March 11, 2025 to March 14, 2025: St Croix, US Virgin Islands

It is hard to believe that we only have a two months left of living in Miami Beach, and when we exclude our upcoming planned travel, it is really just a few weeks. As Filip has been watching a property on zillow in St. Croix for at least 5 years, and it is only 3 hours from Miami, it seemed like a missed opportunity to not come for a few days. We booked a room at the Carambola Beach resort and our flights.

About a week before leaving, we started to look more closely at some of the reviews online. The Carambola was not getting stellar feedback - so we set our expectations pretty low. The flight, as expected, was easy, as was picking up our rental car. The only hiccup was when we turned out of the rental car parking lot we discovered they drove on the left - an unexpected mental challenge.

We got to our resort and checked into our room. The staff were unbelievably friendly but also weirdly incredibly unhelpful. It took a few tries before we located our room and got a working key. Our room met our expectations: it was large and fairly dated; but with a key redeeming feature: a pair of French doors leading to a spacious square balcony with cushioned benches, just above the ocean.

View from our bed

We went to the main area and had a drink at the bar while we watched the sunset followed by dinner. The main restaurant was closed and the small pool bar was drastically understaffed, but the single bartender and few servers maintained their smiles throughout the evening.

Watching the sunset from Carambola Beach Resort

The 3.6 mile hike adjacent to the hotel, Carambola Trumbull trail, was one of the top hikes on Alltrails, and our morning activity. The hike was lovely: adequate shade with just enough steep uphills to break a sweat, it was well marked and the footing was smooth.

About half way to the beach

Filip on the beach

Filip's contribution to the cairns (now featured on AllTrails)

Coral on the beach

After our hike we drove about 2 miles to Landing Beach Bar for lunch. We were immediately greeted by the owner who cheerfully told us sit anywhere we wanted. We grabbed one of the only tables left. The food great and the atmosphere had a good mix of Carribean-esque with American capitalism - the vibe was friendly, happy-go-lucky but they worked hard, minimizing the amount of "island-time". We left the bar with 2 six packs of local IPA for our mini-fridge at the hotel - which we enjoyed on our balcony in the afternoon overlooking the ocean.

Lunch at Landing Beach Bar on Cane Bay Beach

On Thursday we explored the east end of the island (appropriately named East End) which also happens to be the eastern most point of the US. We stopped at Whale Point and took the short walk down to the beach.

View from Whale Point

Next, we drove to the trailhead for the Jack and Isaac Bay Preserve Trail for our day's hike. The cacti-lined preserve trail in the grassy fields just above the beach was smooth and well marked. There was not a lot of shade cover and we quickly realized we should have had been more prepared, as we were carrying only two small water bottles.

View from the trail (with the peninsula Filip is interested in circled)

Filip on the trial among the cacti

Filip gets the points for noticing this little guy

We joined Goat's hill to sugarloaf hill which intersected the preserve trail allowing us to create a loop rather than doing an out-and-back hike. The climb was pretty steep to the top of goat hill but we were rewarded with expansive views of the East End.

View from the top of Goat Hill

The other key feature of East End was the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA) telescope - which looks like a gigantic satellite. The telescope is the eastern most telescope in the system of 10 VLBA telescopes stretching between Hawaii and St. Croix.

Very Large Baseline Array Telescope in the East End

On our drive back to Carambola we took a detour to get a closer look at the peninsula Filip has been watching. While it looked like a perfect spot for the Coffee Bar Bar, it would take a lot of work to make it happen.

We had a couple of unexpected challenges on Friday. First our coffee tasted like salt, cluing us in to the fact that the Carambola resort's reverse osmosis system had failed over night. Secondly, our plans to explore the west end of the island were thwarted by the weather. We decided a resort-day (with bottled water) was the better option. After an extra-long workout we had an afternoon eating food that wasn't very good for us combined with drinks that weren't either.

Evening sky after the storm

Our flight Saturday was not until 5pm so we used the morning to explore the west side of the island. We began with a scenic drive along a pot-hole-filled road through the woods to Hams Bluff. It felt like we were driving through a jungle with Tarzan-like vines hanging from the massive trees until we reached the coastline and headed north. A small trailhead was at the base of the parking lot in Ham Bluff and we started the trek up. The trail was well worn and easy to follow and only about 1/2 mile to top, although it was steep and hot. At the top was an old "historic lighthouse" that was built between 1913 and 1915 in response to the building of the Panama Canal, as the Dutch government believed ships would now travel between St. Croix and St. Thomas.