St. John Vacation - Day 8

Yesterday was an exploring day.

We 4 wheeled up Bordeaux Mountain road.

It was a little precarious, but D is an AWESOME drive, so I really felt very safe.

We came upon a septic pump truck (STINKY!!!) that was blocking the NARROW dirt road (we were wondering how HE made it up there???)... he had to back up to let us through.

We got a tiny bit lost, but it is pretty impossible to stay lost on a small island... and a lady who live up there pointed the way.  

We went to Skinny's (Skinny Legs) for lunch.

Known for their excellent burgers (in all the guide books).

After, we tried to go to Vie's beach again, but it was

 CLOSED... her personal, private beach is closed Sundays and Mondays... go figure?

We decided that as long as we had made the hour long trip to the east side of the island, we should stay over there and find a beach.

We went to Salt Pond Bay again and swam & read for about 2 hours, then the no-see-ums started to come out and bite, so we headed back to the jeep and drove home.

We decided to stop by Fish Bay before going home and look at a lot for sale (cheapest lot on the island)... we didn't actually find it yet, but we DID run into two ladies out walking their french bulldogs who asked us if we wanted to see something cool.

Of course we said YES!

They gave us directions (turn right, find deserted, brown, psycho house, find narrow path, 5 minutes to the beach).

We drove around for probably 1/2 hour TRYING to make sense of her directions.

Is THAT the psycho house?

No!... it can't be.  Could THAT be the trail?  No... it can't be. etc.

We finally DID find it and it was BARELY visible from the road... maybe 2 feet wide.

We couldn't BELIEVE this could be it.

But sure enough, a few yards down into the steep tree tunnel, there was a Virgin Islands National Park sign!!!!!!!  It was almost like they didn't want you to find this trail, but if you did, THEN they would tell you it was part of the park system. 

 Crazy!

So we climbed down the 5 minutes and were on this ENORMOUS deserted beach (Reef Bay).  We were the only people on it.

We had wanted to go there, but the only route was a 3 mile hike down (and 3 miles back up!)... so we thought we wouldn't get to see it.

It was beautiful... there were crashing waves and lovely white sand.

(And this REALLY secret trail to this beach made our other secret beaches seem like imposters - haha.)

Came home.  Made dinner.  Watched a movie.

Ahhhhh.

I'll write about today in a little while.