Hit that, hit that snare

What a beautiful day aboard the Roseway! She is a two-masted schooner built in 1917 and currently used as a tour ship and sailing education vessel. I neglected to bring my camera on this trip so my only photo memories come from friends and from my iPhone. The photo to the right was courtesy of Lisa Greenleaf. Thanks, Lisa!

Her top rated speed is 14 knots and with the wind we had during the week we were easily making 10 knots most of the two hour tour. We were permitted walking most areas the length of the vessel except the most interesting (to me at least) which is the bow. I *love* standing on the very prow of a ship as she porpoises over the waves. Nowhere else can you get a feeling for the speed and power thru the ocean as she makes headway in the wind. I seem to thrive where many people get seasick.

There is almost an acre of sail to catch the breezes. The mainsail has a really wonderful booming "thump thump thump thump" bass sound as the free edge whips in the winds. One cannot get a sense of how big these sails are from any angle -- on the boat as a passenger or by a distant spectator. She is truly a beautiful craft! If you are ever in St. Croix during the winter months, do spend the $45 and take a tour. It is well worth the experience!

Home again

Ok, so I'm back home again and in the odd state of not having any more travel planned. Where to next? Dunnknow. Maybe Florida for diving in late spring. Maybe to Paris in April as we met a contradancer who lives there and has a spare room. Maybe to Akumal Mexico if Tracey finds there is space in a REEF fish event during May.

On the way home in our taxi/shuttle driven by a caffeine-infused driver who thinks that 55 mph is a minimum speed limit, a song came on the radio from a new group called Paramore. I've fallen in love with this song, named "Misery Business." A perfect injection of angst ridden energy to keep me going as I plow through an overflowing in-box at work. On the album version apparently the singer says "Hit that, hit that snare" at the very beginning, which is where the title of this blog entry comes from.

St Croix - Diving, Dancing, Dreaming

Once a year there is a pilgrimage of contradancers to the island of St Croix, to indulge in a week of good dancing, great company, exciting island activities and of course to escape the heart of winter while it is storming away at home. One year while in St Croix the DC area got 30" of snow and no flights could get in for several days. I was stranded here on this paradise island!

Dive Experience is the oldest continuously running dive operation here in St Croix. They took me on my first "discover SCUBA" tour and made me fall in love with the sport. As the preferred diving vendor for Tropical Dance Vacation they have introduced tens, or maybe hundreds of dancers to scuba over the past many years.

This year the weather has been rough; Sam Halvorson ("Sammy Starfish") tells me that St Croix is in the throes of the "Christmas Winds" a period of heavy northeasterlies that hit the island around Christmas time but seemed to have been absent until now, arriving just in time for when we want to dive. The seas are choppy, making boat travel unpleasant even on short jaunts out of the harbor. Yesterday (Saturday) we had our first fairly decent break and successfully made a long trip to the famed Cane Bay dive sites... without anyone tossing cookies. We did North Star and The Pavilions as our two dives. I got in almost an hour each one. Andrew Donelson and I both took our Aquatica-fitted DSLR cameras for some macro shooting. Results were... pretty good... though I wish I could have previewed on-the-spot to fix some exposure problems.

St Croix has an excellent variety of tourist activities; this year I decided to balance my time between diving and other activities instead of allowing scuba to monopolize my schedule. On Friday I took Sweeney's tour and had a great time; the $45 tour fee is well worth it. Sweeney himself is like a gracious ambasador for the island, showing his enthusiasm for the beauty and diversity of the island and its communities, even after having done this tour for so many years. Today (Sunday) I forewent diving to do Advanced Contras with Lisa Greenleaf (yay!) and an afternoon sail on board The Roseway a beautiful 2-masted schooner with red sails. With these strong winds it should be an exciting journey. Another $45 I am sure will be well spent.