Just to keep the context of this trip in perspective, here's were I worked for three weeks (and there's a lot more of the Hovensa refinery that you can't see here). Just remember that every time you fill up your gas tank, Hugo Chavez smiles a little bigger, in part because of what you see here. This is one of the largest refineries in the world. Courtesy of http://www.kingsnake.com
The boardwalk in downtown Christianstead (the largest "city" on the island). An old Danish windmill (without the blades) is in the center of the picture. The island used to be used primarily to grow sugar cane, which required pumping water into large fields.
Crab races at the Fort Christiansted Brew Pub. These little guys are all over the island.
All of the buildings necessary for early port commerce. An old fort is to the left (used mainly to put down slave insurrections and as a jail), the building in the center is where merchants would go to pay their taxes, and the building to the right is a scale to weight sugar, rum, molasses, etc. (there's actually a storehouse behind the scale also). Guess which one of our founding fathers cut his teeth in St. Croix?? John Adams!
A beautiful double rainbow on a rainy Saturday morning. You can see a reef poking out of the waves too. I had to walk about 20 feet from my hotel room to snap this shot.
Another old windmill with a rainbow at its base.
Rolling hills and scrubland overlooking he ocean. For an island as small as St. Croix, there's actually fairly diverse vegitation. The eastern side of the island looks like this, the NW side looks like jungle.
From Point Udall, the easternmost point in the US, I took a short trail down to a secluded beach (Isaacs Bay I believe). I guess I don't need to tell you how pretty it was. Look at the water!!! It was pretty easy to float because the water was so saline.
Waves and rocks
I took two short hikes while I was on the island. This one started off in a jungle. Pretty neato.
An easterly view of the North side of the island
Looking back at a lighthouse from Maroon Ridge. Runaway slaves setup a small community on Maroon Ridge to attempt to escape slavery at one point. Some slaves chose suicide by jumping off the ridge instead of a life of slavery.
Sugar plantation ruins. There were buildings like this (including in Christianstead) all over the island.
The beginnings of sunrise at Point Udall.
Guess what?? I was the first person in the US to see the sunrise on 12/5/07. How cool is that?!?!
I thought this picture was cool because you can see both the sun rising over the ocean and even a little bit of the night sky at the top of the picture.
