Adventure in Paradise Part 2
Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:33 pm
Day 4: July 4
This was Carnival Day!! We went down to Cruz Bay to catch the parade which was supposed to start at 11:00 am. It was HOT in town and the parade did not actually start until about 12:30. We spent some of the time wandering through the displays in the park and generally just shopping. When the parade started we were already pretty tired and did I mention it was HOT? Anyway after a couple of hours of parade watching, we wandered over to the Beach Bar for lunch. We had a rather eclectic collection of Jerk Chicken, Shrimp & Chips, Hot Shrimp, and Ribeye Wrap washed down with several Painkillers and a few beers. After lunch we walked back over to watch some more of the parade. This is one long parade and as I may have mentioned it was HOT in Cruz Bay. We finally gave up about 3:30 with the parade still going strong … I’ve got to hand it to the St Johnians, they sure know how to celebrate and they all looked like they were having such a great time!
After we got some pool time to cool off and cleaned up we headed back down to Cruz Bay to watch the fireworks. Everyone was hungry again so went to Morgan’s Mango for dinner. Although we had a good dinner which included halibut, marlin, wahoo, and a fish pot, we ended up getting so comfortable we forgot about the fireworks. Suddenly, the bangs and explosions were audible but I can tell you for sure that Morgan’s Mango is not a good place from which to watch the fireworks. Oh well, there is always next year? Anyway, I thought this concluded another day in paradise however...
About 12:00 pm, my daughter knocked on our door with an emergency. It seems a lizard was sharing her room by sitting on the lamp beside her bed. I went over to her room and the lizard was still sitting on the bedside lamp so I carefully picked up the lamp and took it outside then chased the lizard off (I thought it was nice of him to be so cooperative). We then put the bedroom back together and went off to our own bed only to be interrupted again about 10 minutes later. Seems there was another lizard on the other bedside lamp so we had to repeat the above procedure with this lamp. Thank God the lizards did not decide to sit on the dresser; I am too old to be moving furniture in the middle of the night. Now it was finally time to settle back again – hoping that there were only 2 lizards. It turns out that, if there were more lizards, they did not show themselves for the rest of the week and we all slept soundly.
Day 5: July 5
Once again, time to relax and plan the day with my coffee. When my son finally decided to get out of bed he went to the kitchen to make breakfast. All of a sudden my 6’2” son squeals like a little girl and I hear a loud crash. Turns out he had encountered a 3” scorpion in the skillet he was intending to use to fry his eggs. For a lesson learned, it seems that a hissing scorpion cannot climb out of a non-stick skillet. Anyway, after breakfast we went to Trunk Bay. The snorkeling at Trunk was pretty good. Saw a giant Angel Fish, a Ray and three sea squids.
Unfortunately, a thunderstorm moved in while we were at Trunk and the life guards encouraged everyone to leave. It didn’t rain for more than 20-30 minutes but during that time it rained so hard we wanted to get in the ocean just to stay dry. Anyway we slogged back to the car and stopped at Fish Trap Market on the way back to the villa. They were very gracious in not commenting on our drowned rat appearance. We purchased Wahoo and scallops and had another excellent dinner at the Villa.
Day 6: July 6
I am excited … we go on a day trip to the BVI with Capt Brandi today! However, as my son said, the day started with “loose bowels and tight clouds”. Turns out something gave everyone diarrhea last night but being the troopers we are we stopped at Dolphin Market for some Imodium AD and drove on to Cruz Bay to meet Capt John at the dock. The day was looking very cloudy but we all decided the clouds would allow us to save money on sunscreen and besides we hoped it would look better in the BVI so we jumped on the boat and prepared to have a good time in spite of the weather. We were not disappointed! Capt John was able to turn this rather inauspicious start to the day into one we all enjoyed. After checking in with customs and immigration, we headed around the north side of Tortola to get to the Baths. Along the way the good Capt stopped by the Pusser’s Marina where there is a web cam to get our pictures taken on the boat. It turns out Pusser’s actually archives the pictures from this web cam for 45 days. That means you can log into the site and search for the date and time you were there and then pull up the picture you want to retrieve. Neat feature … upgrade for the spice cam??
We finally made it to the Baths but all of the mooring balls were occupied so Capt John got us in close enough to swim the distance to shore. We all jumped in ready to go. Now I have a small orange dry box where I keep my money, credit cards, driver’s license, and car keys. This box fits in my pocket and the dry feature makes sure everything stays dry and ensures the car keys do not get doused in salt water. I would usually leave this on the boat, but in my enthusiasm, I jumped in with it still in my pocket. Not really a problem since it is a dry box but this time was different. My daughter was the first to notice that the box had come out of my pocket and was actually floating behind me. Grateful for her powers of observation, I grabbed the box to put it back in my pocket and that was when I realized the magnitude of the issue. Turns out the box had somehow popped open and was now functioning as a “wet box”. What was worse, the money and cards were wet but were still there however the car keys had somehow fallen out! I was ready to give up and write the car keys off, but my son (who fancies himself as the next Cousteau) decided he would try to find them in the 15-20 feet of water. Talk about a needle in a haystack, even Capt John was holding out no hope of retrieving the keys. Somehow despite the fact that it was against all odds, my son’s girlfriend thought she saw something shiny on the bottom and my son dove down and retrieved the keys! I guess it is true that nothing is impossible if you don’t know it is impossible! Also thank goodness for the clear blue waters of the Caribbean! So, on that high note we went on to explore the Baths.
After the Baths, we swam back to the boat while I held tightly to the orange box, and cruised over to Ginger Island. Ginger Island is completely uninhabited and the South Bay is a popular anchorage for dive boats. Here there is an incredible reef which is great for diving named "Alice’s Wonderland." On the northern shore of Ginger Island is a great snorkel spot named "Alice's Backside" (according to Capt John so it has to be the truth). It is made up of pillar corals, brain corals, star corals, and is abundant with sea creatures and this is where Capt Brandi took us. In short, the bay lived up to its promise and the snorkeling was great!
Unfortunately, my daughter discovered right about now that she gets sea sick, so we went to Willie T’s where she might enjoy a more stable platform and we might enjoy lunch and some rum flavored cocktails. Capt John was also able to dig into his emergency kit to get some medicine for my suffering daughter. Although you use to be able to jump from the top of Willie T’s it seems they are really discouraging that now with additional guard rails and fencing installed and nobody seemed to be willing to test the limits. So after a lunch which included grilled chicken and Mahi-Mahi sandwiches we boarded the boat to head for the Indians. The Indians are often regarded as one of the best snorkels in the BVIs. The rocky pinnacles descend fifty feet below the water surface, which form abundant coral gardens, and provide a home for many fish including at least one large barracuda. Once again the snorkeling was excellent!
Our last stop was the Caves on Norman Island. Although no one found any treasure (I even sent my son in with his eagle eye girlfriend) the colors in the coral were magnificent. The only problem with the Caves is there were too many people in the water (in many cases we were surrounded by kids). The other problem is my son described the cave as smelling like Bat Poo. Even so, we got some great pictures of the colorful coral.
From here it was a short cruise back to Cruz Bay and back through US customs. No problems there and we gladly settled up with Capt Brandi (using some very wet bills – or “soggy dollars” for you traditionalists) for an excellent day on the water. I enthusiastically recommend a tour with Palm Tree Charters; my only hope is that we can do it again soon! We all hated to see our snorkel trip end!
On the way back to the villa we stopped in Mongoose Junction to purchase a rash guard for my son who was developing quite the sun burn on his back and we also stopped along the road to allow my daughter to clean out her stomach and then proceeded up the hill to the villa to clean up for dinner.
Dinner was at Café Roma. We all enjoyed our meals which included a Ragin’ Cajun, a Spiced Sausage Pasta, Pasta Primavera, Chicken Marcella, and an appetizer of Stuffed Mozzarella Loaf. Wow, who knew you could get such great Italian food in St John? Thus ends another perfect adventure day in paradise.
TO BE CONTINUED …
This was Carnival Day!! We went down to Cruz Bay to catch the parade which was supposed to start at 11:00 am. It was HOT in town and the parade did not actually start until about 12:30. We spent some of the time wandering through the displays in the park and generally just shopping. When the parade started we were already pretty tired and did I mention it was HOT? Anyway after a couple of hours of parade watching, we wandered over to the Beach Bar for lunch. We had a rather eclectic collection of Jerk Chicken, Shrimp & Chips, Hot Shrimp, and Ribeye Wrap washed down with several Painkillers and a few beers. After lunch we walked back over to watch some more of the parade. This is one long parade and as I may have mentioned it was HOT in Cruz Bay. We finally gave up about 3:30 with the parade still going strong … I’ve got to hand it to the St Johnians, they sure know how to celebrate and they all looked like they were having such a great time!
After we got some pool time to cool off and cleaned up we headed back down to Cruz Bay to watch the fireworks. Everyone was hungry again so went to Morgan’s Mango for dinner. Although we had a good dinner which included halibut, marlin, wahoo, and a fish pot, we ended up getting so comfortable we forgot about the fireworks. Suddenly, the bangs and explosions were audible but I can tell you for sure that Morgan’s Mango is not a good place from which to watch the fireworks. Oh well, there is always next year? Anyway, I thought this concluded another day in paradise however...
About 12:00 pm, my daughter knocked on our door with an emergency. It seems a lizard was sharing her room by sitting on the lamp beside her bed. I went over to her room and the lizard was still sitting on the bedside lamp so I carefully picked up the lamp and took it outside then chased the lizard off (I thought it was nice of him to be so cooperative). We then put the bedroom back together and went off to our own bed only to be interrupted again about 10 minutes later. Seems there was another lizard on the other bedside lamp so we had to repeat the above procedure with this lamp. Thank God the lizards did not decide to sit on the dresser; I am too old to be moving furniture in the middle of the night. Now it was finally time to settle back again – hoping that there were only 2 lizards. It turns out that, if there were more lizards, they did not show themselves for the rest of the week and we all slept soundly.
Day 5: July 5
Once again, time to relax and plan the day with my coffee. When my son finally decided to get out of bed he went to the kitchen to make breakfast. All of a sudden my 6’2” son squeals like a little girl and I hear a loud crash. Turns out he had encountered a 3” scorpion in the skillet he was intending to use to fry his eggs. For a lesson learned, it seems that a hissing scorpion cannot climb out of a non-stick skillet. Anyway, after breakfast we went to Trunk Bay. The snorkeling at Trunk was pretty good. Saw a giant Angel Fish, a Ray and three sea squids.
Unfortunately, a thunderstorm moved in while we were at Trunk and the life guards encouraged everyone to leave. It didn’t rain for more than 20-30 minutes but during that time it rained so hard we wanted to get in the ocean just to stay dry. Anyway we slogged back to the car and stopped at Fish Trap Market on the way back to the villa. They were very gracious in not commenting on our drowned rat appearance. We purchased Wahoo and scallops and had another excellent dinner at the Villa.
Day 6: July 6
I am excited … we go on a day trip to the BVI with Capt Brandi today! However, as my son said, the day started with “loose bowels and tight clouds”. Turns out something gave everyone diarrhea last night but being the troopers we are we stopped at Dolphin Market for some Imodium AD and drove on to Cruz Bay to meet Capt John at the dock. The day was looking very cloudy but we all decided the clouds would allow us to save money on sunscreen and besides we hoped it would look better in the BVI so we jumped on the boat and prepared to have a good time in spite of the weather. We were not disappointed! Capt John was able to turn this rather inauspicious start to the day into one we all enjoyed. After checking in with customs and immigration, we headed around the north side of Tortola to get to the Baths. Along the way the good Capt stopped by the Pusser’s Marina where there is a web cam to get our pictures taken on the boat. It turns out Pusser’s actually archives the pictures from this web cam for 45 days. That means you can log into the site and search for the date and time you were there and then pull up the picture you want to retrieve. Neat feature … upgrade for the spice cam??
We finally made it to the Baths but all of the mooring balls were occupied so Capt John got us in close enough to swim the distance to shore. We all jumped in ready to go. Now I have a small orange dry box where I keep my money, credit cards, driver’s license, and car keys. This box fits in my pocket and the dry feature makes sure everything stays dry and ensures the car keys do not get doused in salt water. I would usually leave this on the boat, but in my enthusiasm, I jumped in with it still in my pocket. Not really a problem since it is a dry box but this time was different. My daughter was the first to notice that the box had come out of my pocket and was actually floating behind me. Grateful for her powers of observation, I grabbed the box to put it back in my pocket and that was when I realized the magnitude of the issue. Turns out the box had somehow popped open and was now functioning as a “wet box”. What was worse, the money and cards were wet but were still there however the car keys had somehow fallen out! I was ready to give up and write the car keys off, but my son (who fancies himself as the next Cousteau) decided he would try to find them in the 15-20 feet of water. Talk about a needle in a haystack, even Capt John was holding out no hope of retrieving the keys. Somehow despite the fact that it was against all odds, my son’s girlfriend thought she saw something shiny on the bottom and my son dove down and retrieved the keys! I guess it is true that nothing is impossible if you don’t know it is impossible! Also thank goodness for the clear blue waters of the Caribbean! So, on that high note we went on to explore the Baths.
After the Baths, we swam back to the boat while I held tightly to the orange box, and cruised over to Ginger Island. Ginger Island is completely uninhabited and the South Bay is a popular anchorage for dive boats. Here there is an incredible reef which is great for diving named "Alice’s Wonderland." On the northern shore of Ginger Island is a great snorkel spot named "Alice's Backside" (according to Capt John so it has to be the truth). It is made up of pillar corals, brain corals, star corals, and is abundant with sea creatures and this is where Capt Brandi took us. In short, the bay lived up to its promise and the snorkeling was great!
Unfortunately, my daughter discovered right about now that she gets sea sick, so we went to Willie T’s where she might enjoy a more stable platform and we might enjoy lunch and some rum flavored cocktails. Capt John was also able to dig into his emergency kit to get some medicine for my suffering daughter. Although you use to be able to jump from the top of Willie T’s it seems they are really discouraging that now with additional guard rails and fencing installed and nobody seemed to be willing to test the limits. So after a lunch which included grilled chicken and Mahi-Mahi sandwiches we boarded the boat to head for the Indians. The Indians are often regarded as one of the best snorkels in the BVIs. The rocky pinnacles descend fifty feet below the water surface, which form abundant coral gardens, and provide a home for many fish including at least one large barracuda. Once again the snorkeling was excellent!
Our last stop was the Caves on Norman Island. Although no one found any treasure (I even sent my son in with his eagle eye girlfriend) the colors in the coral were magnificent. The only problem with the Caves is there were too many people in the water (in many cases we were surrounded by kids). The other problem is my son described the cave as smelling like Bat Poo. Even so, we got some great pictures of the colorful coral.
From here it was a short cruise back to Cruz Bay and back through US customs. No problems there and we gladly settled up with Capt Brandi (using some very wet bills – or “soggy dollars” for you traditionalists) for an excellent day on the water. I enthusiastically recommend a tour with Palm Tree Charters; my only hope is that we can do it again soon! We all hated to see our snorkel trip end!
On the way back to the villa we stopped in Mongoose Junction to purchase a rash guard for my son who was developing quite the sun burn on his back and we also stopped along the road to allow my daughter to clean out her stomach and then proceeded up the hill to the villa to clean up for dinner.
Dinner was at Café Roma. We all enjoyed our meals which included a Ragin’ Cajun, a Spiced Sausage Pasta, Pasta Primavera, Chicken Marcella, and an appetizer of Stuffed Mozzarella Loaf. Wow, who knew you could get such great Italian food in St John? Thus ends another perfect adventure day in paradise.
TO BE CONTINUED …
the pics are beautiful & love the story about the key's ! thank goodness you found them 
That was my entire goal for the last 7 years - - jump off the Willie T on my 40th bday! So I guess I might have to plan something else "eventful" on our upcoming trip with Capn Brandi on 8/10