Too Much to Title

Shit fire and apple butter…I’ve been busy. This post is very convoluted and fragmented. More than usual.

My team won the national championship Friday for the third year in a row. Go Apps!

I NEVER stay up past midnight but I did on Friday. Between my company Christmas dinner and the game I stayed up far too long for Wreg.

I woke up at 5 AM the next morning and we got ready to drive to Durham for the day.

Meanwhile my Internet connection has been on the fritz for the past 24 hours. I don’t function well without broadband so I was spending every spare moment on the phone with tech support troubleshooting.

I got this real ass hole at 5 AM and we about got into a knock down drag out fight. Gigi defended him because he had been working all night. I just woke up and was sleep and Internet deprived so it wasn’t a good combination.

We figured it was a router that had gone bad.

Off to Durham to visit family and celebrate Christmas. Fantastic fun. Tom and I cooked beef tenderloin in the cold windy rain…yes it rained thank God… and we sipped egg nog with Cruzan Dark that I picked up last week in Florida. Tom swears he is going to pick up a case of Cruzan Rum Cream when we are down in 6 weeks.

Meanwhile…. (Sorry this stuff keeps coming to me) a package arrived from St Croix earlier in the day Friday addressed to me and the misses. Michael and Terry sent Gigi and me a Christmas gift and of course I opened it. They’ll never know they live 1800 miles away after all. Mine was addressed to Wreggie, my Wrangler Jeep persona and it was a live CD of Kurt Schindler featuring Richard and a long version of Banna. We listened and sang with it all the way to Durham. Gigi got a cute top from the band. Now she can just slide into town and look more local. Those guys are too nice to us.

I think I want my own flag pole down on St Croix so people will know I am on the island like the Contessa. I need to find a NC flag to fly on a hill somewhere. People would ride by and say, “Captain Stubble is on island, I hear his real name is Wreggie and he is a rich Border Collie rancher from North Carolina”. And then people could make up all kinds of legendary stories about me. I need to get a seersucker suit with a white straw hat to complete the persona.

We came back from Durham and it was cold like 36 and raining like we haven’t seen in 6 months. The dogs were so happy to see us and nobody had any accidents although everyone was eager to go out even in the rain.

I sat down and set up a new router that I bought in some little town’s Radio Shack and poof! I am online again baby!

A good nights sleep and I am refreshed and surfing the net.

I have some pressing issues that I need to work through the next six weeks. First I need to find a boat that I can rent in St Croix. I’m not sure they do that there. A power boat, not a sail boat. We want to wonder around on our own schedule and most charters don’t do this. I have enquired several captains about “beyond Buck Island tours” like I did in September with no results. Everyone says, “Sure we go to Buck Island.” To which I respond, “No shit Sherlock, I want to go to the North side, not the park, I’ve been spoiled”.

Second, and this may be even more difficult. I need to score about a dozen coconuts with the tops lopped off for drinks. We are taking a bunch of new folks to the island and there is nothing more fun than to drink a rum drink from a green coconut. Well there are a lot of things more fun but drinking from a coconut makes you feel so islandy.

More folks are coming to visit us today so I need to vacuum dog hair. See you later!

7 comments:

TerryC said...

Good thing we live so far away. Otherwise we'd have to smack you for opening your gifts before Christmas. Glad you were able to enjoy the CD on your trip!

I like the flag pole idea. Maybe we can start writing a series of books about the adventures of Wreggie, the Wrich Border Collie Wrancher ;).

Ali said...

Holy spicoli! That was one awesome mix of stuff!
So here are my observations...
- shit fire and apple butter is quite possibly one of the best lines I have ever heard
- beef tenderloin, yummmm
- egg nog, yummmm
- opening gifts before Christmas, bad Wreggie
- a singalong with Gigi, awww
- taking your own boat, awesome
- drinking from a coconut, so touristy is hurts, but I wanna do it now too.

Michael said...

Hey Wreg. I don't think anyone leases or charters boats here on St. Croix, not officially anyway. In 6 years here I haven't heard of anyone, same for Terry in 13 years here. Just to be sure I checked the phone book - there's no St. Croix listings under "Boat Renting and Leasing" and we know everyone under "Boat - Charter" in St. Croix, and most are captained tours to Buck Island, none of the others lease out boats either. I also called St. Croix Marine, they don't know of anyone who rents powerboats. I think that pretty much covers it.

If you're willing to sail, Captain Heinz and Captain Carl sail Teroro and Dragonfly to Buck Island. You can charter the whole boat (website says Dragonfly is exclusive for 6 passengers, which I think means if reserve for 6 or more, the boat is yours. I think one holds up to 21, the other up to 15 or 16 maybe). They'll take you where and when you want to go (within reason) and they do have permits for Buck Island.

That's another thing. Even if you say, chartered a fishing boat, they can't take people into the park commercially, only a handful of operators have permits for the Buck Island Reef National Monument (the whole thing is the park - North, South, East, West, the beach, the snorkel trail, where we took you, extending out about a half mile from Buck Island shore)

That said, I do know someone who just got a houseboat who might be crazy enough to rent it to you (under the table). Most people won't because of liability issues. He's a nut. He'll probably want to come with you (not recommended, he'll drive you crazy), but if we schedule for a week-day, he'll have to work. I can't promise, but if I'm going with, he might rent it to us for a day. It's about 30+ foot houseboat, plenty of room for your whole party, large deck up top with chairs. He's got it tied to a DPNR mooring out by Chenay Bay, where we took the turtle walk. It'd have to be a fairly calm day. We saw them heading to Buck one day and Chenay Bay was as far as they got, from St. Croix marine, because of the headwind and swells.

We'll have to check around for the coconuts. There will probably be a guy down at jump-up on Friday, but there's so much to do and see at jump-up, you might not want to wait til then. We'll check with some farmer-friends, see if we can track one of these guys down. Or maybe I'll get a new machete and start practicing on the nuts in our yard :)

Reggie Hunnicutt said...

Ali...shit fire and apple butter is an old southern saying I still use from time to time. Oh the rum and eggnog was sooooo good.

Michael...renting the houseboat from the idiot sounds like a good idea. Tom has a 78 foot houseboat so he knows the nuances of a big corky boat. Tom has been driving boats since Khrushchev was a coal miner. Seriously, fish around and find out how much if you know him. Thanks for looking up all my options.

Michael said...

Ali - We're trying to get Wreggie to modernize his lingo and reflect his love of the islands by using "Shit Fire and Mango Butter", but sometimes he reverts to his southern heritage.

Wreg - I'll see if I can reach him. He owes me, but we'll see. Meanwhile, I'll see if Terry can get a pic when she's out at Chenay tomorrow. (Also, I guess I should verify that that is actually his boat out there :)

Michael said...

Another option is you can charter the yacht "Origami". We figure we can shuttle half the folks out to our favorite snorkeling spot at the far side of Buck, pulling the kayak behind us. While they're snorkeling, we go back to shore on St. Croix, get the 2nd string crew and take them out. The first group will be tired of treading water by then, so we shuttle them to the beach, then go back to pick up the 2nd crew before they drown. Everyone can meet up on the beach for a quick cocktail together before we start shuttling everyone back to St. Croix :)

Reggie Hunnicutt said...

That sounds like an adventure sure enough. It would weed out the casual snorkeler.

Seriously, that would be fun. Maybe take a flotation device and tie it to the moor in case anyone gets tired or need a quick rum pick me up.