We enjoyed a six-day vacation with our son and daughter-in-law and her parents in the paradise of the island of St. John. One day, the rest of our travel companions rented a boat to take them to see some of the British Virgin Islands, and to do some deeper water snorkeling.
Without her glasses, Denisa can't see much during a deeper dive, so we opted for shore snorkeling at four different locations that day. We hiked a mile along the shore of Leinster Bay, so we could swim out to Waterlemon Cay. Some of the best rock formations and coral can be found around these islands found within swimming distance from the shore. On the hike back to the car, we made two different snorkel stops in Waterlemon Bay.
Later, we drove the car further east to the less-traveled section of St. John. All of the roads on this little island are narrow and winding. But the further east we drove, we lost the center line and often wondered what we would do if we met another car. Even though this is in the U.S. Virgin Islands, they drive on the left side of the road. Mark has driven on the opposite side of the road in different foreign countries, but always in a car with a steering wheel on the opposite side as well. Our rental car here was a U.S. vehicle with the steering wheel on the left. So that puts the driver hugging the outside line of the highway, and the front seat passenger meeting oncoming cars at the center line. That can take your breath away on these narrow roads!
Our last stop of the day was Haulover Beach, where we didn't take any pictures but spent another hour snorkeling in the water. We had planned to go on a six-mile hike today, but changed our plan after we experienced the tropical heat and the intensity of the sun so close to the equator. We are used to 10+ mile hikes in the mountains, but we aren't used to this kind of heat. So we opted for water activities to keep us cool. In this eastern section of the island we found mangrove trees that are unique in that they thrive in the salt water.
Because a bad sunburn can ruin a beach vacation, we are being careful to protect our skin from the intense rays here. Denisa's favorite souvenir is the long-sleeve UV shirt she bought on the island, and is wearing in the picture above. Likewise, Mark always wore his UV head covering that also protected his neck while snorkeling.
This drive-around day also took us to more areas that suffered damage in the hurricanes of 2017. We saw places continuing to rebuild, but we also passed by many structures that have been abandoned since the devastation of the category 5 storm.
It's not unusual to see cars that are no longer driveable, permanently parked on the side of the road. The island doesn't seem to have the infrastructure to remove large items, so it waits for the jungle to grow over junk vehicles.
Even in the most touristy village of Cruz Bay, we found popular beach-side restaurants that still haven't been able to rebuild after two years.
On our third evening, we experienced one of the unexpected parts of island life. We were finishing our meal at an open-air restaurant, enjoying the live music of a local band, when suddenly everything went dark. We heard some private generators in the distance roar to life, but most of our little village remained dark for the rest of the evening. The musicians were used to this occurrence, as they switched to their battery-back-up speakers and continued to sing in the dark.
Upon check-in at our villa, we were warned that if the electricity went off we couldn't use our electric-pumped water either. Parts of three different evenings we didn't have water, so we scrambled to take showers when it came back on. We found that even in an island paradise, the infrastructure lags behind what we have come to expect in the United States.
Our last day was spent at the group's favorite beach--Maho.
Not only is it easily accessible from the road, but it also provides good shade and plenty of trees to hang our snorkel gear.
We started the day with a four-hour snorkel that took us around Maho point, and all the way across Francis Bay. Winds had kicked up, leaving us with more sand in the water. The underwater visibility was less on our last day, but we were still thrilled with the sightings of sea turtles, stingrays, and a myriad of fish. This beach seems to be patrolled by a young nurse shark that we could picture from the shore.
Since this is our last day on the island, we even opted for a little time in the sun without our usual reef-friendly sun screen. We didn't want to come home from a week-long beach vacation looking pale!
Have we mentioned how much we appreciate our son and daughter-in-law planning this trip for their parents?!?
In between snorkeling in the ocean, we were entertained by the wildlife on the shore. The pelicans kept diving head-first into the water right in front of us, and we could see them swallowing their catch.
Then they flew on down the beach, watching for their next fish meal.
Right in front of us, a ghost crab kept popping out of his hole--watching us from those eyes positioned high on stalks.
He didn't appreciate our snorkel gear so close, as he threw sand on top of a pool noodle that we used as a flotation device while snorkeling.
The wild donkeys also hang out near this beach, grazing on the tall grass right beside the road.
We took a picture with the donkeys and our son, to show how close the road is to this easily-accessible Maho Beach.
We finished our day with a hike up to the top of Peace Hill. The ruins of the old windmill were lit up by the setting sun.
It seemed like a good place to take our last group picture of the trip.
Have we mentioned what a great vacation we are having, and how much we appreciate this young couple inviting us along?
We got back into town just in time to watch our final sunset over the beach in Cruz Bay.
We had a full moon that night, as we took a picture from our pool deck. Even with a few hiccups, it has surely been a vacation in paradise!
We really enjoyed snorkeling every day during our six-day vacation on St. John! We found the best coral and sea life of anywhere we have snorkeled, and the beaches are pristine.
Most of the island is protected from private ownership that leads to building fancy beach resorts. That's because most of this 20-square-mile island and all the best beaches are part of the Virgin Islands National Park. We are fans of the U.S. national park system, so it was fun to get to enjoy another beautiful park on this vacation. We went to the visitor center to get good advice on places not to miss while we are visiting. You know it's a great location when you can drive-up or boat-up to the visitor center
Just outside that visitor center, Denisa took more pictures of the wild chickens that thrive in the tropics. This mother hen was teaching her chicks how to literally scratch out a living.
We spent the next few days visiting a beautiful parade of national park beaches. We spent time at Trunk Bay Beach, which consistently shows up on the list of best beaches in the world.
We made the one-mile hike through the rain forest where we had Salomon Beach all to ourselves. Most visitors prefer a beach that is easier to get to, so a little effort will get you a private pristine beach. From there, we snorkeled around the rocky point to get to Honeymoon Beach as well.
We loved wandering God's wonders under the water! Even though our underwater camera went on the fritz the first day, we are glad to say that our son and daughter-in-law's camera did well. They took lots of videos as we snorkeled. Mark magically captured still pictures from the videos to share on the blog. We lost some quality from this conversion, but we still wanted to share some of the pictures.
Swimming with sea turtles is amazing, as these docile creatures are easy to find and content to stay in one spot grazing. We even found families of turtles. We discovered that it was best to watch these creatures from the back, because every few minutes they must surface for air. It's a little scary for one of these 3-4 foot turtles to head straight towards you in their quest to get air.
This big turtle was deeper, but it's interesting to see the yellow fish attached to his back. These are called remora (or sucker fish), and they attach themselves for a free ride around the ocean floor.
We also found sting rays gliding along the sea floor.
Just like turtles, the sting rays attract fish that like to hitch a free ride.
Another interesting creature is the big-eyed squid. They always seem to travel in groups. One time we found nine traveling in a perfectly-straight-and-evenly-spaced line.
God created many interesting creatures, including flounder that lie flat on rocks and take on the color of their surroundings. The longer we watched, this ugly flat fish started to develop interesting blue spots.
We also saw special creatures like octopus and lobster, which are harder to photograph since they are usually hiding among the rocks. Denisa really enjoyed chasing the pretty fish. One of her favorites was the parrotfish, which comes in a myriad of bright colors.
We often saw schools of more than 100 fish, swimming our way and splitting around us. That's such a special wonder to us, but we don't have a picture. Denisa's favorite fishes all seem to be blue, and the perfectly clear water made them easy to spot.
When we think about all the water creatures we enjoyed, we see that God obviously has a good sense of humor and a creative sense of style. These neon blue polka dot fish were lovely among the golden coral.
We know that we have been exclaiming about how wonderful the snorkeling has been in St. John. But after we saw the videos, we just had to find a way to include in the blog some of the images we saw underwater. It was certainly another way of wandering God's wonders under water that we don't often get to see!
We are loving our time on the island of St. John! We're here for six days with our son, daughter-in-law, and her parents enjoying some great family time with breath-taking views all over this island.
We were up early this morning, trying to beat the tropical heat on a hike this morning. We saw the sun rise as Mark drove us up to the top of the island hills on Centerline highway.
Our trip across the island was delayed with a few wildlife sightings, including a goat-jam taking up most of the road.
We noticed that the herd included plenty young kids, including these two twins that were enjoying an early morning breakfast.
These wild herds are resident groundskeepers, trimming the trees and grasses that grow prolifically in this warm and moist climate.
We're glad that they haven't munched on the bougainvillea flowers that are blooming everywhere on this island.
This morning we even found a pony wandering near the little town of Coral Bay.
We would expect to see goats, ponies, and chickens in the same picture if we were visiting a farm. But it's a little unusual to find that combination wandering through a little beach town on a little island in the middle of the Caribbean.
Our last wildlife sighting of the morning was of one of the island's wild donkeys. Their ancestors are the donkeys that once worked on the sugar plantations. Now they wander the island content to graze at will.
They wouldn't mind a treat from passing tourists, but we had nothing to share this morning.
This was Denisa's close-up view of a donkey nose in the early morning light.
After a day at the beach yesterday, today we are going on a hike. All those animal sightings were taken as we drove across the island to get to the trail head for the Rams Head hike.
We hiked beside Saltpond Bay, situated on the south side of the island. Instead of the fine sand beaches that we found on the north side of the island yesterday, this beach is covered with sizable pieces of coral.
We've seen large purple sea fans under the water while we were snorkeling. We know that this fan just washed onto the beach because it still has its purple color. It will die out of the water, and turn white like other dead corral.
Denisa left her tennis shoe in the picture just to show the size of these big pieces of coral covering the beach. We have never seen anything like this south side beach on St John!
After walking near the water on the beach, we climbed the hill onto a peninsula with views of the Caribbean Sea now far below us.
It's time for a panorama picture that shows the water on both sides of our peninsula hike. That's the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the Caribbean Sea on the other.
Those two bodies of water meet at the tip of the peninsula we are hiking. After walking a mile, we made it to the very tip of the peninsula--the Rams Head.
Of course, Mark had to hike to the very tip where the rocks plunged down to the ocean below. What a view to the south, with the wide-open ocean as far as we could see!
If we look to the north, we can see islands and cays that buffer the winds and water. That's why the best snorkeling beaches are on the north, where they are more protected. This southern edge is like a whole different island with its wild surf beaches and desert climate.
Speaking of desert, this south side is covered with barrel cacti. Some grow a single tall knob, while this one chose to grow many knobs. We didn't expect to find so many barrel cacti on a tropical island.
We tried flying a kite at Rams Head, but it was too windy and the winds too erratic to soar successfully.
Have we mentioned how blessed we are that our son and daughter-in-law planned this trip to St. John to show their parents all these wonders? We are really enjoying wandering God's wonders with them!
The trip back to the car was mostly downhill. We decided to take the spur trail to another beach on the unprotected south side. Here the chunks of coral washing straight out of the ocean are even bigger. This is called Drunk Bay, and we are thinking that adult beverages might have something to do with the creative use of coral on this beach.
Most of the coral creations seem to have human characteristics . . .
but we especially like this large caterpillar that used round pieces of corral to inch its way up the ridge of stone on the beach.
Denisa found a heart-shaped piece of coral,
and left her abbreviated "love St. John" message on the beach--no adult beverage needed.
We found a few sea shells, but most of the south-side beaches are covered with coral. We've never seen anything like it before, so Denisa had to leave another St. John message on the picnic table before we left this side of the island.
No hike would be complete without Denisa taking pictures of the wildflowers on the trail.
We love hiking in an environment that combines desert and rain forest and gives such a rich diversity of plant life in just a one-mile walk. It's not often we see wild orchids so close to cactus!
With a 12-month growing season and plenty of rain, the plants grow like crazy on this island. It doesn't take long for them to cover abandoned vehicles.
This wild vine will drape its way over anything that stands still too long. It has a nice pink bloom to make it easier to like this invasive plant.
We stopped in for lunch at Skinny Legs Cafe in Coral Bay. Most eating establishments on this island seem to be open air, and this one had animals wandering through. It's not every day you see a sign printed on the bottom of a plate that asks customers NOT to feed the cats or chickens.
With full bellies, we stopped by the Annaberg Sugar Mill national historic site. Signs lead visitors through the ruins of the once-thriving sugar mill and the community that worked here.
The Danish owners used slave labor to grow and harvest the sugar. But a good athlete could beat the current and swim to freedom. The islands that we can see to our north are the British Virgin Islands, where owning a slave was illegal.
Have we mentioned how glad we are to share these views and this island with the beautiful young couple that made this trip possible?
We finished the day at yet another beautiful beach--Hawksnest. Even though we found some nice snorkeling to the far left side, we also found a healthy colony of sea urchins here close to our beach entry. After several painful encounters with this spiky little coral, we called it a day.
We headed back to our little town of Cruz Bay. St. John has a permanent population of around 4,000 people, and most of them live in Cruz Bay.
We stopped in for a drink on the beach,
that gave us energy to make the walk back to our villa at the top of Battery Hill. It's hard to take a picture that shows the length or steepness of an incline. Let's just say that after hiking in the Rocky Mountains all summer, the trip up Hill Street still took our breath away every evening.
We're finding lots of breath-taking things during our stay on St. John!
