Laluna Grenada: A Resort to Remember
March 11, 2017
Imagine an isolated beach situated between two cliffs that tower over the shore on either side—coarsely sandy with waves big enough to hear and small enough to swim in. Then imagine a cottage surrounded by flowers and succulent plants perched over the common restaurant, pool, bar, and beach. Perfectly isolated from the other cottages. Put all of these imaginary things on an uncharacteristically green Granada.
Laluna Beach Grenada
That’s laluna.
We arrived well after dark having just learned lesson one about Grenada. Don’t rent a car, just get drivers and/or taxis.
Cottage 10 abuts cottage 9 where Eli stayed, and is the best cottage in the collection.
The shower was remarkable even by NPS standards. Outside and open to the elements but under a roof. Two square windows look out over the ocean.
We would go just for the shower.
Porch on a blustery morning
Then there was lesson two, which is bring cash. The ATM situation is suboptimal with Scotiabank leading the lameness charge. Dollars come in handy. Bring some.
About the only thing to fix about Laluna would be the restaurant and bar. The restaurant is staffed with great, attentive people, and is a good place for a hearty breakfast before diving, but there are far better places for lunch and for dinner just a short distance away. Likewise, Urban behind the bar is a fine fellow and a decent steel drum player to boot, but he needs a better ingredient set to make drinks with. That said, Urban was willing to adjust and learn some classics with special touches.
The breakfast view at laluna can’t be beat
A quick review of dinner targets reveals that BB’s Crabshack is by far the most authentic and delicious restaurant around. Goat stew and shrimp curry with rum punch? Yes.
Aquarium had the best high cuisine chef on the island with many dishes well past the workaday. Everyone complains about the service, but if you just light one of the cats on fire they will come right around.
The Beachhouse is by far the fanciest place and has the advantage of being a walk down the beach from Laluna, but it’s not as good food-wise as Aquarium even though the service is much better.
Coconut Beach restaurant is workaday. Its location right on the beach is nice, but not really worthy of a night out.
A margarita from
For lunch, umbrellas suited us just fine in our wet bathing suits and sandy feet fresh off the dive boat. Get the hot dog and remind them how easy it is to make a proper margarita with cointreau!
Native Spirit Dive Shop
We came to dive, and so we did. Two tank dives every day from Sunday to Wednesday. Native Spirit is fantastic with a friendly staff, attentive (and still fun) dive masters, very nice equipment, and great knowledge of the area. While in town, Eli was advanced open water diver certified and we carried out one deep 125 foot dive on the wreck of the Bianca C.
Coconut Beach from the dive shop
All in all the diving water was less clear than what we have experienced elsewhere with many more fish and fewer other creatures. We did see some gigantic lobsters lurking under the wreck of the Veronica (which also has a hidden air pocket 30 feet down). Drift diving and reef diving were enjoyable, but the wrecks were the most memorable. The underwater sculpture garden was worth a visit as well.
Rahel and Adrian are the dive shop proprietors and very nice people indeed.
Dive boat (super fast)
Coconut Beach from the dive shop
On our non-diving day (one day before flying) we went for a hike up Quaqua, the mountain in the middle of Grenada. The hike was great.
Hiking Quaqua
We also took a drive up to visit River Antoine’s Rivers Rum distillery (which actually makes Rhum Agricole just for the record). The drive was a great way to see more of the island, and the distillery itself is worth a look.
River’s Distillery is worth a visit
Five showerheads in an outdoor shower overlooking the ocean on a balmy morning for Laluna. Go!
The Cottages: St Croix: US Virgin Islands
March 24, 2016
It’s Spring Break time again, and if Eli is in charge (he is), that means diving. So it’s off to the US Virgin Islands and St Croix for a Caribbean adventure. No wait, life is too slow here for that word. Um, visit? Relaxation racket? Who knows. It’s certainly not the city!
And that’s a good thing, mind you. The island is lush and green. The water is that striking blue that comes in many shades according to depth and coral. The roads are just as bad as they should be (rent a jeep), and driving is on the left.
View of the Cottages from the beach
The Cottages are located outside of Frederiksted, a sleepy little town on the west side. The west side beaches are very nice indeed. If you’re here for the diving, the cottages are an excellent target. Like any ocean front beach rental, things are dated in a charming way. And there is reasonable net, which is always good.
View FROM the cottages (coconut)
We chose both coconut and sylvia’s room for our stay. Coconut is a second floor efficiency with a kitchen and a tiny bathroom. Sadly, the shower suffers from low water pressure and that ’80s “your parents” design. But it does offer a spectacular view.
Hmm. Should we just not mention the shower?
Then again, there is the view
Coconut
Sunsets are so nice on the west side of the island that people rate this particular one a 2 out of 10.
Of course, all is not perfect here in paradise. A few years back, the world’s second largest refinery (run by Hess) shut down abruptly, and 10,000 people lost their jobs and left the island. Hess left behind a massive ecological disaster in the way that only a large oil company can do. They shed a subsidiary and had it declare bankruptcy. Pretty awful Hess! Anyway, the island is still reeling from the after effect of that closure. Business now seems to have devolved to tourism only. And that is dragging the whole thing down market.
For example, just down the beach from the delightful cottages is this disaster of a prison for chickenshit tourists. Behind a barbed wire topped chain link fence. Astoundingly reeking of no class.
Prison for idiot tourists
And there is this, which seems to invade with regularity. The money is great I’m sure, but the herds? Not so much.
Nooooo! Not a cruise ship that holds 3000 people.
When the cruise ship is in town, everything opens and the streets are filed with vendors of shlock. Steel drum bands play. Tourists are quickly separated from their cash.
When the ship is out, the sidewalks roll up at 9 (well, at least the restaurants start cleanup mode and no longer serve food). More about that in a minute.
We’re here to dive, of course. And so our boat is a bit smaller.
Captain Kay drives the boat
N2 the Blue Dive Shop
NPS highly recommends N2 the Blue Dive Shop for some personal, friendly, and impeccable diving. Of our massive two shop sample, N2 the Blue is superior in all ways. (Our experience with Cane Bay Dive Shop was much looser, chaotic, and more random with a small chance of accidental death.) In particular as a newb myself, I really appreciated Haley Hendrickson’s teaching style. Learn from the best and avoid Darwin awards at all costs.
Haley (N2 the Blue)
Underwater in St Croix
The diving is great (and relentless when you are with Eli). Our dives:
The Pier – excellent life and a great dive
Sprat Hole – turtle
Swirling Reef of Death – coral farm working on stag’s horn coral
Shallow Wrecks – three big boats
The Pier
The Jungle (north side) – a nice deep wall with Cane Bay
Pavilions (north side) – wall and coral garden with Cane Bay
The Pier at Night – wild in the dark
Armageddon – nice pile of debris with associated wildlife
Little Mill Point – shallow wall with much coral (turtle)
Eli did the Pier at night again
Turtles All the Way Down
We’ve seen all sorts of everything: turtles, sharks (eating lion fish we killed), eels of all kinds, two kinds of lobster, many angel fish, crabs, seahorses, an octopus and more.
Haley also (N2 the Blue)
Lunch at Turtles Deli
Rhythm at Rainbow
So on to food. Well, it’s an island. There is some OK, and there is some spectacularly bad. Lets work our way up from the bottom of the barrel.
Beach Side Cafe (Sand Castle) it is next to the cottages, but bad music and bad food
Paradise they may be the only ones open, but skip it and go hungry instead.
Rum Runners like your mall restaurant, only more Disney. nope.
And finally above the waterline.
Norma’s way local in a touristy way. fun bar. get a Wednesday burger.
Turtle’s Deli great sandwiches and cold beer. grumpy owners…or maybe just Yankee expats.
Pier 69 great burgers and seriously quirky staff.
Lost Dog a local dive with OK pizza and lots of characters
Rhythms lunch and/or way early dinner. bar fare.
Savant upscale-ish with great atmosphere and decent fare (good wine)
Zion Modern Kitchen real food, and an actual world class cocktail program
Frank Robinson at Zion Modern made these.
Mystery Rum Cocktail
2 oz Angostura 1824 rum
.5 oz passion fruit
.5 lime
.5 bay leaf simple syrup
3 dashes angostura orange bitters
stir down. meanwhile sour orange swath and 5 dashes of angostura bitters in glass. ice. strain drink in. float with blackstrap rum.
Mr. Robinson, I presume
Experimental Gin Cocktail
1.5 oz bombay gin
.5 oz buddha’s hand infused bombay
1 inch think pineapple ring
.5 lime
splash st germaine
.5 simple syrup
tarragon sprig
muddle + pineapple juice in glass. top with ice. strain mix over ice.
On Friday we drove around in our jeep. Up the mountain, through the rain forest. The drive was beautiful. Everything was closed for Good Friday.
Rent a jeep from Centerline
Salt Cay is certainly off the beaten path. In fact, one of the only pernicious issues with a visit is the air schedule. M/W/F is pretty much it on the awesome Caicos Express airlines (unless you charter a plane for yourself). So good luck when your rhythm is constrained by the Virginia school system! But all in all, we seek out off the beaten path. Sand, salt ponds, diving, population 60, golf carts, nothing at all to do—perfection.
The Caicos Express Cesna (superb pilots all)
Salt Cay: a speck from space
Castaway is on the north beach up by the airport. Renting a buggy is recommended. Gary has the best deal (and he apparently plays a mean guitar too). Proprietors Haidee and Porter run a nice set of bungaloos.
Castaway from the beach
Inside castaway
Sadly, though the shower is phenomenal for Salt Cay (running water, clean, nice), it has a plastic shower curtain. Uh oh! We’ll pretend that didn’t happen.
Plastic curtain? Say it ain’t so.
But besides island donkeys and goats…
Salt Cay donkey
Island goat
there is this incredible Caribbean beach.
Sunset from Castaway
Of course, we really came as much for the diving as for the nothing. Deb’s dive shop is not only the island entertainment system, it’s restaurant Coral Reef is also the social hub of the island. But the real gem is Richard, the dive master. Buddha calm under water.
Richard the dive master
Coral Reef at Salt Cay Dive Shop
Breakwater cove
Prime dinner location
Sunset from the breakwater cove.
We had plenty of fun at Coral Reef. Google glass was a phenom (first set on the island). The people of Salt Cay are warm, fun, and a tight community.
Porter’s bar is also a fun place to carouse. And Island Thyme Restaurant (thanks to Lolli) is the best restaurant on the island. Lolli is a very good cook indeed. If they only kept regular hours…
Of course there are only three restaurants on all of Salt Cay, the other being Pat’s place. We tried them all. Pat is a retired school teacher with great stories of the island.
Karaoke night at Island Thyme after dinner? We’ll never tell.
Apol sings Karaoke
Porter’s secret rum punch recipe looks like this:
2 oz white rum
2 oz brown rum
1 oz coconut rum
splash of orange juice
splash of pineapple juice
2 t grenadine
float of Gosling’s family reserve
We tried to teach Porter some new drinks as we tend more toward interesting cocktails than quantity consumed. Will they stick? Lets hope so. There is a very good selection of ingredients available to work with.
Salt Cay is a great place to visit if you’re into roughing it and real Caribbean people. Want to do some nothing? Visit Salt Cay.
We leave you with this.
Salt Cay North Beach
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