27 July 2011

I checked the traps at 6:00 AM so that we could go to Buck Island today. We captured four animals: two adult females (one very old with very worn teeth) and two adult males, one of which was a recapture from two previous trips. We also captured that same white Siamese cat in the same area as yesterday and the same area as last March. This cat appears in good health for an animal living on the refuge.

We sailed on the Renegade with Big Beard to Buck Island today which means it took over an hour to cross from Christiansted to Buck Island. During this excursion we were privileged to see five green sea turtles. It seems that Buck Island has a very interesting history concerning its name and use. The island was originally forested with lignum vitae trees which have dark green leaves and was originally listed on maps made by French mapmakers as Isle Vert (c.f., Oh, Ranger!). The first Danish maps identified it as Pocken-Eyland, which means green island in Danish. However, German was the language of educated Europeans at the time, and Pockholz means lignum vitae. A later set of maps identified the island as Bockeneyland. All the lignume vitae trees were harvested from the island and goats were introduced in the late 1700s and Bock means ram-goat in Dutch. By the early 1800s English maps listed the name as Buck Island. The above information is similar to that provided by Gordon, Captain of the Renegade, and because it is generally consistent I suspect that the overall theme is reasonably accurate.

Buck island and the east end of St. Croix are greener than I have ever seen them as you can see in the images below.

Buck Island as seen from the Renegade	East End of St. Croix as seen from the Renegade
George, Logan, and Jonathan on the Renegade leaving Christiansted Harbor