We just had to include some underwater pictures . . .

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!