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.

Sun and Sand - Day 5

We started out with two rooms that were several rooms apart. We had talked the hotel into upgrading us to ocean-view rooms so we weren't really complaining, but they were able to move my parents into an adjoining room after 2 nights. We had a king size bed and a rollaway bed in each room.

I was a little concerned about how the kids would sleep, but they were so exhausted that they would fall asleep pretty quickly. Rudy would play with his planes for a few minutes before passing out.

Morning-time cuddles:

We headed out fairly early again, this time to Coki Beach. It was rumored to be the best snorkeling on the island. After disappointing snorkels at Magen's Bay and the hotel, we really had our fingers crossed. It met our expectations and more! A lot of people feed the fish here (the vendors sell dog bones for precisely this purpose!), so the fish swim right up to you as soon as you wade in. The coral was amazing - bright oranges and reds, deep purples, flourescent blues. Tons of huge sea fans. And many many fish - barracuda, angel fish, parrotfish...I could go on and on! We couldn't convince Brady to snorkel, but he did at least put on his mask and put his face in the water to see the sargeant majors and parrotfish.

And - yet again - another giant hole in the sand :)


It rained on us off and on the whole time we were at Coki Beach. It wasn't enough to get us off the beach, but we were pretty wet and somewhat frazzled by the time we left. We headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up before heading to Red Hook to check out Duffy's Love Shack. We'd read and heard a lot about this place - the best parking lot bar in the world. As much as Coki Beach exceeded our expectations...Duffy's did NOT. The waitress was rude, the music was way too loud (how old am I?!?), and service was slow (even by Caribbean standards!). We slurped our beers quickly and headed somewhere else for dinner.

We strolled through the marina after dinner before stopping for ice cream at the market.
Back at the hotel, we took a minute for some quick shots before turning in for the night.

Sun and Sand - Day 4

Today, we headed out pretty early to Magen's Bay. It's a private beach in a quiet bay of turquoise water. We built yet another giant hole in the sand for the kids. I'm not sure why this activity was SO much fun for them, but they loved it! They would play with their fish dive sticks, throwing them into the hole. Or, they'd pretend that they had a diving board or water slide to get into the hole.

We explored the nature trail after lunch. It was very poorly marked, so we didn't go as far as we might have with some sort of map or trail guide, but it was still a nice change to be in the shade and explore the "jungle".
We detoured to MountainTop on the way back. It's basically a tourist mall with spectacular views of Magen's bay and the British Virgin Islands from the mountains (about 1200 feet above sea level).

Driving back down, we had views of the harbor. From our hotel, on the far left point, we could watch these cruise ships come in and leave every day.

My parents babysat the boys so James and I could go out to dinner by ourselves that night. We drove into Havensight and found a happy hour at a restaurant on the water with live music and cheap frozen drinks! (Although, I couldn't indulge too much - something about having to drive home on the LEFT side of the road keeps one motivated to limit alcohol intake!)
Oma, Papa, Brady, and Rudy didn't miss us too much. They found a pizza place and apparently kept busy coloring pictures while they waited.

When we all got back that night, we had a rousing pom-pom hunt (think easter egg hunt, but more portable!). We took turns hiding for the boys and then they would hide for James and me.

Sun and Sand - Day 3

We had another hard day! Spent the morning at our pool and beach:
That afternoon, we took a drive up to the Secret Harbor beach. Rudy fell asleep in the car and was so tired that he continued to nap for a couple hours on the beach.

The adults all got to go snorkeling - we saw a ton of fish, a couple of squid, and a sea turtle. We wrapped it up in time to see a spectacular sunset.