margaritas, which introduced us to the foreign concept of the “stateside pour.” Apparently, on the island alcohol is cheaper than soda or mixers so you tipically get a drink with 75% rum and 25% mixer. I guess if you’re an alcholic, St. Croix is the wrong place to go for recovery! That evening we took our hostess at the Breakfast Club (where we were staying) out for dinner at Duggan's Reef Restaurant, which was recommended to us by Leslie and Sarah, two sisters we met at Luncheria who were locals on the island. We were craving lobster and ordered a 1.5lb lobster surf and turf with filet mignon - fantastic! After dinner we went out to Hotel on the Cay for drinks and to listen to some live Caribbean music. Hotel on the Cay is actually located on a Cay right off of Christiansted harbor and you have to take ferry ($3.00 round trip) out to). The place was absolutely packed and we could barely find a table to sit at. While hanging out we met Nicki and Floyd, the couple who owns Carrington's Inn, who were both really nice and invited us to hang out later on that week.

Wednesday
I booked two morning scuba dives. The first dive was at a point called Steve's Gentle Winds. We did a 60-70 foot dive to see some awesome coral. Due to Hurrican Hugo much of the more shallow coral (at Buck Island) was destroyed, but here the coral was still in tact and beautiful. Our second dive was a "Blue Shoot" where the island's only ship wreck is located. The dive was a bit shallower 45-60ft, but the visibility was amazing. The water was so clear it was looking into an aquarium! The ship wreck was alright and apparently there was a huge eel that lived around it (which some idiotic dive operators were luring out by feeding it), so our dive master was quick to warn us not to extend our fingers if we did encounter the eel. Unfortunately, the eel was no where to be found, but exploring the wreck was really cool.

That evening we had cocktails (white Sangria) at Savant and then headed over to Bacchus for dinner. On Wednesdays they have by one get one free bottles of wine, so we ordered a bottle of Pine Ridge Chardonnay and followed up with a Edmeads Zinfandel, which paired with my veal shank very well. Fortunately St. Croix law allows you to take your unfinished wine home, so we had a little left over for dinner the following night. For dessert we had the bread pudding - fabulous and highly recommended.

Thursday
We spent the day traversing the St. Croix rain forests, coast, and tide pools in a jeep with Tam Tam Tours. This is a ton of fun. Your driver took us four wheeling through the jungle and up to the mountain peaks where you can see the other Virgin Islands and almost all of St. Croix. We also hiked out to the tide pools, visited Canes Bay, and then went to the Domino Club where the beer drinking pigs are located. The woman who owns the club brews her own liquor (kind of like moonshine) but with honey. It's really potent stuff (alcohol wise), but delicious. I then bought a couple of O'Doul's beers (they won't feed the pigs regular beer because the last pig died of kidney failure). Here's a video of us feeding beer to the pigs...



Friday
We drove the island and went snorkeling at Canes Bay (where the famous "wall" is located). We didn't get to dive the wall, but we did do a lot of snorkeling and saw a huge sting ray and found an enormous puffer fish hiding in a cave. After snorkeling we enjoyed a drink out at the beach bar and then headed back to Christiansted. That night we had an awesome dinner at Savant Restaurant, and enjoyed a bottle of 2000 Joseph Phelps Le Mistral which we found at a small wine shop in Harrisburg, PA. Savant has a really cool patio in the back and we got a prime table. The food was fantastic and I had the mahi puff pastry stuffed with ricotta and taragon. If you're ever in St. Croix, I highly recommend visiting Savant, their wine list isn't the best (Bacchus is much better), but the food, service, and ambiance cannot be beat!

Saturday
Sadly we have to fly back to Chicago...