Good Day

So today we took a group of Deb's co workers and their friends for a boat day. This was a large group, ten people counting Deb and I. We rented a 35 Foot power boat from Waters Edge Sports in Red Hook. I have to say that the boat was a good deal for a big boat, plenty of room for 10 or even a few more, but they recommend no more than 10. Everyone had a great day, several of the crew had never been on a boat trip like this despite having grown up in the Caribbean. We cleared in at West End, snorled the indians, then did the Willy T for lunch and White Bay for the afternoon.
Jay

Friday Beach Pic

Friday Beach Pic, originally uploaded by captainjay.

It's Friday!! It's been a good week. I'm staying strong on my Jenny
Craig diet but this Sunday is going to be my first test. Jay and I are
doing a BVI boat trip with some coworkers and it's going to be really
hard to stay on program. I plan to take my JC snacks and lunch and
then maybe reward myself with just one Soggy Dollar Sunshine :-)

This pic is from the Redneck collection. Francis Bay, STJ

Jenny Craig in the VI

Well, after two years of "livin it up" in the VI, I've finally come to the realization that you can't act like a tourist for two years without it taking toll on your body. So, I decided it was time to do something about it. I tried going back on my Weight Watcher program, but just couldn't stick with it. But, then I talked to a couple of my co-workers that have been doing the Jenny Craig program and they love it and have had great success! So I said why not. I see the commercials constantly and it looks like a pretty good program, it's worth a try. The process was fairly painless, but you know this is "the islands" so nothing is as easy as it should be. :-)

There isn't a Jenny Craig center in St. Thomas, so you have to do the Jenny Direct, where they mail you the food. So, I called the Jenny Craig 800 number listed on their website and talked to a really nice person that took me through the entire process until we got to my shipping address. Surprise, surprise, there is no VI listed as an available address. I told him that my coworkers are on the program, so it must be an option somewhere. After several attempts of trying to add me to the system, the consultant finally realized that I would need to order out of the Jenny Craig Puerto Rico division which is separate from the main corporation. I verified this with my co-worker and sure enough, you have to call the consultant in PR to sign up but it's not an 800 number. No problem, I call. The person answers the phone in Spanish so I was a thrown a little off guard when I tried to ask for a Jenny Craig consultant. No problem, she spoke English, took my number and said the consultant would call me back shortly.  Which she did. Her name is Iris and she's really nice. She's speaks really good English, but stumbles over a word or two now again. She took me through the same process that the earlier consultant did, but no problem, I let her continue. I placed my order and she said it would be on St. Thomas on Monday (I was calling on a Friday afternoon). Apparently they have a warehouse in Puerto Rico. They pack up the order in the morning, put it in a styrofoam cooler with dry ice, ship it to St. Thomas via Rush It and it's ready for pick up around 11:30am at the airport. So, on Monday, the order arrived, I took a long lunch and picked it up. Of course you have to clear it through customs, but for a $20 fee, Rush It will take care of it for you. lol It was worth it not to have to go to customs, get the paperwork, then come back to Rush It for the order. Just let them handle all that. A really nice guy, put the box in my car and off I went to the house to put it all away. Thankfully Jay was off that day so he got the box out of the car and carried it into the house. It's a pretty big box, but he said it wasn't that heavy. I guess I'll see in two weeks when the next order arrives and I have to carry it myself. Iris said that the dry ice will actually keep the frozen food cold for 18 hours, so on those days that I can't go home to put it away, she said it will last in the car for the day until I get home in the evening. Maybe that's what I'll do so that Jay can still carry it. :-)

The box contained a styrofoam cooler with the frozen food and a separate box with the dry goods.

I was worried that two weeks' worth of frozen food would not fit in my little freezer with everything else I had in there, but it wasn't bad at all. Everything fit just fine. I had asked my co-worker how she got everything to fit (because her and her sister are both on the program so that's a lot of food). She said magic and think "jig saw" lol

So today is my second day on the program and so far so good. The meals are really good, just small. So you're supposed to supplement with fresh vegetables, which can sometimes be a challenge on island. Jay went to cost-u-less last week and got a few things and I went to Gourmet Gallery in Crown Bay last night and got a few more things. I think tonight I'm going to hit one of the vegetable stands on Waterfront and get a few more things. I'm a terrible vegetable eater so that is one thing I will definitely have to improve on. My other challenge will be dinners. Jay and I eat out a lot, so that will have to stop. No more Pie Whole for me :-( We'll have to start eating at home more and he'll have to fix his own dinner while I eat my JC food. He is a good cook and does most of the cooking anyway so he said it will be fine, but I'll have to resist whatever it is he decides to cook.

So we'll see how these next two weeks go while I work through my first order. Hopefully I'm able to stick with it. Wish me luck!

VI Eco Tours

I did another kayak trip with VI Eco Tours with my co-workers. They do a great job of mixing fun and education with both their trips. I've done a couple of their trips and if you are on island you definitely need to check them out.

This time we took the Mangrove lagoon tour. You take a nice peaceful kayak trip through the Mangrove lagoon and stop for a little education about the importance of the Mangrove. Then you continue the kayak trip until you reach Long Point, False Entrance, where you enjoy a nice snorkle along the reef and pebble beach. Then a nice leasurely kayak back. The total trip took about 2 1/2 hours. Here are several pics I took during the trip, Enjoy!

Friday Beach Picture, Underwater

Here is an underwater "beach pic" from Pelican Point in the BVI's. It is a shot of Elkhorn Coral. We took this on the boat trip with the Rednecks last week. By the way today is the official end of Red Neck season. They are all flying home today to snow and dreams of getting their boats out of winter storage soon.
It's been fun see you guys next time.
Jay

Fun day

What a great day on st. John. We started at Hawksnest and saw several turtles. Then we went to waterlemon and saw the rare one horned butt fish. Then we stopped at Maho and then floated by Caneel and back to St. Thomas. What a perfect day. I took several pics with my camera that I'll post later. :-)

More St. John fun

More St. John fun, originally uploaded by captainjay.

We decided to do a little St. John exploring today via boats. So we
brought our boat over and picking up a second boat so we can fit all
12 of us. We called every boat charter company and everyone was
booked. So much for the recession. We finally found one at Pocket
Yachts in Sapphire Marina so Mike and John took the ferry over from
STJ to come get the boat. It was a little lumpy out on the south shore
of St. Thomas, 4 to 6 foot seas. But as soon as we made the cut on the
east end the water flattened out a bunch. So hopefully it's calm
around St. John. Stay tuned for more pics. :-)

Red Necks In The Caribbean 2010

So here is a little slide show from T's Birthday Party on Friday and a few other shots thrown in from the weekend. Deb stayed over for most of the weekend with the group while I worked so I am not in very many of them.
Jay

Great day with Born to Rhumb

We had a great day on the boat with Captain Kevin and Katie on Born to Rhumb. We had 12 in our group and there aren't very many boats that can take out that big of a group. Kevin came highly recommended and I can tell why. He was great to deal with through email setting it all up. And made sure our day was perfect. We took lots of pics with our camera so I'll be posting those once we get home.

Today looks like another beautiful day, so I think we'll head to the each shortly.

Beach Bar Ignoring Customers Again

Beach Bar Ignoring Customers Again, originally uploaded by captainjay.

So the Rednecks are here, they wanted to come to the beach bar. Ten
minutes after Deb ordered our drinks and food I had to ask the
bartender for our drinks. It's way past time for new owners and or
managers at what should be the best bar on St John.

St. John Weekend

Our friends from WV arrived safely yesterday and made it to St. John. There's a group of 10 and they're all staying at Grande Bay. Jay and I plan on heading over this evening after work and hanging out with them for the weekend. It's Theresa's 40th birthday tomorrow so it should be a fun day. This is the group that we affectionately call "Rednecks in the Caribbean". When I told my sister that they would be here this week, she said "I can't believe it's redneck season already!!" hahahaha

The first pic was taken by Theresa this morning while drinking their Starbucks coffee and the second pic was taken by Millie. :-)

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my mom's birthday and she just recently started reading our blog so I just wanted to say Happy Birthday Mom, love you!!!!

Here is some island flora for you since your view is a little white right now. :-)

Good Morning

Monday mornings are sooo hard after large Sundays. :-)

We had a great time out on the boat yesterday with our WV friends (and some local ones too that were having fun with the WV/KY accents). Ran around and showed them the view of STT from the water then over to Water Island to hang out at Honeymoon beach. Everyone had a great time.

Beautiful Day

For all our friends and family, and blog followers, on the east coast US that is getting hammered by the snow.... Here is something to help warm you up. Sunny, 80 degrees, light breeze, beautiful day. Stay warm. :-)

Seaborne Airshuttle

I took the Seaborne Airshuttle over to St. Croix yesterday and it was much better than the Cape Air flight. The plane was bigger, so there was more room and it was a much smoother flight. Now don't get me wrong, it's still a small plane. If you've never flown an "island hopper" flight, then you'll think this is pretty small. But if you check out the Cape Air plane, then you'll see what I'm talking about.

I had the best seat on the plane, 7A, back of the plane, row to itself, just past the exit, large window, lots of leg room. The one thing to remember is that they don't land at the main terminal on St. Croix. So if you are meeting someone on St. Croix make sure to tell them to meet you at the Seaborne Airshuttle terminal.

I went over for work, so nothing fun to report lol but we need to make a weekend trip over someday.

Bye Bye St. Croix

Hello St. Thomas :-)

Friday Beach Picture

Here is another one of Vicki H's shots from her recent trip on board Island Sister. This one is of Pickly Pear Island in Virgin Gorda Sound at the Sand Box Bar.

Jay

Belgian Beer Experience

Last Saturday we attended the Belgian beer experience at Pie Whole in Frenchtown and it was excellent! The food and beer combinations were so good, it's something not to be missed, that is for sure. I thought I would do a little recap of everything that was served, but the pics do not do it justice. :-)

Appetizer

Beginning

Troubadour Abscura mild stout
Five cheese onion soup topped with crostini and Gruyere

Second

Brugse Zot

Arugula and frisee, proscuitto ham, candied cashews, roasted beets, and blood orange vinaigrette

Third

Wittkerke Belgian White

Wittkerke steamed P.E.I. mussels with celery, onion, shallot, butter and curry

Fourth

Kapittel Watou Pater

Duck leg confit with fennel risotto, and pistachio brown butter

Happy Ending

Popperings Homel Ale

Port poached pear stuffed with mascarpone

 

And last but not least, the wonderful staff at Pie Whole, Grayson and Terry. Always friendly and ready to make your experience at the Pie Whole an enoyable one!