Adventure to St. John

For my parents' Christmas present, James and I 'gave' them a day trip to St. John. We headed out early again (early on vacation being about 9 am) to catch the ferry over. Once there, we rented SUVs. We had a long list of things we wanted to do, but the car rental place closed at 5 and we had to cut it short. We limited ourselves to snorkeling and swimming at Cinnamon Bay and the Salt Pond beach, with only quick stops at Maho Bay and Hawksnest. We all agreed that we want to come back someday and camp at the national park, with enough days to visit each beach for a full day.

At Cinnamon Bay, we first took a short hike through the forest to see the old sugar plantation ruins.
At the beach, we took turns snorkeling out to a small 'island' in the bay. The boys kept the non-snorkelers busy...you guessed it...digging another giant hole in the sand!


After a quick picnic lunch on the beach, we drove over to Salt Pond. It's not exactly a leisurely Sunday drive - the roads are insanely curvy, with the added excitement of driving on the wrong side of the road. Oh - and watching out for "wild" animals - roaming goats, chickens, and donkeys that like to appear out of the underbrush on the roadsides.
The kids were apparently pretty done with the sun by now. They were happy playing in the sand in the shade.
We did coax Brady out to climb on the rocks by the water. There were lots of little tidepools with small blennies and hermit crabs. This is what appeared to be the world's smallest hermit crab - about the size of the tip of his pinky finger:
The snorkeling here was a bit of a swim, but we saw larger fish and bigger coral. My dad found a couple live conchs and brought them back for the kids to see.
It was nearing 5:00, so we headed back to Cruz Bay to turn in the rental cars. It was a little tense, trying to find a gas station and get back in time, but we made it. We stationed me in a small park with Rudy and all of our gear (we were carting a large beach bag, cooler, snorkel gear, two backpacks, and two car seats!) while the others went to check out restaurants. Rudy was enthralled with the local man who had a little black dog and wore a hermit crab on a necklace!
We picked a quiet beach-side bar for dinner. With the prospect of a leisurely dinner and a ferry ride, I finally tried a few tasty drinks (rum punch and a bushwacker...mmm) with dinner. We watched the sun set over St. Thomas before boarding the ferry back.