Uni, Lovebugs, and Goats

St. John, Virgin Islands. Animals everywhere! Families of chickens roam all the parking lots.

These scary but beautiful bugs were crawling around my head on the beach at Cinnamon Bay. The pattern on their backs looks painted on. The park ranger said they were "lovebugs" but that sounds kind of made up and not the official name I was looking for. Maybe they're called lovebugs because they're always in these big swarming piles, "loving" each other, if you catch my drift.

One day, I was forced to go on a hike. After climbing over giant sharp rocks around the shore and making our way up the mountain, we got to this old sugar mill. It was built in the early 1800's. Horses would run in circles around the horse mill (still standing, amazingly) which powered a cane crusher, sending pure sugar cane juice pouring down the troughs to be boiled and turned into sugar. The mill was later powered by steam engine.

Behind the sugar mill ruins are these huge hermit crabs. Thousands of them crawl around the horse mill. They're so big you can actually hear them breaking branches and weeds as they walk.

The facility was also a rum distillery. Rum (and a few beers) are the only thing that St. John produces. They grow no produce and make nothing else to export. You expect tropical places to have fresh wonderful fruit, but everything on the island is shipped in from the mainland, making shopping for fresh stuff hugely expensive. Let's take out a loan for some watermelon!

The island seems to only recycle aluminum cans. I guess this is how they recycle their cardboard.
They really do eat anything. Also, have you ever heard a baby goat say "Baaa"? It sounds like a little human child pretending to be a goat. It has to be the most accurate "what does the animal say" I have ever heard. They really say "Ba-a-a-a-a".

And now. The most awesome part of the trip. Walking along our empty beach on the first day, we saw hundreds of little sea urchins in the water. Uni! We picked a few up and examined them, wondering if there were the kind that make the succulent, briny, sweet orange goo. The first few were very nice. I touched them, they wiggled, I put them back. Then I found the big daddy sea urchin. I swayed a piece of seaweed above him to watch his needles move, and he poked me. I deserved it, I know. A chunk broke off in my finger, but what was scary was the dark blue color seeping under my skin - sea urchin ink. We vowed to eat him the next day. We went out with a metal spatula, pried him (or a relative, they look so much alike really) and plucked him up, along with a few others. Beautiful, right?
I watched a video on how to take them apart. It was gross and bloody and black oozy. And I felt really bad about it. Then I got past it and we cracked into it and took out the good parts.
And they were so not good. They looked right, but tasted rotten and fishy and not at all like the delicate golden uni you eat at restaurants. So we apologized to the one we killed, and gently placed the rest back in the ocean.

Also, obligatory pretty ocean shot. This is Cinnamon Bay, by far my favorite of all the many bays.