St. John Vacation - Day 10

As I mentioned, we started the day with a flat tire (poor D).

We eventually got to leave the house and head to our daily Starfish Market trip 

where we bought our daily sandwich.  By the time we left it was raining and the skies were blanketed in thick, black clouds... not a very promising looking day for our last full day on St. John... BOO!

With the rain coming down fairly vigorously, we decided that our plans of basking in the glorious sun on a favorite beach was not in the cards right then.

So we took off down a new direction (more exploring) and decided 

to hike to Waterlemon Bay where Waterlemon Cay is (WaterLEMON, not melon and Cay is always pronounced "Key").

The hike was over a mile each way.

It was raining so we stripped down to just swimsuits... we didn't bring towels or chairs or anything... just snorkel gear and a couple bottles of water.

We hiked through the dripping greenery along the coast on a narrow trail at beach level.  It was actually a little chilly and VERY wet.

We met some people leaving and they said the snorkeling was good and worth it, so we were heartened.

We got in the water as soon as we got to the little sandy and rocky inlet.

Almost immediately, we saw a sea turtle munching on the sea grass.

We could get VERY close and watch him munch.  He seemed unperturbed by our presence.  Seeing him was GREAT!  He was the first sea turtle of the trip.

We also got to see a lot of great fish, as usual... but the other highlight was the sting ray.  Cool!

When we were done, we hiked back.

The rain had stopped by this point although it was still very gray and dark.

We went to Maho bay (with our good friends, the chickens) and spent the rest of the day there reading, napping, eating, filming, etc.

The sun peeked out in spurts - but it was never the glorious day we had hoped for.

(Although we DID we see two rays frolicking in the really shallow water of our bay right before we left.)

When the noseeums started biting, it was time to leave.

We popped by Starfish again on the way home and bought stuff for dinner (sometimes it is just too much work to go back out).

D has a meeting in town tonight.

I'll probably make dinner.

Tomorrow we pack up and leave here and head over to STT for the day.

Day 4 Continued

We packed sandwiches at the house today and headed out around 10:45 or so.  We read about the beaches on the far east end of the island and looked over the road map, packed up the ice chest and jeep and headed out.

We took a long, winding, green & lush road across the entire island to Coral Bay.  

Through town we came upon donkeys 

and goats roaming the roads.  At one point there was a goat herd of a couple HUNDRED goats (I got the video camera out in time, but not the still camera. Boo!) ... pretty funny!

We then veered South and went to Little Lameshur Bay and Salt Pond Bay.  These were down long, unpaved, rocky roads that you really needed 4wd for... the jeep came in handy.  We snorkeled at Lameshur and Dad (D) got the hang of the cheapo underwater camera we bought at Starfish market.  About 20 people at this beach.  Mostly an older, retiree crowd.

Thunder boomed in the distance and some big clouds rolled in so we took that as our cue to head out.  We went to Salt Pond and hiked down to the bay (about 10 minutes).  It was steep and rocky.  This was a nice little bay.  A little rocky.  Only about 20 or so people there... a lot of hikers.  We were there just long enough to take a dip then hiked back and it started raining.

We took this opportunity to drive to the far East End in search of Hansen Bay.  We FOUND it but it was all barbed wired in and had 'no trespassing' signs.  We did a few u-turns but couldn't figure out HOW to actually GO to this little beach.  We stopped at Vie's Snack Shack to ask and found that you COULD go to this beach for $2.50 per person.  This little beach had been owned by Vie's family since 1894 (or something like that).  We walked through the little gate, through the small, above-ground cemetery (complete with basketball hoop???) 

and onto the small but lovely shore.  We snorkeled and saw a little troop of 18 squid staring at us as they floated together.  We met a couple from the Jersey Shores who owns a place on the island.  They told Mom (me) about a couple "secret" beaches we will visit in the coming days.  They also pointed us to some good snorkeling spots.  Although it seems to kind of be a dormant season, it was still great.

We came back to the house, showered and went out to La Tapa for paella.  On the way back to to the car, we stopped and watched a local soft ball game... it looked like maybe employees from 2 separate companies battling it out... we watched an inning.

Now we are back at the house to watch a movie and hit the hay.  We are beat from a LONG day at the beach & exploring (haha!).

Nightie Night!