They decided to plan a return trip, so they could show all this beauty to their parents. We are blessed to share this trip with our son and daughter-in-law, and her parents. What a great group! We feel so honored that it was this young couple's idea to share this island with their parents!
With all that background information, we're on track to explain how to get to the island of St. John. It's one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, so no passport is required for this trip. We boarded the airplane in Oklahoma City very early this morning, and after two flights we landed on the island of St. Thomas. This is a small airport, where passengers still walk down the steps and across the tarmac into the airport.
St. Thomas is also one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and it would surely be a delightful destination. But our travel day isn't over. We picked up our rental car, and then boarded the ferry. The picture below shows the cars leaving the ferry we will soon drive onto. Kudos to Mark, who has already driven across the island of St. Thomas (on the left side of the road). Now he must back our rental car up that steep ramp backwards into a tight spot on a floating ship.
The water is a beautiful blue here in the Caribbean, and the views off St. Thomas are stunning. While temperatures were in the 30's this morning when we left Oklahoma City, we arrived to a humid 80 degrees on the islands.
It's a twenty-minute ferry ride from St. Thomas to our destination for the week--the island of St. John. It's exciting to see the island silhouette appear on the horizon.
Mark's down at the car level of the ferry, getting his first view of our new little home town of Cruz Bay.
The sun is setting on this long day, as we have traveled via car, plane, and boat across two time zones to get to St. John today.
We were met on the island by an escort to show us to our villa. Blake found a place with a great location and view.
We share a swimming pool with a few other units in the complex, but we never saw anyone else using the pool or taking in these views from the top of Battery Hill.
We were anxious for the next morning, to get our first look at the beaches that we had heard so much about. The views did not disappoint! We pulled off for our first look of Trunk Beach, which is consistently ranked as one of the best in the world.
We're heading to Maho Beach today, because of its reputation for getting to snorkel with sea turtles. We were up early this morning, and we had the beach to ourselves when we arrived.
It didn't take us long to get our snorkel gear on and head into the water. We immediately started seeing sea life. We saw sting rays, sea turtles, and a myriad of brightly colored fish. We found a 5-foot sting ray, and smaller ones with fish catching a ride on their outstretched "wings." The sea turtles didn't disappoint, and we swam with some up to four foot across. The sea coral at Maho Point is the best we have ever seen. How thrilling it is to share the water with all these creatures! Our underwater camera immediately went on the fritz, so we have no pictures of the underwater wonders we found today. But it was the best snorkeling we have ever experienced anywhere!
The water is perfectly clear, and the winds were calm so the conditions were at their best for seeing clearly underwater. Have we mentioned how much we appreciate our son for making all the plans that made this vacation possible?
Trees line the beach, and we found a shaded place to stay out of the sun and to hang our snorkel equipment to dry.
We snorkeled several hours, wandering God's underwater wonders. Then we spent time enjoying the beach, where we took way too many pictures. After traveling for years with guys, Denisa thinks it's fun to take pictures with the girls on this vacation.
After enjoying the morning at Maho Beach, we moved a mile down the road to Cinnamon Bay for the afternoon. This is the largest beach on St. John, and we could walk or swim almost a mile from end to end.
Patrolling the parking lot is one of the resident roosters that live on St. John. He was taking his guard duties very seriously.
Because it is the largest beach on the island, we had plenty of room to fly a kite. Cinnamon Bay also has some great snorkeling along its rocky edges. We swam out to the cay and snorkeled all the way around this little island to find more interesting fish and sea life.
Just across the road is the Cinnamon Bay Nature Trail, so of course the Engelmans took the half-mile hike. It started at the ruins of a sugar mill that once was part of the biggest business on this island.
The old stone work of the sugar mill is lovely draped in tropical vines and studded with palmettos.
Hidden in the forest, we found reminders of the life here in the 1700s. We also found reminders of death here when our trail took us through the community cemetery. Because of the low water table, all burials are above ground.
Our nature trail hike included signs that described the forest plants. Denisa is standing between two bay rum trees. We found that another industry of these Caribbean islands is the production of rum from the aromatic leaves of these very tall trees.
Termites love the moist surroundings and ready supply of wood. They form massive termite nests that often engulf a group of trees.
We went snorkeling for most of four hours today, and enjoyed two of the prettiest beaches we have ever seen in our lives. As we packed up our chairs and headed to the villa, we all agreed it had been a great first day in paradise.
Thanks again to our children for inviting us into their little slice of paradise, as we get to wander God's wonders with them in St. John!
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