We needed a vacation and could take advantage of off-season rates and no crowds at the least known of the US Virgin Islands, St Croix.
 

Sunset at Carambola

St Thomas, the cruise ship and shopping island is the best known followed by St John, the nature resort island. St Croix is what might be called the working Island. It houses one of the largest oil refineries in the western hemisphere and although it has a Caribbean feel to it, the general feeling is that you are in another state. What attracted us to St Croix, other than the lack of tourists, was the diving opportunities, the islands variety and it's great beaches.
 

We flew in from Boston via San Juan, Puerto Rico. The flight went well, including the smaller twin engine prop plane from San Juan to STX airport. The airport in St Croix reminded us of the one on the big island in Hawaii. Most everything is outside. We don't check bags, so we headed for the car rental counter to pick up our car. If you go to St Croix, you should rent a car, because there is a lot to see on the island and taxi's will be very expensive. Driving is different though, they drive on the left side, like in Britain, but they use American left hand steering cars. You get used to it pretty quickly though. Just make sure you stay alert on the turns, at first you tend to try to switch to the other side on turns.
 

Island License
 plate

Oh yeah, the roads on St Croix are never straight and directions are not posted very clearly, so you probably will get lost once or twice. We headed over to the other side of the island from the airport to get to our hotel, the Carambola. We got there, but not by the most direct route.
 

Carambola Beach Resort

Serendipity kicked in though as we ended up driving past the dive shop that we would be using the next 3 days, so we were able to stop by, meet the folks there, take care of some paperwork and, since Jessica needed snorkel equipment, get our gear a day early so we could snorkel at the hotels own beach.

Heading out to a
dive site