liamsaunt

Here's another picture of the house we are renting. It's really great. However, renting a house on the harbor comes with interesting risks. Here's what is in front of the house right now. Under that mound a sand is a large, dead, decaying seal. We have to go out after every high tide and cover it up again because it smells horrible. It's too big and heavy to move, but if you cover it with sand the smell goes away. We have arrived to find dolphin carcasses stranded in front of the house before and those are small enough to drag out into the ocean. There was a whale stranding in the harbor a couple of years ago, but thankfully we were not here for that one. We have also been here for live strandings and rescues. There's a team in town dedicated to conducting the rescues of stranded marine animals, and they have a pretty good success rate. Back to food. Last night we went in to Truro for dinner at Blackfish. Menu Cocktails We got some appetizers to share. Fried oysters A special of salt and pepper squid with chili sauce and beans pork belly Nephew had a burger Niece chose the short ribs I had a special of scallops with pumpkin and harukei turnips Sister and brother's husband each had the tuna bolognese and husband had the lobster gnocchi We shared two desserts. Chocolate tart with salted pretzel crust Lemon panna cotta After dinner we went for a walk on the beach for sunset

We are in Wellfleet for the weekend, staying at the old house on the beach I have written about here before. It is beautiful, sunny and in the 70s, and is supposed to stay that way all weekend. I've already walked 10 miles on the beach today. Last night we had to have dinner at Mac's Shack of course, it is tradition. Oysters My nephew opted for an appetizer of stewed calamari puttanesca style. Niece wanted the spicy tuna mango martini app. Everything was shared My nephew and husband's brother got Ritz cracker crusted bluefish with creamed spinach and mashed potatoes Sister had green curry scallops Niece had her two favorite sushi rolls and my husband and I both had a special of bacon stuffed roasted halibut with roasted carrots. It was delicious. Mac's doesn't really do desserts, but here's a strawberry tart I picked up for my nephew at PB Boulangerie bakery

I found it replicated on the Food 52 site. Here: https://food52.com/recipes/84238-vegetarian-laksa-recipe-with-rutabaga The main difference is that the Macomber turnip took longer to get browned than the original recipe. That was fine, I just keep it roasting until it looked good. I think I would have preferred rice to the rice noodles, but that's just me.

Meera Sodha's rutabaga laksa from her cookbook East. I used a local Macomber turnip from my CSA box.

Fried chicken, and an arugula salad with strawberries and spiced pecans

Yes, that's right, warm seared goat cheese. Sorry for the delayed reply!

Our last day of the visit was spent doing more of the same. Snorkeling of course! A couple of pictures: we found the school of blue tang again Puddingwife Honeycomb cowfish For dinner, we took the boat over to St. John and had dinner at La Tapa. Menu I started with the goat cheese salad and husband had the mozzarella Then I had the tuna. I seem to get this every time And husband had the shrimp and langoustine pasta We split the pineapple for dessert. Sunset from our table And that's it for this visit to St. John. See you on the dinner thread.

I went in an ambulance, so no choice. I have an exciting medical life haha. I seem to be fine now and will follow up with my care team once I am home. And yes, that is the Lady Lynsey out of the Ritz Carlton on St. Thomas! Lovango is a pleasant sailing distance from where the Ritz is located on St. Thomas. They do sailing excursions to St. John for dinner as well, though I am not sure if that is a coordinated thing with a particular restaurant or just a shuttle service to get people over to the town. We spent the day snorkeling at the two swimming areas on Lovango. The front of the island doesn't have a beach per se, you get into the water from a dock. The back of the island has a rocky beach. We spent today at the rocky beach, called Crescent. Here are some pictures. It's pretty rare that anyone else from the resort comes by when we are there. Once you are finished, you text them and they come get you in a golf cart. You can walk back up too, if you want to....but why? Here are some underwater sights. Trio of permits Corals Dog snapper Blue Tang For dinner we ate at the resort. View Specials Menu Husband got the tuna noodle appetizer Followed by the lobster schnitzel I had the special tomato salad and the shiitake tortelloni We shared some mint ice cream for dessert.

Friday we did not have diner because I ended up having to go to the hospital equivalent on island. I'm fine now. Saturday was our day to transfer from the house we were renting over to Lovango Cay. This time, we rented a "treehouse" instead of a glamping tent. The treehouses have air conditioning of a sort. It can only work so well because the slots in the floor are open slats. Here are some pictures. We hung out by the pool while waiting for our cabin to be ready. They upgraded us to a pool cabana and comped a bottle of some sparkling wine that my husband had a glass of. Dinner was at the Sandpit. There's live music and various other entertainment, but we were pretty tired, so just had dinner and were shortly asleep. Menu Tuna nicoise (I really liked the pickled okra) Lobster pizza

It's a pink soy paper wrap. Yesterday we went back to Cinnamon Bay, and i actually remembered to take a picture of the beach! We did not snorkel, just floated around. Here's another fruit tree on the beach. This is a lime berry. You can eat this one in drinks and desserts. We had to go back and get cleaned up for dinner, but first some pool time with Irie Pops. Today's flavor was chocolate sea salt. Dinner was at Zozo's at Caneel Bay. This restaurant is closing for the season June 14th, but I think it might be closing permanently at this location. The National Park has (finally!!!) won the lawsuit to take control of the Caneel Bay property from the investment banking group that has been holding the grounds in limbo since the hurricanes of 2017. The ruling is being appealed by the investment group, but the National Park has already been doing improvements and access work. My understanding is that part of the beach grounds will be opening to the public in just a few weeks, including the beach directly in front of Zozos. People that live down here are ecstatic--they've been basically banned from the grounds for decades (five of the seven beaches on the property were reserved for the exclusive use of resort guests). My understanding is that part of the property will still be a private upscale resort run by a vendor of the National Park's choosing, but at least part of the grounds area and more of the beaches will be public now. Speaking as a prior frequent Caneel Bay resort guest, I think this is a good balance. There were definitely people who wanted the entire resort area turned into unspoiled National Park land, but that was never going to happen. The resort is too much of a money maker, and just as importantly, was also one of the largest employers on the island when it was open. Anyway. Restaurant setting Menu for the evening Drinks. Husband had a martini and I had the hydrate mocktail I started with the burrata appetizer (meat donated to my husband haha) And he had the steak tartare For entrees, my husband ordered the osso bucco but swapped in the tenderloin and added a lobster tail (you can always swap tenderloin for the osso bucco and add also can local lobster to all the entrees here). The owner came out and said that the tenderloins did not look as good as they should, and suggested he order something else. He got the porchetta instead I had the scallops. I was reluctant to order them since i can get them so easily at home (a lady in my town even owns a scallop fishing boat and does door to door deliveries!) They were the best thing I have eaten on this trip! I finished my whole plate, which is unusual for me. We watched the sun setting with dinner. I could not decide which picture I liked better so you get two The owner brought over a comped dessert to apologize for the tenderloin not being available. It was a molten chocolate thing with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. It's not something we every would have chosen on our own, but my goodness was it delicious. We managed to finish most of it. Another great meal at Zozos.

We went to Haulover North to try and snorkel the sea fan garden that is offshore there. We encountered a yellow crested night heron on the walk to the beach Sargassum along the shore, but we decided to try anyway. Unfortunately the visibility was terrible. There was lots of decaying sargassum on the sea floor and the particles were breaking up into the water. We swam really far out but could not get a clear look. We are going to come back this summer when we have a boat captain for the family group. They can drop us further offshore than we can safely swim. We don't tend to hire captains when it's just the two of us. We went over to Haulover South across the street, which was clear, but not as interesting. Baby squid I usually spend my time snorkeling at this location looking at the various corals and encrusting sponges. I find their colors and patterns fascinating. Back to pool beach for an Irie Pop. Then into town for sunset and dinner. Neither of us wanted a big meal so we went to Longboard. Menu Drinks. Husband had a frozen blood orange margarita and I had a mocktail made with hibiscus tea and orange We shared the St. Thomas sushi wrap and a couple of fish tacos We went to St. John scoops for dessert. I had mint chocolate chip and he had toasted coconut in a waffle cone. The sunset

Another exciting breakfast! At home it is plain greek yogurt and multigrain bread with fruit, but you have to work with what you can get. Yesterday we went to Maho to go snorkeling. This used to be one of the least busy, most peaceful beaches on the island. Someone developed the area across the street from it and put in a beach bar, kayak rentals and so on. Now it is always jam packed with day drinkers and cruise ship passengers visiting from St. Thomas and I rather hate it. However, the snorkeling is still good, and despite the crowds on the beach, relatively few people actually go in the water past their waists, and even fewer bother snorkeling, so we usually go and head straight into the water, then leave immediately after we are done. There were some pretty significant rain storms right before we arrived on Saturday, so the water was still stirred up. Here are a couple of pictures. French angelfish Coral with christmas and feather duster worms The bay always has lots of turtles because of the abundance of sea grass After snorkeling we went over to Cinnamon to swim. I forgot to take a picture of the beach again, but I did take a picture of one of the fruit bearing trees that grow along the beach. The noni fruit Also known as starvation fruit. It smells like rotten cheese when you cut into it. Generally not recommended to eat, it is sometimes used in bush remedies. Then we went back to the house for a small snack and swimming in the pool Dinner was at Morgan's Mango. The set menu never changes here, so I didn't take pictures this time. My husband's margarita Cajun shrimp appetizer And a special appetizer of tuna wrapped in nori and tempura fried Husband had the Caribbean lobster And I had the fish of the day, local whole snapper Both entrees were terrific. We shared a piece of their famous key lime pie for dessert. Today we are hanging at the house in the morning, then heading over to the other side of the island for more snorkeling this afternoon. Food for the day is TBD.

Thinly shaved and fried yucca root. It was really tasty. I've been meaning to try and make yucca fries at home, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Here is my exciting breakfast. If you ever wonder why I rarely post breakfast pictures, this is why. Yesterday we went to one of our favorite beaches, Francis. The water was like glass. You can see how green the island is right now. They have been getting a lot of rain recently. We encountered some curious deer at the entrance to the beach. They were not bothered by us at all. In fact, we had to wait for them to move out of the way. The beach was quiet, which was nice. Trunk Bay was just voted the #1 most beautiful beach in the world on one of those annual polls, so I guess everyone was over there. Fine with me. After beach we had to go to the grocery store to get stuff they were out of when we shopped Saturday. There hadn't been any deliveries yet, so they were still out of everything we needed. Island time. We'll try again today. The gelato store is in the same shopping plaza as the grocery store so we stopped in to see what they had. They make everything in small batches and the flavors change every day, so it's luck of the draw as to what (if anything) they have. Did one of those make it back to our villa to share? You know it did. For dinner we decided to try the Lime Inn. They had recently switched their menu over from a prix fixe multi course menu (we tried it a few years ago, and really disliked it), to an all taco menu. You cannot go wrong with tacos in my opinion. They have all the same tacos that you can get at the Lime Out floating taco boat I have posted about before, plus some additional options. Here's the menu. And yes, those prices are per taco. Food is pretty expensive here. Our drinks. Husband got the harbor cooler and I had the dane juice. We shared the grouper seveche to start. Very tasty! My tacos. I chose the tuna matata and the g'day mate Husband also had the g'day mate and the Mr. Worldwide Restaurant We split a dessert taco too. Why not, it's vacation. It was stuffed with frozen key lime filling. They had a chocolate one stuffed with salted caramel filling too, but we thought we could only manage one. And now it's off to the beach for some snorkeling. If I see anything interesting I will share the photos.

Oh hahaha! That was a taro chip. Sorry I missed that!

We are back on St. John. This trip is a rescheduled visit from last November--we had to cancel then because my husband was sick. The property management company, airline, and jeep rental all let us push our dates to now without any penalty, so it's kind of like a free trip. Except for all of the money we are about to spend on food haha. We arrived Saturday, and are staying in the same house as the past two times. We had to get up at 3:30 AM to make our flight, so we were both exhausted on arrival. We had some time to kill before being able to head to the villa for check in, so went up to the Windmill Bar to take in some views All that haze you see is Sahara dust. I don't think I have seen it in May before, it's usually more of a summer thing. The bad news with the dust is that it makes it hotter than normal (and it is indeed hot!), and it's also bad for allergies. The good news is that the dust suppresses development of tropical weather. If it's this hot and dusty now, I cannot imagine what it is going to be like when we come back in July. Menu cover. I was so tired I forgot to take a picture of the rest of it. Sorry, @rotuts! It's a small menu--just a few kinds of tacos, taco bowls, and burgers/hot dogs. The bar. It was around 2PM when we got there, and it doesn't start filling up until happy hour and live music starts at 3. We just ordered a plate of shrimp tacos to split. Pretty basic but did the job. After getting unpacked at the house, we headed out to find something for dinner. We were just really tired and neither of us felt like eating much. We ended up at Rum Hut. Menu Husband's cocktail. I believe it was a ginger martini. And our selections to share: the Cruz Bay roll and tuna tartare tacos And dessert. Irie Pops of course! Yesterday we spent the day at Cinnamon Bay. I did not take one picture of the beach! It was lovely. We went over to the food truck to get some cold water. They basically sell sandwiches, nachos, and ice cream For dinner, we decided to try a new place, The Refinery. Menu Cocktails. I ordered a no-jito and my husband ordered a Singapore Sling. The bartender came over to deliver the drinks and to confirm that he had made mine without alcohol. I thought that was nice. We ordered a couple of appetizers: the peppered shrimp--this was spicy! I could have gone even hotter but my husband said it was at the upper level of what he enjoys for spice. And the crab and corn fritters with pineapple salsa. The fritters were essentially a jumbo shrimp wrapped in crab fritter batter. They were delicious but I could only eat one. I just ordered a salad with more shrimp on the side for dinner And husband had the coconut poached wahoo with cassava cake. I really wanted to get the Caribbean ice cream sandwich for dessert, but the heat is slaying my appetite and I could not even finish my dinner food. We brought home most of my dinner shrimp and half of the fritters to eat today. And yes, we are eating lots of shrimp since we normally cannot have it at home because of my nephew's allergy. He's coming with us in July so we have to get all the crustaceans we want to eat into this visit. 🙂 Not sure where we are eating today, but our plan is to find as many new to us places as we can.