We visited St. Croix for 9 days and did enjoy the island. Stayed at the Carrington Inn-- small, clean, great breakfasts and the innkeepers are very nice and accommodating. We enjoyed the trips/sightseeing we did-- Buck Island snorkel tour with Big Beard, Kayak tour with Virgin Kayak and visiting the Cruzan Rum plant and St. George Botanical Garden (excellent if you love gardening and plants!). The beaches were plentiful. Sandy Point and Cane Beach were the ones we went to that we would return to...

Unfortunately the last 4 hours of our trip did not go the way we would have hoped! We were on the way to the airport with all of our baggage in the trunk and stopped at Off the Wall restaurant in Cane Bay for lunch... while enjoying the view and our last lunch on the island a thief/thieves stole 3 of our carry-on bags from our locked trunk... we did not discover this until we arrived at the airport. We were shocked to see that the bags were missing, our check-in luggage was still there and the box of 6 bottles of Cruzan Rum still there. We could not believe our eyes... we only stopped at the restaurant to have lunch and then gassed up the car on the way to the airport. We reported the bags stolen immediately with the Police.

Inside the bags were an orange Olympus underwater camera, an iPod Nano, car/house keys, passports (we've learned now to carry them with us at all times if they are not locked in the hotel room safe!), jewelry- nothing expensive, but many items irreplaceable, a camera lens for the camera that I had on me, filters for the camera and battery chargers, our change of clothing for when we got home-- to a chilly 42 deg., and a few magazines and books.

We checked into our flight and used our drivers licenses to check in and go through security-- the officer came through the process with us to make sure everything went OK. While in the gate with 20 minutes until our flight was to board a man called on my cell phone and questioned if I was missing some bags... he had found them in the street at the entrance to Salt River Marina, picked them up, looked through them and found contact info. He delivered them to the airport entrance where I met him and got the bags back... yes, the camera and iPod were gone along with 5 necklaces, but the passports, car/house keys, lenses & filters, clothing and magazines were all still there.

In all of the trips we have taken to various islands for the past 10+ years we have not had any issues... next time we will be more vigilant and I want to warn others about theft in this area of St. Croix!

I just want to ad that I have found numerous reports in various forums, as well as on Trip Advisor and have heard from residents of St. Croix of theft at Off the Wall. We are not alone and I hope the police are working on these cases to make the isalnd safer. St. Croix is a beautiful island and we will return.

And yes we are very thankful for the man who took the time to drive our bags to the airport-- we cannot thank him enough!