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Trip Report, Part V: Dinghy Disasters
Trip Report, Part V: Dinghy Disasters
Trip Report, Part V: Dinghy Disasters
I'm having a touch of writer's block, but I am determined to get this installment written. Bear with me, I promise there'll be a shark in here somewhere.
It's Wednesday morning, the mid-point of our trip. We're settling into a routine that goes something like this: wake up obnoxiously early, make coffee through a paper towel coffee filter (we kept forgetting to pick those d*mn things up at Starfish), drink mediocre coffee, swat mosquitos, make breakfast, eat breakfast, swat mosquitos, get dressed, run around for thirty minutes trying to find the various keys for the cars and house, load up towels and water, stand around while someone is running late, swat mosquitos and face our day with massive indecisiveness regarding where we should spend our day.
All of this before 9:30 a.m. Do we know how to party or what?
A few people had mentioned wanting to try the "snorkel trail" at Trunk Bay. We showed up and the beach was relatively uncrowded. We had a couple of people in our party with stringent shade requirements, so we ended up on the far side of Trunk Bay, towards Jumbie, up against the rocks. It was about 10 degrees cooler next to those rocks, so we set up camp and settled in for the day.
Wednesday was fairly unremarkable. We were all tired from our big day on Lion in Da Sun, and we alternately snorkeled and read, no one really saying much of anything. I snorkeled around the entire cay and felt waterlogged. I was happy to dry out and just be on this gorgeous day.
We opted to eat lunch at the Trunk Bay snack bar, where they do in fact make pretty good veggie burgers, fries and mango daquiris. Hair of the dog that bit you, I say. At this point I'll note that while I enjoy the Trunk Bay snack bar's offerings, I didn't in general enjoy the snack bar's other patrons. Massive line cutting, rude demands and complaints about the snorkeling seemed to dominate. The woman who operates the snack bar runs a smooth operation though, and somehow manages everyone, rude attitudes and all. God love her.
After lunch, we walk past a couple who has pulled ashore in a rented dinghy. Curious, we ask "is it fun?" and receive a hearty endorsement of dinghy-ing. We discuss with the group and decide, yes, we all want to go on a dinghy the next day. Dinghy, dinghy, dinghy, we all like saying dinghy.
I pull out my handy dandy information sheet and call Noah's Little Arks. I'm told they only have one dinghy available the next day (turns out a whole bunch of their engines got jacked right out of Cruz Bay a few weeks prior), but it's a 14-footer and it can fit six adults, "just don't bring a whole lot of stuff." Her voice changes, suddenly brightening as she says: "Oh, and Julie will be back tomorrow!"
I have no idea what that means. But fair enough on the "don't bring too much stuff" front.
We book it and head towards our island home. We hang out in the pool while the Accountant and her man make cajun tilapia with a corn and pepper succotash. The Accountant adds to her cliff-diving injuries by stabbing herself in the thumb as she's cutting a lime for her Corona. Blood gushes and we decide she's either the (a) clumsiest, (b) unluckiest or (c) drunkest accountant we've ever seen. We play an obnoxious game called exquisite corpse (a combo of pictionary and telephone) and laugh our collective asses off. We go to bed happy.
Cue Thursday. The rooster crows! Does this mean good luck for our dinghy day? I admit that I've resisted dinghy rentals in the past. While I'm comfortable on the water, I myself am not a boater and really don't like to do things that could kill me unless I'm fairly sure of what I'm doing. Plus, if we mess up their engine, that could, um, add to our trip cost significantly. Nonetheless, I'm game and so we head out to Noah's by 9:00. We get there and quickly figure out why the girl on the phone was so excited about Julie coming back. Julie can best be described as 100 lbs of pure southern energy. She's running around in a bikini hauling gas tanks, bringing dinghies ashore and in general increasing the merriment of Cruz Bay.
After the brief instructional video, we load up and bid Julie adieu. We're navigating the boats in Cruz Bay, and just as we're exiting the marker, the engine falls silent. Eerily, completely silent, with no hope of revival. A ferry is coming towards us, so we take out the paddles and start 'a paddlin'. I ask someone to pull out their phone and call Noah's.
Silence all around. NO ONE brought their phone?
Luckily, another dinghy rental pulls by around that time and lets us know that Julie saw our engine failure and that help is on the way. We bob around for a bit, all of us cursing the rooster.
The fuel boat arrives and yes, it is determined that the engine is indeed dead. The prevailing thought seems to be water in the gas line. We go ashore with the help of two other boaters and spill out of the dinghy onto Cruz Bay beach. We can either try again tomorrow or wait. We decide to wait one hour - we've got to send someone back to the villa for a phone, anyway.
After much cursing and duck tape, we learn that there was water in the fuel tank. Julie siphons it out with a turkey baster (which had to be mended with the aforementioned duck tape), her boyfriend fiddles with the engine for a while, and our little dinghy roars back to life.
We leave again, this time armed with cell phones, and in no time are zipping along the shoreline of St. John, dodging turtles and enjoying another beautiful day with waters as calm as a pool. We decide to go to Waterlemon first, then work our way back.
We reach Waterlemon and are the only people there. All of us enter the water fairly quickly and start the swim around the cay. The current was fairly strong around the backside, so I quickly get to the grassy area between the island and the cay. I'm watching rays and squid when Dave swims up beside me. "Mr. and Mrs. Design Chick went back to the boat," he said.
"Why?," I ask?
"Design Chick thought a fish was chasing her," he informs me.
Oh, good lord. I look up and sure enough, there they sit in the dinghy, upright like little stakes. Just then a nice little rain cloud decides to open up and a hard shower falls, and falls, and then falls some more.
I swim close to them and ask if they're okay. I receive a tentative "yes." I suggest they get back in the water if they're tired of the rain.
"We can't," they say.
"Why," I ask.
"There's a shark under the dinghy."
Sure enough, I swim closer and see the outline of a five foot nurse shark, happily munching away on the algae and gunk growing on the bottom of the dinghy.
Here's how it went down: Mr. Design Chick reached the dinghy first. He took off his fins and put them in the dinghy. As he grabbed the side of the dinghy and pushed down to get some leverage to hoist himself out of the water, his mask went under the water. He saw a shark, RIGHT THERE, in his face. He quickly scrambled and turned around and ordered Mrs. Design Chick in that damn dinghy, pronto.
He looked below and saw the shark swim away a bit when his weight hit the dinghy. Mr. Design Chick is not the type to hit the panic button, so the good missus took his warning seriously. She scrambled into the boat, winning herself this shiner in the process:
As they sat there, they saw the shark swim back. Now, he could have untied the boat at this point, but that would have meant actually reaching in the water. Not knowing what to do, they just sat there like stones until we came over. We swam by several times and verified the shark's presence. It wasn't going anywhere. It had a good, easy meal in that algae and intended to fuel up.
We eventually decided our only option was to reach in and untie the rope, then start the engine and move the boat. It seemed to work because Mr. Shark didn't follow the dinghy to our "pick up" location. The rain and shark over, we all have a good, nervous laugh and decide to move along.
We dinghy up to Francis, checking out the yacht "My Gal" that had been anchored there for several days. We then hit Cinnamon and find the plane wreck. Then we go to Trunk and have lunch. Then we check out Honeymoon, ride around for a bit and decide to head back around 3:30. Happy hour started at The Beach Bar thirty minutes ago, and our thirst sure wasn't quenching itself.
I really enjoyed the dinghy and will do it again on future trips. From the North Shore road, you don't realize how close these beaches really are to one another. It's a lot quicker to reach the various beaches by water than by car. And we will definitely use Noah's Little Arks again. They went out of their way to get us on the water that day, and even waived our fuel charge since we had to wait. I don't have a ton of pictures from that day because I took mostly video. You'll just have to take my word for it: it was a blast.
We enjoyed a generous happy hour at The Beach Bar and headed back to the villa. Dinner that night was at Rhumblines, and we enjoyed fritters, pad thai and fish while the mosquitos enjoyed us. Delicious!
These trip reports are killing me. I need to learn how to write less. Brevity is where it's at. Next time, I'm just going to write:
"It was fun," and post a link to my Flickr account.
I'm having a touch of writer's block, but I am determined to get this installment written. Bear with me, I promise there'll be a shark in here somewhere.
It's Wednesday morning, the mid-point of our trip. We're settling into a routine that goes something like this: wake up obnoxiously early, make coffee through a paper towel coffee filter (we kept forgetting to pick those d*mn things up at Starfish), drink mediocre coffee, swat mosquitos, make breakfast, eat breakfast, swat mosquitos, get dressed, run around for thirty minutes trying to find the various keys for the cars and house, load up towels and water, stand around while someone is running late, swat mosquitos and face our day with massive indecisiveness regarding where we should spend our day.
All of this before 9:30 a.m. Do we know how to party or what?
A few people had mentioned wanting to try the "snorkel trail" at Trunk Bay. We showed up and the beach was relatively uncrowded. We had a couple of people in our party with stringent shade requirements, so we ended up on the far side of Trunk Bay, towards Jumbie, up against the rocks. It was about 10 degrees cooler next to those rocks, so we set up camp and settled in for the day.
Wednesday was fairly unremarkable. We were all tired from our big day on Lion in Da Sun, and we alternately snorkeled and read, no one really saying much of anything. I snorkeled around the entire cay and felt waterlogged. I was happy to dry out and just be on this gorgeous day.
We opted to eat lunch at the Trunk Bay snack bar, where they do in fact make pretty good veggie burgers, fries and mango daquiris. Hair of the dog that bit you, I say. At this point I'll note that while I enjoy the Trunk Bay snack bar's offerings, I didn't in general enjoy the snack bar's other patrons. Massive line cutting, rude demands and complaints about the snorkeling seemed to dominate. The woman who operates the snack bar runs a smooth operation though, and somehow manages everyone, rude attitudes and all. God love her.
After lunch, we walk past a couple who has pulled ashore in a rented dinghy. Curious, we ask "is it fun?" and receive a hearty endorsement of dinghy-ing. We discuss with the group and decide, yes, we all want to go on a dinghy the next day. Dinghy, dinghy, dinghy, we all like saying dinghy.
I pull out my handy dandy information sheet and call Noah's Little Arks. I'm told they only have one dinghy available the next day (turns out a whole bunch of their engines got jacked right out of Cruz Bay a few weeks prior), but it's a 14-footer and it can fit six adults, "just don't bring a whole lot of stuff." Her voice changes, suddenly brightening as she says: "Oh, and Julie will be back tomorrow!"
I have no idea what that means. But fair enough on the "don't bring too much stuff" front.
We book it and head towards our island home. We hang out in the pool while the Accountant and her man make cajun tilapia with a corn and pepper succotash. The Accountant adds to her cliff-diving injuries by stabbing herself in the thumb as she's cutting a lime for her Corona. Blood gushes and we decide she's either the (a) clumsiest, (b) unluckiest or (c) drunkest accountant we've ever seen. We play an obnoxious game called exquisite corpse (a combo of pictionary and telephone) and laugh our collective asses off. We go to bed happy.
Cue Thursday. The rooster crows! Does this mean good luck for our dinghy day? I admit that I've resisted dinghy rentals in the past. While I'm comfortable on the water, I myself am not a boater and really don't like to do things that could kill me unless I'm fairly sure of what I'm doing. Plus, if we mess up their engine, that could, um, add to our trip cost significantly. Nonetheless, I'm game and so we head out to Noah's by 9:00. We get there and quickly figure out why the girl on the phone was so excited about Julie coming back. Julie can best be described as 100 lbs of pure southern energy. She's running around in a bikini hauling gas tanks, bringing dinghies ashore and in general increasing the merriment of Cruz Bay.
After the brief instructional video, we load up and bid Julie adieu. We're navigating the boats in Cruz Bay, and just as we're exiting the marker, the engine falls silent. Eerily, completely silent, with no hope of revival. A ferry is coming towards us, so we take out the paddles and start 'a paddlin'. I ask someone to pull out their phone and call Noah's.
Silence all around. NO ONE brought their phone?
Luckily, another dinghy rental pulls by around that time and lets us know that Julie saw our engine failure and that help is on the way. We bob around for a bit, all of us cursing the rooster.
The fuel boat arrives and yes, it is determined that the engine is indeed dead. The prevailing thought seems to be water in the gas line. We go ashore with the help of two other boaters and spill out of the dinghy onto Cruz Bay beach. We can either try again tomorrow or wait. We decide to wait one hour - we've got to send someone back to the villa for a phone, anyway.
After much cursing and duck tape, we learn that there was water in the fuel tank. Julie siphons it out with a turkey baster (which had to be mended with the aforementioned duck tape), her boyfriend fiddles with the engine for a while, and our little dinghy roars back to life.
We leave again, this time armed with cell phones, and in no time are zipping along the shoreline of St. John, dodging turtles and enjoying another beautiful day with waters as calm as a pool. We decide to go to Waterlemon first, then work our way back.
We reach Waterlemon and are the only people there. All of us enter the water fairly quickly and start the swim around the cay. The current was fairly strong around the backside, so I quickly get to the grassy area between the island and the cay. I'm watching rays and squid when Dave swims up beside me. "Mr. and Mrs. Design Chick went back to the boat," he said.
"Why?," I ask?
"Design Chick thought a fish was chasing her," he informs me.
Oh, good lord. I look up and sure enough, there they sit in the dinghy, upright like little stakes. Just then a nice little rain cloud decides to open up and a hard shower falls, and falls, and then falls some more.
I swim close to them and ask if they're okay. I receive a tentative "yes." I suggest they get back in the water if they're tired of the rain.
"We can't," they say.
"Why," I ask.
"There's a shark under the dinghy."
Sure enough, I swim closer and see the outline of a five foot nurse shark, happily munching away on the algae and gunk growing on the bottom of the dinghy.
Here's how it went down: Mr. Design Chick reached the dinghy first. He took off his fins and put them in the dinghy. As he grabbed the side of the dinghy and pushed down to get some leverage to hoist himself out of the water, his mask went under the water. He saw a shark, RIGHT THERE, in his face. He quickly scrambled and turned around and ordered Mrs. Design Chick in that damn dinghy, pronto.
He looked below and saw the shark swim away a bit when his weight hit the dinghy. Mr. Design Chick is not the type to hit the panic button, so the good missus took his warning seriously. She scrambled into the boat, winning herself this shiner in the process:
As they sat there, they saw the shark swim back. Now, he could have untied the boat at this point, but that would have meant actually reaching in the water. Not knowing what to do, they just sat there like stones until we came over. We swam by several times and verified the shark's presence. It wasn't going anywhere. It had a good, easy meal in that algae and intended to fuel up.
We eventually decided our only option was to reach in and untie the rope, then start the engine and move the boat. It seemed to work because Mr. Shark didn't follow the dinghy to our "pick up" location. The rain and shark over, we all have a good, nervous laugh and decide to move along.
We dinghy up to Francis, checking out the yacht "My Gal" that had been anchored there for several days. We then hit Cinnamon and find the plane wreck. Then we go to Trunk and have lunch. Then we check out Honeymoon, ride around for a bit and decide to head back around 3:30. Happy hour started at The Beach Bar thirty minutes ago, and our thirst sure wasn't quenching itself.
I really enjoyed the dinghy and will do it again on future trips. From the North Shore road, you don't realize how close these beaches really are to one another. It's a lot quicker to reach the various beaches by water than by car. And we will definitely use Noah's Little Arks again. They went out of their way to get us on the water that day, and even waived our fuel charge since we had to wait. I don't have a ton of pictures from that day because I took mostly video. You'll just have to take my word for it: it was a blast.
We enjoyed a generous happy hour at The Beach Bar and headed back to the villa. Dinner that night was at Rhumblines, and we enjoyed fritters, pad thai and fish while the mosquitos enjoyed us. Delicious!
These trip reports are killing me. I need to learn how to write less. Brevity is where it's at. Next time, I'm just going to write:
"It was fun," and post a link to my Flickr account.
Last edited by alw1977 on Thu Oct 23, 2008 10:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
Please don't truncate your reports - I like to read every word of them, and find myself wanting more.
Your shark experience is the first I've ever heard of that went down like that - I know some folks would be frightened, but now I'll be disappointed if it doesn't happen to me. I guess I should ask for the dinghy with the most gunk on the bottom?
Your shark experience is the first I've ever heard of that went down like that - I know some folks would be frightened, but now I'll be disappointed if it doesn't happen to me. I guess I should ask for the dinghy with the most gunk on the bottom?
Come see us!
Loved that trip report.
Especially loved the part about the dinghy. Six people in one dinghy, even the larger one is too many. No wonder they said don't bring alot of stuff.
Great laugh about the shark though.
These are the kinds of memories you make in the islands. Something you'll never forget.
Especially loved the part about the dinghy. Six people in one dinghy, even the larger one is too many. No wonder they said don't bring alot of stuff.
Great laugh about the shark though.
These are the kinds of memories you make in the islands. Something you'll never forget.
"Paradise...it's a state of mine"
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piscesgirl0314
- Posts: 598
- Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:31 pm
- Location: Chesapeake, VA
I LOVE reading your reports and find myself laughing out loud while I am reading. We have 22 days to go (not that I am counting). There are 6 of us going (possibly 8 of us) and only 2 have been to STJ before. One stupid question I guess, are nurse sharks dangerous...there seems to be alot of talk on here of sightings but never anything said about anyone getting hurt. We have all snorkeled before in Aruba but the thought of a shark while snorkeling never crossed my mind and now wonder if it will stop me from snorkeling in STJ. So when is the next part of your report coming?? Hurry!
Babs, generally, no, they aren't dangerous. But as with all wild animals, there are always outliers. When a fish is bigger than you, you tend to worry. And they aren't called nurse sharks because they're nurturing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_shark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_shark
alw1977 makes a good point. They are generally considered docile. But I wouldn't underestimate any wild animals and their instincts. The thing about Nurse sharks, their diet includes shellfish, so they have shell-crushing teeth that could inflict painful wounds to you "if" they want to. However, their diet does NOT include us. No fiddling with them. Leave them alone and you'll most likely be fine.
A previous post said it pretty well: "You'd pretty much have to punch one in the face to get it to tangle with you."
That one cracked me up cause it's basically true.
As I've said before, when it's bigger than me I get uncomfortable -- but I think you'd have a better chance of getting hurt by getting pushed into fire coral by a wave or stepping on a sea urchin or drowning than you would of getting bothered by a nurse shark.
That one cracked me up cause it's basically true.
As I've said before, when it's bigger than me I get uncomfortable -- but I think you'd have a better chance of getting hurt by getting pushed into fire coral by a wave or stepping on a sea urchin or drowning than you would of getting bothered by a nurse shark.
*Another fine scatterbrained production