2014-April 19, Saturday-St. Croix (8-2:30):

Woke up well rested.  This was another new port for us and I was especially excited to check out another US Virgin Islands (have been to St. Thomas and St. Johns a few times---once even for a 10 day land trip).   

  With it being another short stop, we used more of our obc for an excursion here---the Buck Island snorkel excursion for $99@.  Turned out to be a great excursion and we got to see more of St. Croix as we were shuttled to the other side of the island for our boat ride to Buck island.  In Christiansted we boarded a motor boat and road another 30 minutes or so to Buck Island.

Hotel on the Cay, just off Christiansted --- I've seen this on RCI for exchange!  Perhaps a land trip to St. Croix is in our future!

 along our way to Buck Island.

The boat was really motoring.

Looking at Buck Island from where we anchored.   Buck Island Reef National Monument became a US National Monument in 1961.  Most of the Monument area ( including a 4,554-acre reef) is underwater.

 It was rather choppy out there.  They divided us up into 2 groups--experienced snorkelers and all the rest.  Us experienced snorkelers went in first and were taken by group around the underwater trail.   It is one of only three underwater trails in the United States.  Then we were left to go on our own for the rest of the time (about an hour).  It was quite crowded out there, but fun.  Although with how rough the surf was I'm surprised none of the inexperienced snorkelers drowned!
One of the markers

Two thirds of the island is surrounded by an elkhorn coral barrier reef, providing an ecosystem for over 250 fish species.

First 3 barracuda I saw there.

 Another baracuda

 Another trumpet fish disguising itself in some coral.

One of the many parrot fish.

Another guy I hadn't seen before.  I've seen a lot of them that are all blue with a yellow tail and florescent blue spots in the blue, but these guys with the yellow/orange heads were new to me.

 I believe this is another type of parrot fish.

A lone squid 

Then the dark clouds moved in and it started raining.  A lot of people got back in the boat then.  I stayed in the water as long as we could---it was warmer in the water then on the boat. 

 We were poured on the whole boat ride back to Christiansted, but they gave us plenty of rum punch to warm us up.  
On our boat ride back we got a good view of Christiansted National Historic Site. Looked like it would be a great place to tour on a future visit to the island.

 It was an enjoyable ride back to Frederiksted.  This is the walkway right outside the port area.

We heard this was a local high school band playing steel drums in the port area.  I thought that was a nice welcome (or good bye) to the island.  Plus they sounded very good.

Frederiksted also has a fort-Frederiksfort, constructed to protect the town from pirate raids and attacks from rival imperialist nations.  I understand there are a couple beaches just to the left of the fort (from this view from the ship) that are good for hanging around at, too.  

Back on the ship it was time for lunch in the Lido.

 At sail away, we broke out the other bottle of Moscoto.

 No good sunset tonight---too cloudy!  Dinner was great again.  Then we hustled to the movie theater to see Last Vegas with Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and Robert De Niro.  It was great having a different movie featured every day and most of them were very good.  This one was hilarious---3 sixty-something friends take a break from their day to day lives to throw a bachelor party in Las Vegas for their last remaining single pal.  It ended early enough that we went to the Crow's Nest and listened to the HAL Cats for awhile before heading to the Showtime show---Comedian Buzz Sutherland and his good clean humor.  After that we even went to the Lido for a late night snack.  Then off to bed.