USVI-On-Line

Work and Life sort of caught up to me after I started our trip report for our first trip to STJ. Everything was rolling along, one day per day, etc...and life just jumped up and bit me in the butt. I think it probably best to abandon the whole trip report and write a quick summary here and give you guys the link to all the pictures on Flickr.

Villa: Bongo Bongo, loved it. Would we stay here again...maybe, but only if traveling with another couple. This is an awesome house folks, and lots of little details have been considered. The management company was Carefree Getaways, and they were also awesome to work with.

Jeep: Conrad Sutton. I know I said this in my first portion of the trip report, but we loved them. They were always happy and easy to deal with. We parked in their lot at least once a day. There was a minor problem with a leaky tire that just wouldn't hold pressure for more than 8-12 hours. It took a day or two for us to get the jeep there when Mr. Sutton was there due to road closures in town etc., but as soon as we could get it to them it was repaired. All I did was make sure I stopped at the gas station every time I passed and top-off with air. I made sure the Sutton's knew I was taking care of the tire until we could get it there.

Food: We only ate at the villa for two dinners, despite grander plans. The next renters (or the cleaning crew!) ended up with a bonanza of beer/wine. I think we left more than a six-pack of beer and two bottles of wine. Our favorite was La Plancha, and the guys there are awesome. I highly recommend sitting at the bar and chatting with them and the others at the bar. The food is the best we had on island. Other favorites were Beach Bar, La Tapa, and ZoZo's. oh...and the chicken roti at the Soggy Dollar!!!!

Beaches: We really like Maho, as it was always quiet and it just felt the most relaxing to us. Cinnamon had some good snorkeling, but my wife had a bad experience with some piss-pour tourists that were spending the day here from their hotel on St. Thomas. I'll just say that they (teens+mother) called her names for taking up the middle of the beach, told her she wasn't there to have fun (she was reading) so she should leave, shot at her with water guns, and called her some foul names....all this while the parents either participated or laughed. I was out snorkeling when this happened, and luckily they had left for lunch (gone for nearly 2 hrs) when I returned. We also enjoyed Trunk, Hawksnest (though my wife didn't care for this one, I did).

JVD: We sailed to Jost with Survivan. I highly recommend these guys...and not just because Jason is a fellow Aggie. His wife Lou is great as well, and you really feel at home on their boat. White Bay and the Soggy Dollar are just one of those awesome places that you can never get back to enough (and this was our first time!).

Anyway, we had the best time and cannot wait to get back. We're already trying to figure out when we can bring our kids back. If airfare wasn't so darn high from Houston, it would be a no-brainer. I want to thank everyone here on the forum for answering both the questions I asked and the ones I didn't. Your knowledge helped make our trip go exceedingly smooth. My wife has never been on a trip where she couldn't stop talking about how great the place was...and she hasn't stopped since we got home.

And finally, the pictures. These have received ZERO editing (only one photo is an exception to this, and both are on Flickr so you'll be able to tell which one) and are exactly as they came out of the cameras. Most of the land shots (except for Jost) were shot with a Nikon D70, and the underwater/JVD pictures were with the new Canon D10. Many of the underwater shots need to be culled, edited, cropped...but please enjoy them as much as I did taking them!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34283698@N03/

Thanks for the trip report.

Sorry about your day on Trunk. I don't think I could put up with that.

How did you know they were from St. Thomas???

great pictures, thanks for sharing! I especially liked seeing the pic's on Bongo. We loved it there also.

Connie,

It was actually Cinnamon where that happened, sorry if I wrote that confusingly.

We're 99% sure they were staying on St. Thomas because

1.the teen girls were griping about the beach not having chairs already out for people (they had to carry stuff...egads!)

2. the teen girls were begging everyone to take the ferry back to the hotel where they could hang at the pool and then go into town to shop at all the awesome places they had been to this week

Now, I'm not saying that staying on STT makes them lesser people, but it seemed to be their choice for amenities and conveniences that aren't available on STJ. Even though it was our first trip, I think we clearly 'get it', and these folks did not. We handled it by ignoring them, and while we probably left a little earlier than we planned...it meant we went out ot Skinny Legs instead of heading back toward town!

Hey, better late than never and the pix are great!

As for the other stuff, I never underestimate people's ability to act like jackasses. That's what Karma is for. What goes around....

At least you had a GREAT time!!

Thanks for sharing!

KTinTX wrote:We handled it by ignoring them, and while we probably left a little earlier than we planned...

You guys have way more patience than me and my wife- I know we would have had a few choice words with those miserable a-holes, and I probably would have taken our towels up-wind from them and given the towels some good shakes as we were leaving.....a little token of STJ to take with them in their hair and eyes.....

Glad idiots like that don't "get it" since they probably won't ever go back.

I'm glad you had a great trip...and sorry about the idiots at Cinnamon. I think I would've told them off. But luckily you just took the high road....
Your pictures are great and I love the first one too!!

I think my wife wanted to tell them off and/or move, but wouldn't do it while I was out snorkeling and when I returned thought it best to just let it go. Luckily we were both fully adjusted to island time by the time this happened (day 5 or so). I probably took a little grief for not telling them off for her, but after a couple drinks at Skinny's all was forgiven and good.

I think I would have had to say something too. Some people are just so clueless....as said, the plus side is they don't get it, so they won't likely be back!

Man, do I understand the complaint about flying out of Houston. Crazy!

Thanks for the report. I've always wanted to try Survivan.

Cypressgirl,
Jason & Lou are such great hosts on Survivan, and it is a really nice boat. For those of you who go between July and October, they typically put the boat in drydock for annual repairs/maintenance during hurricane season and head somewhere else (this year Newport, RI). Jason is a Texas boy, A&M class of '96. It really felt more like sailing with friends for the day instead of captain/charter experience.

I will say that the water was a little rough for my wife's taste during our snorkel at Henley Cay, and it got her a little queasy for the rest of the sail over to Jost, despite calm condidtions. I think it had more to do with the ingestion of more salt water than the human stomach is used to! However, she did get a little queasy again on the return sail. This was our first time on a monohull sailboat, and that might have something to do with it, too. We've always sailed on catamarans in the past, and the deck tilt might not be her thing. Anyway, something to keep in mind if you've never been on a single hull sailboat before.

Thank you for the report and the pictures.

I was glad to see that your not edited underwater pictures were very similar to ours. I so much admire all the wonderful, colourful pictures I see in the reports and cannot understand, why we cannot take pictures like these.

Linne

Linne,

The really blue and dark underwater pictures were mostly a function of overcast skies with lots of Saharan dust in the air. The really bright, nice ones were sometimes taken seconds apart from the hazy, blue ones. The Canon D10 underwater mode eliminates the blue tint, but ONLY IF, you have sufficient sunlight. I don't recall many of the days we were there being blue-bird sunny without clouds. Most days were somewhat overcast with periods of sun and extended periods of shade.

Your pics are gorgeous ! no apology needed ! we alway's get beautiful sunsets at crz bay as you did love them , just can't pick my fave cause they are all beautiful ! Great job ! we enjoyed viewing .