Day 2 in St.Croix: Diving at Sweet Bottom, and moar Christiansted

Date: 09.03.2014

Today was something I was waiting for some days - I had the chance to go diving again! I have to admit, I'm addicted and little bit annoyed I didn't find this hobby when I was younger and did a lot of free diving. Well, now it's time to take back all those lost hours under water :).

Great star coral

Timo didn't feel well, so I booked two shore dives for me and stnz from Sweet bottom Diving, which was located in a expensive looking resort. For me it seemed that most of the tourists were located in these resorts, where they had everything they needed and because of that, they didn't have any reason to go outside and see the towns or interact with the locals. Or bring their money to local businesses - which is really sad.

I got reaaally close to this guy and had my time to take pictures of it because I was first to notice him

My peacock flounder on the move

The diving company had some really sweet place in the resort, good places to storage their equipment, good washing places and also places for dry their and other people's stuff. And of course they were located just next to the wall, so there was lots and lots of beautiful diving places for many days..

Flamingo tongue

Ocean Surgeonfish and French Grunt

We did 2 shore dives with one other guy who worked with the military. I was sooo envious when he told us that he dived at the Bikini Atoll inside of a sunken aircraft carrier some years back.

There was lots of more different species of fishes than  I saw in Vieques, but in Vieques the fishes were much bigger. I would've loved to dive here couple more dives without 'supervision', so I would've had all the time I wanted to explore very nook and cranny.

Sand diver not giving a single F... about me hovering around him

Mmmm... brainns... coral.

Ocean Surgeonfishes

On our second dive we saw a small shark far away, or I should say deeper. Because of that, I couldn't go there to see the guy. I really need some training with nitrox before I get back to St. Croix, so I could see more of The Wall. And I also need a bigger camera - or just the red filter / good light for my current one. I'm still pretty pleased what my 300EUR little camera can do without extra lightning nor filters :).

stnz diving above me

Small shark and me

The image I got of the shark, probably a small Caribbean reef shark

On our last dive we heard that it started to rain on top, so we dived a lot longer along the shore in 1,8-1,5m depth. When we got on top, it flooded. It was pretty funny that you felt more wet above the water than when you were diving. Putting on your dry clothes wasn't really a good idea because there was more water coming down in bigger pressure than any of the showers we used during our trip..

Banded butterflyfish

These guys weren't scared at all, they just hanged around and didn't seem to mind at all.  White spotted filefishes.

It's raining (and yet again, not men)

Ewww it's wet up here, I want to go back down where it's nice and warm...

After the dives stnz was supposed to go and fly with Diamond DA20, but because Joe Biden was just leaving the island (evidently he had a cabin there) he couldn't go yet. We went back to our apartment and I did fell a sleep pretty quickly on my bed.

When I woke up, stnz was gone (called to do the familiarization flight after Biden and his entourage was gone) and halen was watching Netflix in the living room. I asked if he wanted to go outside and photograph some stuff, and in 10 minutes we were out.

There was a little carnival next to our apartment where the kids were playing in a bouncy castle and music was playing. We took some photographs of the nearby ruins, and went to see the same place where we were at a bar yesterday and noticed some really cool liana around the buildings.

The sunset was pretty cool, and the town was somewhat quiet. We were hungry and stnz was still nowhere to be found, so we decided to head back to Angry Nate's and eat some food. When we got our food - stnz decided to show up and ate his dinner with us.

After that we left to drive around the countryside, and of course I didn't have my 15mm with me - so the good weather for taking night pictures was lost yet again :).

Lianas wrapping around few buildings

Day 1 in St. Croix: let's go east, snorkel and night walk at Christiansted

Date: 08.03.2014

After we got all our stuff to the apartment, we decided to head east to see the most eastern part of United States. This suited wel with my earlier travels 05/2013, when I spent an hour lying on my stomach in the westernmost part of the Europe (Bjargtangar, Iceland). This time I didn't lie flat on the ground, just lost my sunglasses there while talking with the locals :)..

 at Bjargtangar fulfilling my lifelong dream of photograph puffins

The statue on the easternmost part of the US 

There was a huge monument on the point Udall as they call it, but you could go even more to the east if you jumped over the fence - and that is what we did, of course!

The easternmost corner of the US

The future image of stnz' gay date ad ;)

The views there were lot better, and there were huge sea birds flying around. I almost forgot the whole easternmost point while I was looking at the birds... The trail to the point was full with thorny plants, so it wasn't easy to get there - it literally took blood, sweat and tears to reach the point.

After admiring the views and the birds for a while, we got back to the car and went to snorkeling in nearby park area. Locals were having some awesome parties there, one of which was a birthday party - I can admit I was a little jealous.

I haven't freedived in years, so I've forgotten all about it, and my times under the water really suck (around 15s). Carlito send me some PDFs considering breathing techniques to further develop my skill as a diver, and I flipped through them quickly earlier and tried a few tricks - in first try I could stay under 28s :). I need to practice this back in Finland, annoying that you cannot use your fins when you're in a pool, if it isn't a specially reserved time for divers and free divers so it has to wait until it gets warm..

After we swam and snorkeled for a while, we returned to Christiansted and went for a walk in the town.
As a photographer I saw a lot of cool buildings and ruins right in the town centre. If it would've been safer, I would've taken my DSLR and tripod with me and do some real night time photography. Now I just had to use my little Lumix on handheld, so the quality of the images isn't really awesome.

As someone from the mainland said earlier "The whole Virgin Islands is for sale", you could really see it here. Everywhere were for sale-signs and the town centre was almost empty. The hotels were pretty full, but you didn't see much of the tourists, because most of them stay and do their things in the resorts, so in many cases we were the only "outsiders" visible..

BTW - The placement of the moon here is completely wrong. You have to look straight up to see the moon - at home, it's somewhere more neck-friendly position over the horizon.

After walking a while and seeing some 1,5m long fishes at the dock we ended up in a bar where was live music playing. Halen drank some really potent gintonic and rumcola, while me and stnz drank our colas like we usually do.

Outside the place there were couple of trees where bats were flying, and I moved myself to watch them hunt. They are such beautiful and fascinating creatures, I would've stayed there watching them for hours if I could.

We walked back to our apartment for a good night sleep (except halen, who didn't want to sleep in a queen sized bed with stnz and slept on a very hard surface on the couch instead of it)..

BTW - they drive on the left side of the road here and the steering wheel still on the left side of the cars. And the lights of the cars aren't aligned right, so every passing car will blind you at night.. Weird. Really weird.