When my wife told me to get reservations to hear some little girl (at 61 years of age and 260 pounds, any female under 30 and 150 pounds is a little girl), I thought she was daft. Being a good guy with three days until St. Valentine’s celebration, I acquiesced.
GOOD THING!
Promptly at 6 o'clock Friday evening we drove to Coki Point and Coral World. It had been ages since we visited this attraction, with several buildings and a lake springing up. It seems the Renaissance is blessed with several lakes along their perimeter.
Passing Coki Point I couldn’t help thinking about the latest altercation. Seeing the mess we call one of our supposedly premiere beaches, I couldn’t help thinking: 1. Who maintains this garbage dump? and 2. Someone should shoot drivers for taking tourists to this mess.
Then we came to Coral World. Thank God for private enterprise. What a delight! What a nice, clean, pretty, interesting showpiece for our islands!
Entering the grounds we were met by a pleasant, charming security guard directing parking. Approaching the ticket booth we were impressed by the extremely decorative rockwork; obviously done with love and pride.
Following a cheery interlude sipping a good wine, sampling a cheese for any palate and chatting with friends we hadn’t seen in an age, we were treated to a most informative hour of slides and discussion concerning a most interesting creature — the sea horse fish.
For openers; I did not realize the sea horse was a fish. Furthermore, I am most impressed it matures in weeks, breeds prodigiously (150+ babies the first shot and up to 450 when it hits its stride), eats its weight in miniscule shrimp every day, is monogamous, and is almost constantly reproducing.
Finally, while the female produces the eggs, it is the male who carries them. This and much more was convincingly related by the aquarium’s curator.
Following the lecture, we all trouped to the main exhibit hall to view the various underwater creatures indigenous to the Caribbean. Included with the sea horse exhibit was a fish who carried his young in his mouth, several small lobsters, puffers, angel fish, little eels, a bigger eel, etc., etc., etc., all very well presented in their respective tanks.
We proceeded to the tower for a look at the fish in the open water of Coki Bay, then back for a “behind the scenes” visit with tanks of new sea horse babies.
Finally we visited the Reef Exhibit with my favorite eating fish and a lobster out on a jaunt who wasn’t taking any stuff from a manta ray.
Upon leaving the facility we met the evening guard. Another most friendly young person who made us welcome and filled with good will as we drove away, promising to return.
During the day, there are several different venues for food, a good-sized shark tank, a touchy/feely tank with conch and starfish, and a very well-done mangrove bed.
What a perfect place for young people to learn about the sea around them. There is a workshop for children Sunday mornings at a cost of $10 to members and $22 to nonmembers, which includes the morning activities and a snack. What a great place for a Scout troupe.
Thank you, Trudie Prior and staff, for a venue we can take our visitors to with pride, knowing they will experience the best.
Editor's note: Kirk Grybowski, who retired recently after 31 years with the V.I. government, is a regular contributor to St. Thomas Source.
