St.Croix

No phone, no Internet access, limited TV, water collected from the roof and the sound of the waves to keep you up at night. We spent the last week right on the beach in Frederiksted, St. Croix.
It was a vacation that almost didn't happen. We were scheduled to leave last Wednesday but with the projected 1-2 feet of approaching snow I was desperately trying to find a way to change a flight for 5 people that had been booked for months. I knew that if the snow canceled our flight that all later flights would quickly fill up but I was surprised to find that all the later flights were already overbooked. At 3:00 am Monday morning I was finally able to get seats for 5 on a flight leaving Tuesday morning, a day earlier. We all left a day early and spent the night in San Juan waiting to pick up our scheduled flight to St Croix. As we later found out all flights out of Philadelphia were canceled for Wednesday so the last minute decision to change along with the non-refundable penalty turned out to be a good one.

This may have been the best vacation that I have ever been on. My parents have been renting a place here for years and asked us if we would like to join them this year. It would mean pulling the kids out of school for a week but we quickly said yes and now we were here. We had a beautiful place nestled in the palms between the road and the beach. Since our water came from the rain it had to be rationed but the kids learned how to take "military" showers and we never had a problem. The view was fantastic with beautiful sunsets every night and a quiet beach that was all ours.
Back in 1986 I got my Scuba certification here and I was delighted when the kids expressed an interest in going diving. I took a walk intro Frederiksted and visited N2 the Blue Diving Adventures. They had a discover diving course that the kids could take and then we could all go diving together under the pier.

Roger and Shelby were quick to take the class and go diving and Sara followed the next day. We spent three days diving under the pier and had a fantastic time, the kids all want to become divers.
Nineteen years ago I was here with my girlfriend, Sara, who is also certified and we went night diving on the Frederiksted Pier. I never expected then that I would ever return and I never dreamed that we would be married with kids who would go diving with me. I have been on a number of dives to some very interesting places but none were as fun as these three with my kids.
I didn't spent the whole week diving though; I got to spend a lot of time visiting with my parents. We played cards almost every night and had a chance to spend some time just talking and catching up on all our lives. It was such a great week and Sara and I even got Mom in the water for about an hour one evening while we watched the sun set.
The kids all asked if we would ever go back, I sure hope so. It was so nice to be together as a family without any of the distractions that we have learned to rely on.