In St. Croix our ship docked in Frederiksted, a small town about a 30 minute drive from the capital. We had heard the capital area can be a bit sketchy, so we weren’t sure what to expect and it turned out this side of the island was breathtaking!
We actually were able to walk about a mile (mostly on the shore) to a beach known as Duesche beach. We had originally planned to go to Sandy Point but the facilities there were closed for renovations. At this beach we got great pictures of our boat docked and the water here was crystal clear!
We camped in front of a small hotel called “Cottages by the Sea.” There was a large black dog (black lab?) hanging out and a friendly lady at the hotel was trying to find it’s owner. She gave it water and so then it hung around, but nobody knew whose it was. The dog didn’t bother us much until Melissa & Matt were swimming in the ocean, I heard Melissa scream OH NO…we look up to find the dog peeing on Melissa’s beach bag! So gross! The lady at the hotel felt so bad, and showed Melissa a sink she could wash it off. At least now we can laugh about it.
We swam & hung out on the beach for about 3 hours.
Here is a picture of me floating in the beautiful greenish blue water.
And Matt was our expert snorkeler, here is one of the pictures he took with our camera which is water proof!
Matt and Dustin snuck in another opportunity to practice their juggling with the oranges that were smuggled out of the cafe. Here they are on the beach “passing” between each other. Take note that every other orange that hits their right hand gets passed to the other juggler.
We headed back to the ship around 1 pm to catch a late lunch. It was a hot walk back so we actually were hungry for the first time in days, ha! We had to take a break from the sun after lunch, this is probably the first beach vacation ever Dustin & I successfully made it home without sunburn! Matt however was not so lucky. 😦
On a cruise you have to set your bags out the night before so we headed back to pack up and figure out what we needed to keep with us for the morning. Then I hit the gym and Dustin hit the basketball court before dinner. He and Matt won another gold medal, but since we already had won a medal in basketball, they got luggage tags instead.
We had debated on this cruise trying one of the speciality restaurants because the reviews were so great, but our servers in the main dining room were so much fun, we decided to save our money and stick with them! Tonight Dustin had a lamb shank and I had roasted turkey with a side of cauliflower mash! (my new fav!) It was all wonderful as always, here is our picture with our waiters Sergio & Standley.
After dinner we played a trivia game to guess song titles of singles that hit 1 million. We lost this time, I was no help to this effort, Dustin did contribute the song title “Baker Street.” The only reason he knows it is because it’s Dave Ramsey’s podcast intro music, ha! It got us a point!
After losing at trivia we headed back to our rooms to set out our bags & then played a round of Wizard before Karaoke night. My mom would be proud I sang “Wrong Side of Memphis” by Trisha Yearwood, the crowd wasn’t much into country though. Melissa and I did “Ain’t No Mountain High” together which was fun, we sounded pretty good on the chorus in harmony! Melissa rocked out “You drive me Crazy” by Brittany Spears and Matt also was a hit, he did about 3 songs all of which were great. My take away from this is I need to learn some pop culture songs, I listen to way too much K-love!
Karaoke night finished off the cruise…next stop San Juan..then Philly…then Ohio! Saturday we’ll drive home, then Sunday I hit the road again, this time for work. I’m headed to Vegas for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Meeting. It will be a quick turn around, but it’s a great meeting for networking & I’m speaking this year too.
Thanks for joining us on our travels…Can’t believe it’s December (mainly because it’s been 80 degrees for us this week!) but time flies so fast!
We don’t have another personal trip planned yet…not sure if we’ll take a trip next summer or not, Dustin wants to put a deck on our house, so we’ll see if we can maybe do a small trip! If you have suggestions, feel free to let us know! We might consider a Northern CA/Oregon hiking trip! I have been to 48 states, only missing Oregon & Alaska!
We are headed to Jamaica again with Medical Ministry International in March. Stay turned for a few posts on Jamaica in a few months! We are excited because Sarah is coming with us again as well as Ashley Hartzler and a crew of Cedarville students & physicians from my clinic. It will be a great time of serving.
Merry Christmas, may Christ be at the center of your holiday celebrations!