St Croix
15 March 2011
Swimming with Dolphins in the wild.
3-15 Perfect winds and seas provided a swift beam reach for the 35 mile journey to St Croix. We anchored off Christiansted, a charming historic town. Today we took the bus around the island and then walked the streets along the waterfront. St Croix is much larger than St Thomas yet has about the same population and is located 35 miles south. The night was a bit rolly and we were glad we had only planned one night here. We had applied for an anchoring permit are heading to Buck Island, the National Marine Park with white sandy beaches and protecting reef.
3-16 Gigantic Elkhorn Coral form much of the barrier reef around Buck Island creating grottos and a maze like playland for an abundance of colorful fish. Parrot fish bigger and brighter than we had ever seen were everywhere. Snorkeling was great but was just the beginning of our day. Next we took the dingy to the beach and hiked to the observation platform on the top of the island. We were rewarded with fantastic views of the many shades of blue the the sea offers. Walking back along the beach we could see why National Geographic named this as 'One of the top 10 beaches in the world'. As great as all that was, the highlight of the day was when we were visited by several Dolphins that played along our boat for almost an hour. At one point I actually got in the water with them and took a few underwater pictures. They were very friendly and curious and came within a few yards of me. OMG it was such fun! The next afternoon I watched for them to come again but they were off visiting someone else in a different harbor!
3-18 I waited for my dolphins to return the next night but they were off visiting another boat in another harbor somewhere. The forecast is for winds out of the NorthEast so we sailed back to St John to have a better angle to sail to St Martin tomorrow for just a few days before moving farther east.