As well as wandering through the historical districts of St Croix, we have also had a few more unusual experiences whilst we have been here.  The first was on Friday night as we were sitting in a bar enjoying a cold beer at sundown.  It had just gone completely dark, at about 7pm, when the waitress came to tell us that her boyfriend had just phoned her to tell her that he had seen on the news that the Space Station was going to pass right over the island at about 7.15pm!  We all saw it pass - it was a very bright light, moving very high and quickly - can't tell you much more about it than that though, as it was too dark to see anything at all.  Had it passed in daylight, I think it would have been too far away to see at all.

The next day we decided to go for a swim - I had been in the water briefly when we arrived to check the anchor had set properly.  On arrival, it was quite tricky to find a suitable anchorage, it was quite crowded and we like to put at least 40m of chain out with the anchor, so we need a lot of swing room.  Eventually we found a perfect spot, fairly near a reef, next to 2 catamarans.  Usually one of us gets in the water to check the anchor has set properly, here it was in lovely white sand so there was no problem at all.  The water had been warm, and not too salty, so we were both keen to go swimming.  When John was in the water waiting for me, he mentioned that there was something large hidden underneath the boat, we both thought nothing of it though and went swimming.  There are often fish sheltering in the shade under the boat.   Whilst swimming we saw quite a few small fish around the coral heads, but the big excitement was when I spotted a free-swimming spotted eagle ray!  I have never seen one before, and although we tried to get a photo, it was a bit too quick for us!  Also the water in that area was quite sandy making the visibility less then perfect.

When we came back we decided to have a closer look at what was under the boat - it was a remora lying vertically up the keel.  It wasn't until John got the Fish Identification book out that we started to get a bit concerned - the fish itself is not in anyway dangerous, however, there is a section by each fish telling you it's likely reaction to divers and swimmers getting near to it, which we obviously were as we were trying to get a photo of it.  This fish is called a 'sharksucker remora' and sticks itself to sharks, boats and even divers legs!  It is harmless and supposedly easy to 'brush off', but can you imagine having a fish called a 'sharksucker attached to your leg? I think if that had happened to either of us, and John did say it was eyeing up my leg at one stage, but I think he was winding me up, we would both have been in real danger of drowning through our fits of laughter!!  Needless to say, one of our jobs for Saturday which was to clean the bottom of the boat has not been done!

One more unusual aspect of the anchorage is the sea plane landing area.  We had seen this on the chart, but thought very little of it, any sea plane areas before have been rarely used with one or two planes a week at the most, so parking near didn't seem to be a problem.  Not so here, as the sea planes are used as a way to commute between islands and they run about every 15 minutes during daylight hours!

 Sea planes landing in the anchorage - very close to the boat!

 Our very own sharksucker

 A slightly clearer pic of internet!

 A small ray

 The much larger spotted eagle ray which you can just make out in the pic!

 Another internet pic!

On Sunday, we are heading back up to Vieques to meet some friends for a BBQ, and we will then spend a few nights there before heading down to Anguilla for a day or two at the beach.  The beaches there are gorgeous, but not, as remarked upon by Pat & Stuart from Brizo who have already been, as good as the Exumas!  I think we might have been spoilt!