“I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face an increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent - I remember this number - one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will - some of them will disappear.

Steven Chu, American scientist

My husband and I often get bitten by the travel bug and this year we wanted to explore somewhere we’d never been as part of our wedding anniversary celebration. Due to commitments, we had only a short period for a getaway, so a Caribbean island only a few hours from Florida, seemed a good choice. With a little research, we booked a hotel for five nights on Saint Croix and were able to get a flight there from Fort Lauderdale. Saint Croix is one of the Leeward Islands in the  Caribbean Sea and is part of the  United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States.

The island has had an interesting, if chaotic, history. It was inhabited by several indigenous groups in previous centuries and had different names. Its Taino name was Ay Ay ("the river"). Its Carib name was Cibuquiera ("the stony land"). From 1625 on, the island was ruled at various times by Dutch, English, French, and Spanish settlers until 1695 when it was abandoned and lay uninhabited for many years. In 1733, the Danish West India Company bought Saint Croix. For nearly 200 years, Saint Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John were known as the Danish West Indies. In 1916, Denmark sold those islands to the United States. Formal transfer to the U.S. took place on 1 April 1917. The island's inhabitants were granted United States citizenship in 1927.

We picked up our rental car at Henry E. Rohlsen Airport upon arrival. Though it was set up like any U.S. car with a left-side steering column, the island requires that you drive on the left side of the road—odd for a U.S. territory. My husband opted to be the driver and relied on me to navigate and keep reminding him to keep left on turns. It took some getting used to, but he did well despite narrow, winding, and hilly roads.

Our hotel on Grapetree Bay was lovely but quite a distance from either of the island’s two towns, Christiansted being ten miles away and Frederiksted twenty-five miles. Thus, restaurants and shops were not within walking distance, but some were worth the drive. I would highly recommend Susan Mango, a women’s clothing boutique in Christiansted. It specializes in “island style” items and supports indigenous businesses around the world run by women. One dinner restaurant that we enjoyed was Duggan’s Reef, set on pretty grounds overlooking Teagues Bay, east of Christiansted. A white fish in passionfruit sauce that we had there was memorable. We had a nice catfish lunch at the Beachside Café at Sandcastle on the Beach in Fredericksted, and the Christiansted waterfront had quite a few eating places to choose from.

Though we had a seafront room at our hotel, we were on the rocky south shore and the good swimming beaches were on the north shore, requiring long drives to reach them. The hotel does have a great pool though. Some nice sand beaches that we found for swimming and snorkeling were Cane Bay in the north, the Fredericksted beachfront on the western side, and Cramer Park toward the northeastern point. The latter is on the way to Point Udall, the easternmost point in the United States of America.

Saint Croix has taken a beating over the years due to hurricanes. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo struck the island with Category 4 winds. The U.S. Army, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshals Service restored order. The island is still showing some of the effects of Category 5 Hurricane Maria which hit in September 2017. Sustained winds of 150 mph and gusts of up to 250 mph damaged or destroyed 70% of the buildings on St. Croix, including schools and the island's only hospital. Many buildings in the main towns have still not been rebuilt.

Since Maria hit the west side the hardest, Christiansted, the former capital of the Danish West Indies, is faring better than Fredericksted. Though reconstruction is ongoing, Christiansted has preserved many of the 18th-century solid stone buildings in pastel colors with bright red tile roofs lining the cobblestone sidewalks. They combine Danish architectural style and African influences because the town was constructed by African slaves.

Saint Croix is an island of haves and have-nots. There are simple dwellings in the valleys and multi-million-dollar homes on the hillsides. It also seems to be a place that attracts diverse people from the mainland U.S. looking to leave old lives behind and start fresh in a tropical setting. We met a teacher from Seattle working at an island elementary school whose library was destroyed by the last hurricane, a singer who left the Midwest to entertain island-style, a waiter from Michigan with a degree in advertising and a minor in English hoping to write a book, a woman from Buffalo, New York swapping lake-effect snow for sunshine and warmth, and an artist from Maine working in a shop and exhibiting in a Christiansted gallery. They all seemed happy with their decisions.

On our last day on the island, we stopped at Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve. Columbus landed there in November 1493 and immediately was attacked by the Kalinago tribe. It was the first recorded fight between Spanish explorers and a New World native population. The Spanish never colonized the Island but most or all of the native population was eventually dispersed or killed. Columbus did leave one lasting thing on the island, however. He named it Isla de la Santa Cruz (meaning "island of the Holy Cross”), which the French translated to Sainte-Croix The French name was partially retained under Danish rule as Sankt Croix and the island was finally given its current spelling, Saint Croix, following the US takeover.