St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
When I was 8, we moved to the island of St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands. Our house was on a hill overlooking Teague Bay and the St. Croix Yacht Club, and our front yard went down to the beach. (Our house is the U-shaped one in the middle of the picture where the bay dips in the farthest.)
This was obviously before the days of mini vans. You should have seen the lot of us driving to church in this little Mini Moke on a rainy Sunday morning!
A mango and lime tree grew in the courtyard along with papayas and poinsettias. The entire north side and half of the east side of the house was floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over the bay toward Buck Island.
One of the most entertaining (and, looking back, really stupid!) things we liked to do is to go out to "Grassy Point" on the south east shore when storms blew up during hurricane season and cling to the rocks while the pounding waves washed over us!
Yes, we roamed around barefoot whenever we weren't in school, and often lived in our bathing suits, but we did at least get haircuts occasionally.
Yes, I was a ham at times... But I loved that balcony. I don't know if it was because of the tradewinds, or the nights I would sit there under the starlit sky and listen to the sweet, rhythmic clanging of the halyards on the boats in the bay.
Or maybe the breakfasts on New Years' morning after we'd been the first people under the American flag to see the sunrise for the new year (out on the rocky eastern end of the island.)
(I was 10 in this picture.)
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