usvi-on-line
Part two for 31 Aug - 10 Sept trip
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David- n Hampton, VA
- Posts: 137
- Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:30 am
Part two for 31 Aug - 10 Sept trip
Part two of the 31 Aug-10 Sept trip to STJ
So, as a planned event, my lovely wife and I stayed in the villa the entire first day. No worries, no commotion, no nagging, no requests to go somewhere; you get the picture. Just a nice quit day spent enjoying the view. We woke up (early for me later for the wife) and I saw the sunrise. Okay, it was barely out of sight around a rocky point, but again one gets the idea....I was looking out this big wonder expanse of water when the sun came up. The only land one can see from the Sea Stone villa, are two little bitty island at the far (Dog and Little St. James Islands) (okay....the first day when we arrived we could see St. Croix but after that it was always in the haze).
What a great day. Our first Caribbean trip without one or both of our grown children. There was a sense of calm. 9:00 AM saw a paraglider out in the water. Told my wife I was signing up to do that tomorrow.....(no big deal for me really as I was a "sky god" in the Army. One of those guys that did freefall parachuting.) But, I haven't been up for a long time so really thought that flying along at 300 feet behind a boat looked like a great deal of fun.
About 0930 AM or so, we had our first iguana show up. Then a second. Then the third then the fourth...up to nine. At first we just sort of gave them the space out past the pool, which was a rounded area with two wooden chairs and a low table, but they kept encroaching closer and closer. Soon they were on the pool ledge and were coming down it toward me in the pool. It was like one would spur the other, which would then spur a third, until each moved closer almost as a group.
I am trying to read a novel while I sit in the pool on the steps, but quite frankly these big lizards were starting to freak me out. No amount of words would scare them....they just sit there looking back at you with a cold reptilian stare.
After an hour or two of this....and several pictures to prove it later.....I went in and got the broom. Suddenly it was a whole new ball game. Now mind you I wasn't using this broom like a bat, I was using it like a push pole. I would get close to them with it and they would finally get the idea I wanted them to move. I can mention though that possibly some previous guests may have been slamming the @#$% out of them with the broom because it was one beat up piece of cleaning equipment. The aluminum shaft was bent and twisted, it seemed to be on its last legs. After my visit there were doubtlessly some bits of shed iguana skin left in the bristles of the broom. Some of those guys are not going to leave unless you actually push them with the broom! I worked hard to keep from hurting any of the animals on site. In fact, one day while shooing one away he fell into the pool. Not knowing which direction to swim he was sort of swimming around in circles and was unable to get out of the pool due to the height of the pool edge. I took my trusting guidance tool (broom) and guided him towards the stairs but......the stupid lizard swam into the filter trap. Great. He was too big to get all the way in but because he had curled around trying to get in there, his nose was under the filter door and his tail was over it sticking out into the pool. All the while of course his head was under water. Now I am not a marine biologist or anything.....but it seemed to me that we had a air breathing creature underwater. This did not bode well for his future offspring.
I pulled the cover off the top of the filter and tried to get him to move so I could lift the trap up with him in it. No luck. He was slowing down considerably but still active enough to bite or claw me. So I finally held the trap door down enough while simultaneously moving him around in the trap to get him to exit the filter back into the main pool. Sadly, now he was to weak to swim and he laid on the bottom.
I ran over and got the pool cleaning tool (a long pole with a mesh net on the end.) I scooped him up (and he didn't offer much resistance.) Holding out over the grassy area I flipped him out of the net onto the grass. After a 5 second period he slowly crawled off the yard and then the bench seating area, then the rocky cliff edge and escaped down the cliff. I don't think that one ever came back.....but his buddies kept trying.
That day we did nothing. That evening we had Steak and Lamb. Good day.... but my wife started to develop a migraine. She was also complaining about nausea and stomach problems. I told her that this was not the place to get sick. We didn't know where a doctor was and I thought we probably had to go to STT for medical care. Sadly, this headache became worse and persisted for most of our remaining days.
Third day. Wife has a migraine but knows I am chomping at the bit to go snorkeling. As a note...my wife loves snorkeling more then I do. In fact, on several occasions in the past while snorkeling around a interesting shoreline I would look around for her only to finally see her face down, oblivious to her surroundings pointed toward Africa and still heading outbound at a good clip. I would have to swim hard to catch her, tug on her flipper to get her attention and then point back at the shoreline to see that we are ¼ to 1/3 of a mile off shore and ask her to please turn around as we are out where a boat might run us both down. (I have many times asked her to pay attention to where the other people are that she is snorkeling with!!!! Scares the heck out of me when I can't see her.) So around 1200 she is ready to try it....meaning try going outside with her headache.
As normal I start loading the jeep. Like a normal guy I think I try to carry too much (because I am lazy and don't want to make extra trips). First the cooler and chairs. Next trip, the garbage and both bags of snorkel gear. The garbage was in a large plastic bag in my right hand, the bags of snorkel gear were over my shoulder with straps, and in my left hand was a box full of beer bottles.
If one looks at the pictures I have tried to post at http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhoto ... 9832591206 there is one showing the steps and walkway up to the small two car parking area. Note the steps. As I do not normally where sandals I forgot to lift my foot high enough. I tripped. Falling forward I threw both hands in front of me to stop my fall letting go of the trash and box of bottles. The bottles hit the concrete steps microseconds before my hand and as they broke and shattered my falling weight drove the glass pieces into my left hand in about ten places.
Apparently there are a lot of blood vessels in human hands. I was bleeding quite rapidly and quite profusely. I yelled back over my shoulder to my wife that I was hurt and to find a phone number for a hospital/or doctor. The number for emergency medical treatment in the villa book is wrong. Called Viva Vacations represntative's number. Kylan (Viva's representative) told my wife what number to call and where to find it in the phone book. To shorten this story.....I will skip all the fun this part was for me, but finally she spoke with a nice nurse at the Myrah Keating Smith clinic out on Highway 10. My wife was calm couldn't reach a taxi service (each call went to a voicemail) but she had never been the driver on the island so eventually I got on the phone to get directions. Basically get on highway 10 after you pass a white van selling Barbeque turn left. (no kidding). I asked the lady on the phone if they had lidocaine for the sutures. (She thought that was real funny....she told me yep, and they had real doctors, and gauze wrap and everything..... I confess I didn't see the humor in anything right at that moment.)
So, off we go. Me, driving while holding my left hand up with a big wad of paper towel in it trying to tell myself that I wasn't going to die....and my wife wiping the sweat off my head with a damp towel and trying to stay calm and not freak out while simultaneously trying to keep my calm.
Found the place...was seen, had stitches put in by a young doc (wearing a t-shirt and jeans and a weird sense of humor. His name is Dr. Joe Dejames - does good work!) Shot for tetanus (that was so painless I didn't even know I had gotten it.....). Here is the bad news. Doc says no getting in the water for 7-10 days. What?????? I came a long way to get in the water.
Back to Star market for drugs. Home to the villa to clean up the blood and garbage.
Took one painkiller….went to bed early.
The rest of the vacation and a bit about the house in part three.
So, as a planned event, my lovely wife and I stayed in the villa the entire first day. No worries, no commotion, no nagging, no requests to go somewhere; you get the picture. Just a nice quit day spent enjoying the view. We woke up (early for me later for the wife) and I saw the sunrise. Okay, it was barely out of sight around a rocky point, but again one gets the idea....I was looking out this big wonder expanse of water when the sun came up. The only land one can see from the Sea Stone villa, are two little bitty island at the far (Dog and Little St. James Islands) (okay....the first day when we arrived we could see St. Croix but after that it was always in the haze).
What a great day. Our first Caribbean trip without one or both of our grown children. There was a sense of calm. 9:00 AM saw a paraglider out in the water. Told my wife I was signing up to do that tomorrow.....(no big deal for me really as I was a "sky god" in the Army. One of those guys that did freefall parachuting.) But, I haven't been up for a long time so really thought that flying along at 300 feet behind a boat looked like a great deal of fun.
About 0930 AM or so, we had our first iguana show up. Then a second. Then the third then the fourth...up to nine. At first we just sort of gave them the space out past the pool, which was a rounded area with two wooden chairs and a low table, but they kept encroaching closer and closer. Soon they were on the pool ledge and were coming down it toward me in the pool. It was like one would spur the other, which would then spur a third, until each moved closer almost as a group.
I am trying to read a novel while I sit in the pool on the steps, but quite frankly these big lizards were starting to freak me out. No amount of words would scare them....they just sit there looking back at you with a cold reptilian stare.
After an hour or two of this....and several pictures to prove it later.....I went in and got the broom. Suddenly it was a whole new ball game. Now mind you I wasn't using this broom like a bat, I was using it like a push pole. I would get close to them with it and they would finally get the idea I wanted them to move. I can mention though that possibly some previous guests may have been slamming the @#$% out of them with the broom because it was one beat up piece of cleaning equipment. The aluminum shaft was bent and twisted, it seemed to be on its last legs. After my visit there were doubtlessly some bits of shed iguana skin left in the bristles of the broom. Some of those guys are not going to leave unless you actually push them with the broom! I worked hard to keep from hurting any of the animals on site. In fact, one day while shooing one away he fell into the pool. Not knowing which direction to swim he was sort of swimming around in circles and was unable to get out of the pool due to the height of the pool edge. I took my trusting guidance tool (broom) and guided him towards the stairs but......the stupid lizard swam into the filter trap. Great. He was too big to get all the way in but because he had curled around trying to get in there, his nose was under the filter door and his tail was over it sticking out into the pool. All the while of course his head was under water. Now I am not a marine biologist or anything.....but it seemed to me that we had a air breathing creature underwater. This did not bode well for his future offspring.
I pulled the cover off the top of the filter and tried to get him to move so I could lift the trap up with him in it. No luck. He was slowing down considerably but still active enough to bite or claw me. So I finally held the trap door down enough while simultaneously moving him around in the trap to get him to exit the filter back into the main pool. Sadly, now he was to weak to swim and he laid on the bottom.
I ran over and got the pool cleaning tool (a long pole with a mesh net on the end.) I scooped him up (and he didn't offer much resistance.) Holding out over the grassy area I flipped him out of the net onto the grass. After a 5 second period he slowly crawled off the yard and then the bench seating area, then the rocky cliff edge and escaped down the cliff. I don't think that one ever came back.....but his buddies kept trying.
That day we did nothing. That evening we had Steak and Lamb. Good day.... but my wife started to develop a migraine. She was also complaining about nausea and stomach problems. I told her that this was not the place to get sick. We didn't know where a doctor was and I thought we probably had to go to STT for medical care. Sadly, this headache became worse and persisted for most of our remaining days.
Third day. Wife has a migraine but knows I am chomping at the bit to go snorkeling. As a note...my wife loves snorkeling more then I do. In fact, on several occasions in the past while snorkeling around a interesting shoreline I would look around for her only to finally see her face down, oblivious to her surroundings pointed toward Africa and still heading outbound at a good clip. I would have to swim hard to catch her, tug on her flipper to get her attention and then point back at the shoreline to see that we are ¼ to 1/3 of a mile off shore and ask her to please turn around as we are out where a boat might run us both down. (I have many times asked her to pay attention to where the other people are that she is snorkeling with!!!! Scares the heck out of me when I can't see her.) So around 1200 she is ready to try it....meaning try going outside with her headache.
As normal I start loading the jeep. Like a normal guy I think I try to carry too much (because I am lazy and don't want to make extra trips). First the cooler and chairs. Next trip, the garbage and both bags of snorkel gear. The garbage was in a large plastic bag in my right hand, the bags of snorkel gear were over my shoulder with straps, and in my left hand was a box full of beer bottles.
If one looks at the pictures I have tried to post at http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhoto ... 9832591206 there is one showing the steps and walkway up to the small two car parking area. Note the steps. As I do not normally where sandals I forgot to lift my foot high enough. I tripped. Falling forward I threw both hands in front of me to stop my fall letting go of the trash and box of bottles. The bottles hit the concrete steps microseconds before my hand and as they broke and shattered my falling weight drove the glass pieces into my left hand in about ten places.
Apparently there are a lot of blood vessels in human hands. I was bleeding quite rapidly and quite profusely. I yelled back over my shoulder to my wife that I was hurt and to find a phone number for a hospital/or doctor. The number for emergency medical treatment in the villa book is wrong. Called Viva Vacations represntative's number. Kylan (Viva's representative) told my wife what number to call and where to find it in the phone book. To shorten this story.....I will skip all the fun this part was for me, but finally she spoke with a nice nurse at the Myrah Keating Smith clinic out on Highway 10. My wife was calm couldn't reach a taxi service (each call went to a voicemail) but she had never been the driver on the island so eventually I got on the phone to get directions. Basically get on highway 10 after you pass a white van selling Barbeque turn left. (no kidding). I asked the lady on the phone if they had lidocaine for the sutures. (She thought that was real funny....she told me yep, and they had real doctors, and gauze wrap and everything..... I confess I didn't see the humor in anything right at that moment.)
So, off we go. Me, driving while holding my left hand up with a big wad of paper towel in it trying to tell myself that I wasn't going to die....and my wife wiping the sweat off my head with a damp towel and trying to stay calm and not freak out while simultaneously trying to keep my calm.
Found the place...was seen, had stitches put in by a young doc (wearing a t-shirt and jeans and a weird sense of humor. His name is Dr. Joe Dejames - does good work!) Shot for tetanus (that was so painless I didn't even know I had gotten it.....). Here is the bad news. Doc says no getting in the water for 7-10 days. What?????? I came a long way to get in the water.
Back to Star market for drugs. Home to the villa to clean up the blood and garbage.
Took one painkiller….went to bed early.
The rest of the vacation and a bit about the house in part three.
Oh my...seems what could go wrong, did go wrong.
Ugh, the iguana'a, I was reading your report and thinking to myself, I Better Not have to deal with iguana's like this because if I do I am going to be MAD. And then! one almost drowned and you had to save it's life. Poor baby iguana!!
Then, your fall and the blood and trying to find help and your stitches...some days it just doesn't pay to get up, does it? (((HUGS)))
I'm looking forward to more of your story, kind of, sort of, maybe I am!!
Ugh, the iguana'a, I was reading your report and thinking to myself, I Better Not have to deal with iguana's like this because if I do I am going to be MAD. And then! one almost drowned and you had to save it's life. Poor baby iguana!!
Then, your fall and the blood and trying to find help and your stitches...some days it just doesn't pay to get up, does it? (((HUGS)))
I'm looking forward to more of your story, kind of, sort of, maybe I am!!
Coden
Iguanas good, blood bad. Sounds like an awesome house and setting! I am going to have to check this out.
In 2002 we had a friend break a stemmed wine glass while washing dishes and earn herself 10 or so sutures. It worked out pretty well for her. She ignored the now swim rules... no long term problems.
Cheers, RickG
In 2002 we had a friend break a stemmed wine glass while washing dishes and earn herself 10 or so sutures. It worked out pretty well for her. She ignored the now swim rules... no long term problems.
Cheers, RickG
Wow, the iguanas sound pretty brave at Sea Stone! We had some visit us at the pool at villa Belvedere (same area as Sea Stone). They would sit on the pool ledge and dip their tails in the water while we swam.
Ouch on the hand! I hope you are feeling better.
Ouch on the hand! I hope you are feeling better.
It's like looking in your soup and finding a whole different alphabet.
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Jan&MikeVa
- Posts: 1084
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 5:32 pm
- Location: The Chesapeake Bay
David, we are laughing and at the same time almost in tears. Bless your heart, how awful to have something happen like that with your hand. And hubby is just picturing the vehicle scene enroute to the clinic.
The villa looks beautiful, you didn't have to pay extra for the unexpected company did ya?? And the crab, of all the luck. Well so far it sounds like you made the best of it, anxious for the rest of your story!
Enjoyed the pics, wonderful shots of the villa and from the plane! Thanks.
Jan (aka Charlie)
The villa looks beautiful, you didn't have to pay extra for the unexpected company did ya?? And the crab, of all the luck. Well so far it sounds like you made the best of it, anxious for the rest of your story!
Enjoyed the pics, wonderful shots of the villa and from the plane! Thanks.
Jan (aka Charlie)
swimming iguana's
Oh my,The part about the iguana in the pool was way to funny.Your a great writer!!!
HELLO FROM MICHIGAN...
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Bob & Anita
- Posts: 611
- Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2006 11:20 pm
- Location: Charlotte, NC