We really live in our own world. Boat, beach, water. Once a week or so I run into town alone to grab groceries and do laundry, but the rest of the time it’s just us, going quietly about our lives together.

Lowe created a restaurant on the beach serving some great food.

Ali made the kids die of embarrassment this afternoon on the beach. A security guard (for the ruins of the beach resort) poked his head out of the trees. Ali waved and yelled out, “Hola!” She has hardly (if at all) spoken to anyone outside the family since we left Puerto Rico. Of course, we’re now in the USVIs where, not surprisingly, English is spoken.

Lowe constantly wants to take off in the dinghy these days. I suppose the same way I would have wanted to take off on a dirtbike. After all these years he’s well versed in how to handle it. Instead of pulling the dinghy 3 miles to the next anchorage the two of them now want to race off and meet us there.

While I was in town doing laundry, these three piled into the sailing dinghy and headed for the beach. An Opti is not made for three, but they made it work.

Somehow I ended up being crumpled up inside it for the return trip a few hours later.

We grabbed a nice calm day for the quick five-hour hop over to St. Croix—the often ignored USVI—where we figured we’d see a lot less holiday season charter boat crowd. Frederiksted is on the west end of the island, an open roadsted anchorage, but well protected from the prevailing winds.

It’s also famous for the long, deep, cruise ship pier full of marine life. And best of all, for us anyway, no cruise ships.

In addition to the nice snorkeling along the pier, it’s a nice anchorage for a swim. The kids found a can on the bottom and brought it back to the boat. Then Ouest said she saw something inside it. We figured it was a crab, so we put some more water in it and left it sitting on the swim platform. A while later the kids yelled, “It’s an octopus!” It crawled out of the can, looked around, and plopped itself back in the water. Probably pissed at us for stealing its home.