Update First Week, Part 2

*****note: if you want continuity in my stories, read the previous post ("Part 1") before this.

Since my last writing (even though posted simultaneously) I’ve been fairly active. My last two dives on Friday went well. Went up to 60 ft deep on the last one…but I guess I’m just not enough of an appreciator of nature, since the coral and fish at 60 ft looked the same to me as the stuff at 40 and 20 did. However, there are some cool deep dives around here that I’ve heard of (such as sunken ships), so there are some dives where I’d actually notice different sites.

As I’m typing, I have a local reggae station playing on the radio and an incredible ad just played. Apparently, Antilles Power Depot is THE SOURCE for diesel generators which will help me get through any problems posed by hurricane season. You can visit them (based in Puerto Rico, I believe) on the web at antillespower.com.

Saturday I went on a free guided snorkeling expedition run by someone from the dive shop I got certified at. I’m a fan of snorkeling since you can see very similar stuff to scuba diving and it’s free. We saw a spotted manta ray, probably about 3 feet wide, so that was pretty nifty. Also, I caught sight of some rare fish, unbeknownst to me, but the guides were pretty excited. It looked like a rock on the bottom, until it opened its eyes and swam. No caught lobsters yet, but I may try to do that some evening after work this next week or maybe next weekend.

At the grocery store I was intrigued by the presence of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. However, the intrigue gave way to ambivalence and partial disgust as I realized that this beverage didn’t taste as good as regular Guinness Extra Stout nor Guinness Draught. It has a higher alcohol content, but that’s the only significance beyond a less appealing taste that I could discern.

So, as Saturday winded down, I decided to take out the car for a bit of exploration. I’ve not logged in 100 miles (which means I could have circled the island twice, but instead I’ve become familiar with the greater Christiansted area). Over the next week I plan to hit the Cruzan (pronounced “Croo-shun” & sometimes spelled Crucian) Rum Distillery and drive out to Point Udall (the self-proclaimed Easternmost Point of the USA). I believe this Point Udall thing to be a farce though, since unless I’m mistaken as to where the international date line is, the title of Easternmost Point is held by either some point on Guam or the Northern Mariana Islands (Westernmost would be somewhere on American Samoa). Maybe I’ll challenge a non-threatening islander with this assertion…

While exploring, I saw two things that are definitely different from what a ride through NJ would include. First was in Christiansted. Keep in mind that this is the largest “city” on the island. As I was going down a fairly heavily-traveled street I had to stop abruptly because a local resident jumped in front of my automobile. This resident was a wild (or escaped?) rooster! I’ve already encountered goats blocking part of a road, but that was a more rural one, and then I could see the fence the escaped from (and it looked like what I’d expect a Caribbean goat farm to look like), so there was less surprise factor there. However, wild fowl in the city was very reminiscent of Kung Fu movies, and I never thought I’d be in a place where this would be reality.

Later in my exploration, I realized I need to pick up a few things, so I hit Pueblo, one of the two major grocery “chains” on the island. I say “chain”, because each has two locations. While in the ‘seasonings’ aisle (I need to make my pasta dishes taste a little different), a bird swooped by and perched on the next aisle. This was more surprising because this was not a Home Depot-esque store with big openings and high ceilings. It was a normal grocery store with normal entrances and exits. Nevertheless, a bird was hanging out there. I then casually checked my groceries for any signs of droppings and made my way to the check-out.

And, I will close this installment with a quote from a radio ad that just played for the other grocery chain, Plaza Extra. Steel drums were playing in the background & this was sung in a very thick Caribbean accent (think Jamaican, since I really have no clue what the differences are yet) “Pla-za got all dat ‘chu need”.