St Croix, Day 2

We get up relatively early to find the only chandlery we have heard of on the island.  Everywhere still seems deserted – is it a Bank Holiday or is this normal?  Anyway, we find the chandlery, even though it has changed names but cannot find what we need to buy – we are still looking for the spare parts for the anchor light.

We pass the ferry dock as we leave so Mike goes in to check out the boat as we are leaving tomorrow.  This should be a simple process – just handing in the remainder of the I94 form that Mike filled out on arrival.  But no, the official then wants the boat papers as he says we have to check out the boat as well.  This is in direct contradiction of what we were told when we left another US Virgin Island just a few weeks ago.  Mike dutifully fills out all required paperwork and returns to the car resigned to the fact that we will obviously never get it right.

We return the hire care.  The nice lady asks us if we would like a lift back into town.  We say no as we quite fancy the walk.  She raises an eyebrow incredibly high and says “are you sure?”.  At this point, the other two couples who are renting cars, turn to look at these strange people with funny accents (that’s us) who actually want to walk somewhere – they are all at least 20 years younger than us and still they think we are strange.

We walk back to town, all of half a mile, and check out the local restaurant that the hire car lady recommended yesterday and decide the food sounds so good we will give it a try later.  In the meantime, it’s back to the boat for some chores and to work up an appetite.

Harvey’s, on Company Street, the aforementioned restaurant turns out to be great.  We are the only tourists in there.  One table is taken up by the local police; all the other tables are taken by locals.  The waiter makes no attempt to ply us with alcohol even though there is fully stocked bar but instead offers us home made ginger beer or ginger and sorrel juice.  There is no menu as such, he just tells you what Mrs Harvey has made that day.  From the list, Mike chooses goat stew and I have conch in butter sauce.  Both come with mashed sweet potato, rice, fried plantain and salad.  The waiter is so delighted to see me mopping up all my butter sauce than he brings me another bowl of it.  Then, seeing as I will now have leftover sauce, he brings me another bowl of rice to mop up the sauce.  I begin to wonder how long this could go on! They obviously like their ladies large here.

We have read that there is a micro brewery on the boardwalk, so Mike stops to sample one of their offerings on the way back to the boat.  His opinion?  Well, it’s not Marston’s Pedigree, that’s for sure.

We get back to the boat just as the heavens open.  We end up having an early night and no dinner as we (and especially I after all that lunch) have no room at all for anything else.