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Technorati Tags: Saint Croix, USVI, Where is Christansted, where is christiansted

Technorati Tags: Christiansted twitter, St Croix twitter

Technorati Tags: St Croix

Technorati Tags: St Croix

Technorati Tags: St Croix

Technorati Tags: St Croix

Technorati Tags: St Croix

Technorati Tags: St Croix

Like an iceberg in the tropics, only the tip of St. Croix is visible above the surface. To truly experience what the island has to offer one must look below the water line.

We returned to the island during the holidays and from previous trips were prepared to be flexible as the Christmas Winds are usually a blowin’. These annual “Jesus Breezes” produce high seas that make the water murky and boat rides stomach churning. Patience will pay. Just wait a day or two, there is always perfect water weather within any week’s span.

Buck Island National Park with its celebrated beach and spectacular snorkeling trail through the beautiful Elk Horn Coral Barrier Reef is no doubt St. Croix’s most famous underwater attraction. There are many boats that offer wonderful day trips where even beginners may join rays, barracuda and a school of hundreds of blue tang as they dance in and out of perhaps the Caribbean’s most impressive reef. On the downside, the trip will be spent with forty other sun burnt, seasick tourists crammed on a sailboat and all elbows and fins in the water. We prefer just our own elbows and fins.

Being the type to travel low to the ground, we were elated to find Captain Paul’s Water Drop Tours. Paul specializes in eco-friendly, personalized tours geared towards his client’s interests and abilities aboard the skiff Muzik. Born and bred on St. Croix, Captain Paul knows his island and its treasures intimately and his little boat can launch on almost any beach making every part of the island accessible. He’ll introduce you to fantastic places you’ll never see in the guidebooks and you’ll probably have them all to yourselves. Bliss.

Considering the weather Mother Nature provided for our day, Captain Paul recommended a two hour snorkeling trip around the reef in Great Pond Bay. We were provided with fantastic snorkeling gear–a real treat–not the standard leaky masks and floppity fins usually pawned off on the tourists.

In the water Paul has a jeweler’s eye for sea life. He quickly led us to an octopus in his garden munching on a clam dinner. Veronica, a decent free diver and photographer, found she couldn’t do both at once. She was stunned as Captain Paul swam to the bottom without the benefit of fins, grabbed onto a rock to hold himself under and snapped a couple of brilliant pictures of the feasting cephalopod.

We spotted a four foot long hawksbill resting on the sandy bottom all by ourselves–what an eye! The turtle tolerated our hovering around him for several minutes as we ooohed and ahhhed though our snorkels and then he darted off into the reef. There are three types of turtles in the waters around St. Croix–the hawksbill is most common–but with a bit of luck the rare green sea turtle and the giant leatherback are sometimes encountered. In the late spring the St. Croix Environmental Association hosts turtle watches where the endangered leatherbacks can be seen laying their eggs on the beach. A once in a lifetime experience.

Being a boat person is not necessary to enjoy the depths. Tamarind Reef is the best Cruzan destination for off-the-beach snorkeling that we’ve found. Just rent gear from the little beach shack and wade in. Easy for the beginner but with plenty of room for the more experienced diver to explore out into the deeper waters. Floats anchored along the way for resting are a really nice touch, especially on the swim back against the current. Colorful sea fans wave gracefully under the waves, spiny lobsters hide in the holes and overhangs while urchins dot the rocks among the giant brain coral.

Octopi, lobsters, turtles, rays and barracudas aside, the real serenity of island time underwater is dreamily swimming among the little colorful tropical fish. It’s like being on the inside of your dentist’s office aquarium.

David & Veronica, GypsyNester.com

David & Veronica are experiencing the collision of baby boomer with empty nester. They have decided to grab life by the horns, sell the nest and become GypsyNesters.

Read more at http://www.GypsyNester.com.

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Veronica_James

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After your wedding day, your honeymoon is one of the most memorable times of your life and so must certainly count as one of best vacations you will ever take. It is the beginning of a new life with the person you love. As such it is a good reason to visit somewhere you have always wanted to go, somewhere very special. One of the most popular places for people to go to on a honeymoon is St Croix, The US Virgin Islands, in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean is the first preference for many newly weds for several reasons: the romance, the people are happy and welcoming, the sand, sea and sunshine, the food and the music. St Croix in the US Virgin Islands is one of the favourite destinations in the Caribbean islands. St Croix has beautiful beaches and that perfect tropical climate that is so fitting for a wonderful honeymoon. The hotels and the island’s inhabitants love to take care of newly weds and go out of their way to make sure that the honeymooners have the time of their lives – a holiday that they will remember affectionately for ever.

Expense is always a factor when one is planning a honeymoon in the Caribbean, but you need not be too worried on that front. A honeymoon on St Croix need not be expensive and as it is only 1,300 miles from the USA, so travel costs and travel time are low. You will not have trouble finding somewhere on the island to fit your desires. However, St Croix is a popular honeymoon destination, especially for Americans, so it is worth booking your honeymoon holiday as early as possible in order to secure the reservation that you want.

There are three main types of places to stay: a hotel, a vacation rental or a holiday home. The difference between a vacation rental and a holiday home is that the former is a condo or villa purpose built for holiday makers, whereas the holiday home is in fact somebody’s house who has let it out for a short period.

When planning your honeymoon, you should think about when you will leave. It was traditional to leave for the honeymoon after a short reception on the day of the wedding, but many couples delay their departure date nowadays. Over the last few decades, it has become the standard to hold an extensive reception hours after the wedding, often at night. This will often go on until midnight or later, which makes leaving for foreign climes quite difficult. A hangover is not a good travelling companion either.

Therefore, you might want to put your departure date off untill two days after the wedding, although I think that flying out on the wedding day is still the best idea. If you decide on a holiday home or a vacation rental on St Croix, you will need to make all your own arrangements for getting to the airport, flying to St Croix and getting a taxi from the airport to your place of stay, so I recommend that for this, your first visit to this beautiful island, you take a package holiday, which will take care of you from your local airport to your hotel on St Croix and back again.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with St Croix Hotels. If you are interested in St Croix Vacation Rentals in the US Virgin Islands, please click through to our site.

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Owen_Jones

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