Post Mid-term Adventures

This term, Luke's school switched things up a bit. Instead of having unified exams every five weeks, they now have midterms and finals. We had to wait a while longer, but we finally had a free weekend to go adventuring and check a couple more things off of our SVG bucket list. Luke's last midterm on Friday was at eight in the morning, so we had most of the day to relax. When Luke arrived home, we left for our first adventure to Ft. Duvernette. The Fort is located on a small island behind Young Island, just off the coast of St. Vincent. We rented a two person ocean kayak to get to the fort. It didn't take too long to paddle over to the fort, and we were able to enjoy the nice weather and the views along the way. The Fort itself has incredible views of the surrounding islands and of the beautiful water with its various shades of blue. We hiked up the many stairs to the top, doing a little exploring along the way. When we reached the very top where most of the cannons are, we startled some iguanas. Unfortunately, we only caught a quick glimpse of them before they disappeared. After we hiked back down, we jumped in the water to do a little snorkeling before heading back to the beach to return the kayak.
Ft. Duvernette

Steep staircase winding up to the top

The views were so beautiful!



Ft. Duvernette is directly behind us, and Young Island is to the left.


Shades of Blue 







 After we returned the kayak, we went to the beach to enjoy some snorkeling. Snorkeling here is like watching a nature show on television. This time we saw some sea snakes and watched a fish eating a mango in the water.



If you look closely, you can see the silver-colored fish next to the bright yellow mango.


After leaving the beach, Luke took me out to dinner at a restaurant called Driftwood. The restaurant has a peaceful atmosphere and offers a discount to students. We had a beautiful view during dinner, and our grilled chicken sandwich and jerk chicken and pineapple pizza were delicious.

Dinner view of Ft. Duvernette from Driftwood Restaurant

Our food was SO delicious!

Saturday morning, we woke up early and caught a dollar van into Kingstown to meet up with a group of friends from our church. Dollar vans, otherwise known as "H" vans because of the "H" at the beginning of the license plate are vans that provide public transportation and only cost $1 EC (about $0.37USD) to get most places. Since we took the van into Kingstown, it cost $5 EC (about $1.85USD) for both Luke and I. When we met up with our friends from church, we piled into two vans and drove up the leeward side of the island to Dark View Falls. It took a while to drive there, but we were able to see quite a bit of the leeward side as we drove. Luke and I hadn't been out that far yet, so it was interesting to see the other side of the island. When we arrived at Dark View, we walked across a bamboo bridge to get to the grassy area where we had lunch. The falls were just a short walk away. They were breathtaking! The water was pretty cold, but it was fun to stand under the falls. After checking out the lower falls, we walked up a long set of stairs to the upper falls, which were just as incredible. After enjoying the falls and eating lunch, we played games on the grassy area. Everyone had a great time, although we were all pretty tired. After we dropped almost everyone off, Luke was able to drive one of the vans to our apartment. He recently got his license here, so he was pretty excited to drive. In St. Vincent, we drive on the left-hand side of the very narrow and usually steep roads with crazy drivers all around, but Luke did an excellent job driving! We don't get a lot of time off to spend together, but that just makes me even more grateful for the adventures we are able to have when we can.

bamboo bridge

There are lizards everywhere here.

Dark View Falls

Here's most of the group at the pavilion and grassy area where we ate lunch and played games.




The water was freezing, but we had a blast!







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our First Apartment

Image
As much as we loved vacationing for almost two months after our wedding, we were very excited to unpack our bags in the first place we would call home together. We arrived at the Thomas Apartments in the Diamond Community, and searched for apartment #14 along with the welcoming committee who had picked us up from the airport. We found out place, and eagerly unlocked the door. I was picturing a very small, practically one room apartment, but much to my surprise and delight, we opened the door to a pretty good sized kitchen. We followed the hallway to the bathroom on the right, small, but sufficient. Continuing down the hallway, we entered a good sized bedroom on the left. Since there didn't seem to be any major issues with the apartment, we said goodbye to the people who dropped us off, and quickly began checking everything out. We decided we didn't like the way the bedroom was set up, so a quick rearranging of furniture fixed that. After living out o
Read more

Island Lessons

Image
As crazy as moving to a tiny Caribbean island was, I'm so grateful for all the experiences we had and all the things we learned.  Although it wasn't our original plan to end up there, it was God's plan. God knew we needed that time and those experiences.   Here are a few things I learned: ♡ I learned not to take things for granted, even the little things. Before we moved to St. Vincent, I thought I was a pretty grateful person. When I arrived, my whole perspective changed. I no longer take electricity, hot water (or even water at all) for granted. Our hot water was solar powered, so when it rained all day, we didn't have hot water. Unfortunately, rainy days were the days when I really wanted a hot shower! ♡ Air conditioning is a beautiful thing. When we first arrived at the E.T. Joshua airport in St. Vincent, I was amazed at how small it was. There was no air conditioning in the stuffy area where we had to go through customs and get our bags. Everyone was h
Read more

VSPCA Clinic

Image
I love how many opportunities we have here to get involved and have new experiences. This past Saturday, November 11, was one of those new experiences for Luke and I. In the morning, we joined a club from school to assist at the VSPCA Clinic. The VSPCA is the Vincentian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. On this particular Saturday, they were hosting a vet clinic where people could bring their animals to be spayed or neutered or just to see the vets in general. When we arrived to help set up, there were already people waiting with their pets. When registration opened, people registered their pets and received a tag with a number. This way the surgeries could be completed in an orderly fashion. I had been asked to take pictures during the clinic, but I was still able to interact with the animals and help with the surgeries a little bit. Luke was able to assist quite a bit with the surgeries. He wanted to try suturing, but since there were so many animals, the v
Read more