usvi-on-line
16 more days in paradise: the whole thing (long)
16 more days in paradise: the whole thing (long)
This report is kind of different than prior reports I have posted here. For starters, I barely cooked, and when I did, it was very basic, so there’s no villa food porn. I also didn’t snorkel as much as I normally do, and when I did, I was spending most of the time monitoring my niece and/or nephew, so not as many underwater shots this time. I brought my nicer cameras, but never took them out of the safe: all pictures are from the Canon D10 or D20. Finally, we didn’t get explore the island nearly as much as we normally do, so lots of repeating going on in this report. The focus was on family and relaxing, and the pictures reflect that. There are actually people in some of them this time!
The group: Same as last summer. John and me, my sister, her two children Liam (13) and Caili (10), plus John’s brother.
Day one—travel day. Long and kind of boring, I will spare you the details. We got to the villa just in time for sunset:
I had ordered Katilady’s “survival arrival” dinner for us since I knew we would be tired and the house was too far out to drive to dinner. It was a TON of food. Huge roasted chicken, seasoned rice, grilled vegetables, all packed into a disposable foil pan and ready for the grill or oven, plus salad and dessert. Everything was fine, not exciting, but after a long travel day exciting is not what your stomach wants anyway. The best part was the dessert: key lime frozen cheesecake. I don’t usually like desserts but this one was really good.
Day two- headed in to town to fill out the paperwork for the rental cars and pick up some supplies. Cruz Bay ferry dock:
Then back to the house for some relaxing pool time. I had arranged for St. John Catering to deliver food for dinner this evening. I had them do “chef’s choice” with the one caveat that we wanted fish for the main course. Again, it was a ton of food. The protein main was just enough, but there was so many sides in such great quantities that we never ate it all, despite recycling it into other meals. Everything was of excellent quality, and I would order from them again. The woman who delivered everything wrote the menu for me, and I saved it. Here’s what we got:
Caesar salad with tahini-scented dressing and foccacia croutons
Spicy sweet potato mash
Creamy coconut rice
Pesto marinated zucchini
Garlic roma tomatoes with fresh mozzarella
Lightly jerked mahi mahi and separately packed shrimp skewers with roasted red pepper and herb sauce
Chocolate obsession cakes with kaluha and mint
My sister was not thrilled to see the shrimp skewers (Liam has an anaphylactic allergy to shrimp and crab which was noted when I ordered), but they were packed separately and so it was fine. For most people shrimp, crab, and lobster are celebratory dishes!
After the food was delivered we walked down to the beach for the rest of the day. Road encounter:
Lovely Francis:
No snorkeling, just swimming.
That evening’s dinner companions (about 20 of these fell out of the dinner table umbrella when I opened it!:
Day three
Another lazy day with no snorkeling (I told you this report was going to be different!). We went to Maho
And did, well, nothing. Floated in the water, had a picnic on the beach, relaxed, chatted…went home and grilled quesadillas for dinner, early bedtime.
Day four
Went to Hawksnest
Finally broke out the snorkel gear. Squid:
Tang:
Cailifish:
Went to town for lunch at Waterfront Bistro. Mahi salad:
Tuna tacos:
Picked up some mahi at the fish trap market for dinner, then back to the house for pool beach.
Day five. Walked to Francis for the day and went snorkeling.
Hermit crab eats whelk for dinner
Trunkfish
Chain moray
Flamingo tounge
Snorkeling was OK, not great, lots of sediment floating in the water. There were a bunch of turtles in the grassy area of the bay but the photos did not come out.
We went back to the house for the sunset
Grilled pizzas for dinner and went to bed early (this is becoming a theme)
Day six
Slept late, spent the morning at Pool Beach and then went to Shipwreck Landing for lunch. View:
Grilled mahi sandwich:
Grilled mahi platter:
Beer battered mahi:
Curry-nut crusted grouper (my new favorite item here):
Then we….guess what? Walked to Francis again
The sunset started out silvery
Then turned lovely
We stayed in the water for the whole thing, for whatever reason the no see ums were not biting
After the sun went down we walked back to the house and grilled burgers and hot dogs for dinner, nothing fancy.
Day seven. All this relaxing finally caught up to me because I was up for the day at 4:30 AM! Time for some activity to wear me back out again. We went to Salt Pond Bay:
Sean and I hiked over to Blue Cobblestone to snorkel, but the visibility was awful! So we quit and came back to the main bay to see what we could find.
Flounder
Scrawled filefish
Blue tang
Salt Pond snorkeling is Liam-approved:
We walked to Drunk Bay
And then back up the hot steep hill to the cars. All that working deserves a reward, so we went to my favorite place for lunch, Miss Lucy’s. Conch fritters:
Grouper reuben:
Crunchy fish:
And then we…yup. Went back to the house and walked to Francis for the sunset:
Afterglow from the deck of our villa
Day eight
The boys were MIA this morning, so I packed up the kids and my sister and drove over to Jumbie
We spent the morning swimming and chatting until the inevitable from Liam: “I am STARVING.” So, we packed up the jeep and just as we were about to pull out, here come the guys in their jeep! So we all drove in to town together and went to lunch at Banana Deck. Greek salad with grilled mahi:
Spicy grilled mahi wrap
Banana split with no banana (I don’t let the kids eat bananas while on island because someone told me that eating bananas will make you get more bug bites. I’ll do anything to cut down on bug bites!)
After lunch we went to Trunk Bay. It was crowded when we got there but we knew the masses would be leaving soon and we were content to wait them out. In the meantime we did a little snorkeling. Queen triggerfish, juvenile phase:
Needlefish:
French angelfish, juvenile phase:
Sure enough, one hour later, the beach looked like this:
We were visited by many rays. Where ever we moved, they would follow:
Trunk Bay sunset:
Day nine: Caneel Bay and sunset sail
We started off the day by walking to Honeymoon:
It was hazy by St. Thomas, but looked clear if you faced towards Caneel:
It was too choppy to snorkel so we just hung around in the water
Until the inevitable from Liam: I am STARVING! So we packed up and headed to the Caneel Bay Beach Terrace for lunch. Since I know a lot of people haven’t been here before, I took a picture of the menu so you could see the prices and selection:
It’s a little pricy but the food is good and the portions are large enough to share as you will see. Roasted vegetable sandwich:
Club sandwich:
The infamous Caneel burger (no forks were used in the consumption of this burger):
Hawaiian pizza:
Pepperoni pizza:
Fish and chips:
This gentleman tried to join us for lunch but we are antisocial and refused him a place at the table:
After lunch we headed to Caneel’s main beach to hang out and snorkel:
It was not crowded and we never felt unwelcome here or at the restaurant. In fact, all of the Caneel staff we interacted with (main gate, front desk, restaurant, bar) were very accommodating and kind. Just remember not to use the resort’s chairs
Snorkeling was decent. Flounder:
Corals
Octopus hiding:
Graysby
Turtle
Nimble Spray Crab
Trunkfish
Trumpetfish
After we were finished snorkeling we stashed our gear in the jeeps and then came back for a drink at the bar. We sat on the upper terrace (which we had to ourselves) and enjoyed the view:
We were going out on a private sunset sail with Sail Caneel Bay on the Spitfire, kindly arranged by the lovely Pia from this forum. Heading to the boat:
Having fun:
My sister and me. Parents of warring siblings take comfort. We hated each other for many years and now are inseparable!
Liam the sailor:
Not much of a sunset but who cares:
What a great night! I highly recommend this sail, it is by far my favorite sunset sail I have taken. The boat is beautiful and the crew is friendly. Plus they serve good wine! (haha).
Back to the house for a random dinner. This is the kind of cooking I managed this trip….in other words, not much. Yes, that is leftover pizza, a bowl of blueberries, some random Italian meats, hot dogs, and a salad. At least the salad is Josephine’s greens, so that counts for something:
Day 10. Gibney. John and I dropped everyone and the gear of at the gate, then drive over to Hawksnest and snorkeled back. After getting a flat tire at Gibney last year, I am not parking at the gate anymore. It only takes a few minutes to snorkel over from Hawksnest. Lovely Gibney:
Strange “nuclear attack” beach ball tethered to the Beach Cottages. Quirky St. John humor….
We went snorkeling. It was only OK. This spot is weird like that. Sometimes it is teeming with fish, and other times it is a ghost town. This was a ghost town day. Elkhorn:
Blue tang:
Littlest Hawksnest:
Fun in the water:
Back to the house for dinner. Yup, more slavish cooking for me:
Spent the night at Pool Beach.
Day eleven:
Spent the morning at Pool Beach and then went to Shipwreck Landing for lunch again. We all basically ordered the same thing as last time so no pics. After lunch we went to Maho and went snorkeling. Queen angelfish:
Indigo hamlet:
Lobstah:
Filefish:
Then the skies opened up!
We stuck around for the sunset anyway (insert ominous music here…). It was lovely
So very peaceful and quiet, we had the beach to ourselves...(insert more ominous music here)
And then it was time to get out of the water. And we got feasted on! Clouds of no see ums as thick as the Sahara dust descended on us as we made our way to the jeeps. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands of them. Trying to take a shortcut to the car we ran through a grove of trees….and right into a fire ant nest! So now we had no see ums biting, fire ants stinging, and people screaming! It was not the tranquil ending to the evening that we had been anticipating. I know that we should have known better to stay for the sunset, but we had not been having any problems at Francis. Note to self: no more Maho sunsets!
Day 12-boat day
Today was our boat day. We had to stay in US waters since the kids don’t have passports, so once again I asked Pia to help choose a charter. We went out with Copeland Charters, Captain Kevin and his boat the Beer Cooler. I had no set itinerary other than to snorkel some spots we could not get to on our own and just to have fun in general. It worked out well and was a great day. First stop: Lovongo Cay.
Lovely and abundant corals. Fan:
Puddingwife:
Trumpetfish:
Giant school of fish under the dock:
Are you looking at me?
I could have just stayed here all day! I think I might have to rent the Lovongo Beach House now…
There were more places to explore though, so off we went. Next stop: Whistling Cay. Caili skipped this snorkel but Liam was in the water with us like the fish he is:
Elkhorn:
Porcupinefish:
Queen triggerfish (this is Liam’s photo):
For our next stop I asked Kevin to take us to Leinster/Waterlemon. Obviously we had been here a bunch of times before, but John couldn’t make the hike out this time because he has a nerve injury at the moment. Getting there by boat was our only option this time. We started off at the Leinster drift, one of my favorite snorkels. Trunkfish:
Barracuda:
Corals:
Spotted drum:
Hawksbill turtle:
Then Kevin drove a short distance to the mooring balls at the Cay. Caili sat out the Cay snorkel, but it turned out that she could have come….this was the easiest Waterlemon snorkel I have ever done! You barely had to kick to get around the Cay, we just floated along. I was hoping to see a spotted eagle ray in the deep water heading to the Cay but no luck.
Elkhorns with blue tang:
Fire coral:
We ate lunch on the boat at Waterlemon then headed around towards the east end. It was really choppy going over. Apparently there was a swell building up. Well, we felt it! We ended up at Newfound Bay:
Looking back towards Tortola:
It was a lovely spot but we didn’t see too much snorkeling so after a while we just all went swimming. Even Caili jumped in despite the fact that Kevin told us that there are sometimes sharks here:
Big stingray:
The boat and Captain:
After heading back to the North Shore, we had time for one more snorkel, but everyone was pretty much done for the day, so Kevin took us to Little Cinnamon for some swimming.
I helped the kids find the plane wreck and then relaxed in the water with a nice cold beer. Before we knew it t was time to head back to the National Park dock.
This was a really fun day! I enjoyed the itinerary and the captain as well. He was really good with the kids, especially Caili who can be rather shy. He was also good about adapting the itinerary to have something for everyone. We had two novice snorkelers on the boat and even they got out and about a little bit. I would definitely recommend this charter if you are looking for an “around St. John” day.
Back to the house where we grilled snapper for dinner and went to bed early after our busy day.
Day 13: tropical wave
I woke up early and one glance outside told me that the day was shot. The sky was filled with the kinds of clouds that don’t have an end. I have seen this before and knew that there was a weather front coming in. Sure enough a look at Captain Brandi’s facebook page told me to expect rain all day since a tropical wave was coming through. We spent the day just relaxing, reading, occasionally swimming in the pool, etc. There was no point in going to the beaches since there was off and on thunder.
Towards the end of the day everyone was a bit restless so we decided to go for an early dinner. I allowed the kids to weigh in on location, so of course we ended up at their favorite, Shipwreck Landing.
Conch fritters:
Plantains with peanut and coconut:
Waterlemon wahoo with coconut sauce and grilled shrimp:
Blackened grouper:
Strip steak:
Back to the house for conversation on the deck, watching the lightning streak across the sky.
Day 14
The weather was still rather rotten and the guys wanted to sleep in, so I took Caili and Laura into town to go shopping and lunch menu perusing. The guys agreed to meet us for lunch at the place of our choosing. I don’t usually take the overlook shots anymore since I have so many already, but today I stopped at the Trunk Bay overlook for a “different” kind of photo:
Even a rainy Trunk Bay photo is pretty, in my opinion.
Shopping didn’t net us too much other than at St. John Spice, where I got some wine glasses and coffee etc to send home and chatted with Ruth and Ron. As an aside, earlier in the trip we shopped at their other store, St. John Kids, and got a bunch of the cutest beach coverups! My sister and I each got two, and so did Caili. Actually Caili’s coverups are supposed to be shirts for grown women, but they fit her like a sundress. If you need a beach cover up you should check here, there are lots of cute and inexpensive options.
After deliberating, we decided on Ocean Grill for lunch, and met the guys in Mongoose Junction. Crispy chicken sandwich:
Chicken fingers:
Fish tacos baja-style:
Grilled mahi sandwich:
The food was pretty good, but where we really hit the jackpot was the dessert menu. Liam, like almost every kid, loves desserts, but he is allergic to eggs (as well as shellfish). Because of that, many desserts are off limits to him. However, at Ocean Grill, the chef used to be a pastry chef, and the dessert menu is huge, and it’s also allergy coded! I wish I had known about this earlier in the trip! Look at all of the choices. Page one:
Page two, with allergy key:
Liam was so excited to have multiple dessert choices. Making a selection was serious business:
Lemon tart:
Egg-free chocolate something (it might have been the cloud tart, I forget):
The adults shared a guava sundae with chocolate sauce:
I have a feeling that Ocean Grill will be in heavy rotation on our next trip!
It’s good to know that the zombie problem is under control here on St. John…
Back to the house, where we walked to Francis for a sunset snorkel and swim:
Day 15
We tried to go to Trunk, but the moment we got out of the car there was a huge thunderclap and the skies opened up. We have a “no beach during thunder” policy so instead packed the jeeps back up and headed in to town for some final shopping and lunch with the hopes that the bad weather would blow out in time for us to enjoy our final afternoon at the beach. Caili and I already had hook bracelets from prior trips, so we decided that Laura had to get one too. Hooked on St. John:
We ended up back at Waterfront Bistro for lunch (John’s choice). View from Waterfront Bistro:
Cheers!
Mahi seveche:
Steak frites:
BLT:
Tuna tacos redux:
After lunch we headed back to Mongoose so that the guys could go to the Tap Room and I could show John a piece of jewelry I liked at RI Patton. Of course it was one of those “hidden price tag” pieces! John made inquiries after I left and the stupid thing cost as much as a week at a villa! Needless to say I told him not to buy it. For now anyway…
While the guys went to the Tap Room Laura and I took the kids back to Ocean Grill for another dessert. Caili was full but Liam ordered the white chocolate cheesecake. He had never had cheesecake before:
I think he liked it:
The weather did end up clearing, so we decided to...yes, you guessed it, head back to the house and walk to Francis. We snorkeled over to big Maho and back. Visibility was only OK. Feather duster worm and coral:
Liamfish:
Southern stingray:
Cailifish:
John found a dead sand dollar (yes they put it back after looking at it!):
Beautiful sunset:
Day 16, last day
Took one last look at the view:
Had one last lunch in town:
Met the taxi:
For the walk of woe:
We will be back!
Good bye for now St. John. Thank you for sharing your beauty with us again
John and Becky
The group: Same as last summer. John and me, my sister, her two children Liam (13) and Caili (10), plus John’s brother.
Day one—travel day. Long and kind of boring, I will spare you the details. We got to the villa just in time for sunset:
I had ordered Katilady’s “survival arrival” dinner for us since I knew we would be tired and the house was too far out to drive to dinner. It was a TON of food. Huge roasted chicken, seasoned rice, grilled vegetables, all packed into a disposable foil pan and ready for the grill or oven, plus salad and dessert. Everything was fine, not exciting, but after a long travel day exciting is not what your stomach wants anyway. The best part was the dessert: key lime frozen cheesecake. I don’t usually like desserts but this one was really good.
Day two- headed in to town to fill out the paperwork for the rental cars and pick up some supplies. Cruz Bay ferry dock:
Then back to the house for some relaxing pool time. I had arranged for St. John Catering to deliver food for dinner this evening. I had them do “chef’s choice” with the one caveat that we wanted fish for the main course. Again, it was a ton of food. The protein main was just enough, but there was so many sides in such great quantities that we never ate it all, despite recycling it into other meals. Everything was of excellent quality, and I would order from them again. The woman who delivered everything wrote the menu for me, and I saved it. Here’s what we got:
Caesar salad with tahini-scented dressing and foccacia croutons
Spicy sweet potato mash
Creamy coconut rice
Pesto marinated zucchini
Garlic roma tomatoes with fresh mozzarella
Lightly jerked mahi mahi and separately packed shrimp skewers with roasted red pepper and herb sauce
Chocolate obsession cakes with kaluha and mint
My sister was not thrilled to see the shrimp skewers (Liam has an anaphylactic allergy to shrimp and crab which was noted when I ordered), but they were packed separately and so it was fine. For most people shrimp, crab, and lobster are celebratory dishes!
After the food was delivered we walked down to the beach for the rest of the day. Road encounter:
Lovely Francis:
No snorkeling, just swimming.
That evening’s dinner companions (about 20 of these fell out of the dinner table umbrella when I opened it!:
Day three
Another lazy day with no snorkeling (I told you this report was going to be different!). We went to Maho
And did, well, nothing. Floated in the water, had a picnic on the beach, relaxed, chatted…went home and grilled quesadillas for dinner, early bedtime.
Day four
Went to Hawksnest
Finally broke out the snorkel gear. Squid:
Tang:
Cailifish:
Went to town for lunch at Waterfront Bistro. Mahi salad:
Tuna tacos:
Picked up some mahi at the fish trap market for dinner, then back to the house for pool beach.
Day five. Walked to Francis for the day and went snorkeling.
Hermit crab eats whelk for dinner
Trunkfish
Chain moray
Flamingo tounge
Snorkeling was OK, not great, lots of sediment floating in the water. There were a bunch of turtles in the grassy area of the bay but the photos did not come out.
We went back to the house for the sunset
Grilled pizzas for dinner and went to bed early (this is becoming a theme)
Day six
Slept late, spent the morning at Pool Beach and then went to Shipwreck Landing for lunch. View:
Grilled mahi sandwich:
Grilled mahi platter:
Beer battered mahi:
Curry-nut crusted grouper (my new favorite item here):
Then we….guess what? Walked to Francis again
The sunset started out silvery
Then turned lovely
We stayed in the water for the whole thing, for whatever reason the no see ums were not biting
After the sun went down we walked back to the house and grilled burgers and hot dogs for dinner, nothing fancy.
Day seven. All this relaxing finally caught up to me because I was up for the day at 4:30 AM! Time for some activity to wear me back out again. We went to Salt Pond Bay:
Sean and I hiked over to Blue Cobblestone to snorkel, but the visibility was awful! So we quit and came back to the main bay to see what we could find.
Flounder
Scrawled filefish
Blue tang
Salt Pond snorkeling is Liam-approved:
We walked to Drunk Bay
And then back up the hot steep hill to the cars. All that working deserves a reward, so we went to my favorite place for lunch, Miss Lucy’s. Conch fritters:
Grouper reuben:
Crunchy fish:
And then we…yup. Went back to the house and walked to Francis for the sunset:
Afterglow from the deck of our villa
Day eight
The boys were MIA this morning, so I packed up the kids and my sister and drove over to Jumbie
We spent the morning swimming and chatting until the inevitable from Liam: “I am STARVING.” So, we packed up the jeep and just as we were about to pull out, here come the guys in their jeep! So we all drove in to town together and went to lunch at Banana Deck. Greek salad with grilled mahi:
Spicy grilled mahi wrap
Banana split with no banana (I don’t let the kids eat bananas while on island because someone told me that eating bananas will make you get more bug bites. I’ll do anything to cut down on bug bites!)
After lunch we went to Trunk Bay. It was crowded when we got there but we knew the masses would be leaving soon and we were content to wait them out. In the meantime we did a little snorkeling. Queen triggerfish, juvenile phase:
Needlefish:
French angelfish, juvenile phase:
Sure enough, one hour later, the beach looked like this:
We were visited by many rays. Where ever we moved, they would follow:
Trunk Bay sunset:
Day nine: Caneel Bay and sunset sail
We started off the day by walking to Honeymoon:
It was hazy by St. Thomas, but looked clear if you faced towards Caneel:
It was too choppy to snorkel so we just hung around in the water
Until the inevitable from Liam: I am STARVING! So we packed up and headed to the Caneel Bay Beach Terrace for lunch. Since I know a lot of people haven’t been here before, I took a picture of the menu so you could see the prices and selection:
It’s a little pricy but the food is good and the portions are large enough to share as you will see. Roasted vegetable sandwich:
Club sandwich:
The infamous Caneel burger (no forks were used in the consumption of this burger):
Hawaiian pizza:
Pepperoni pizza:
Fish and chips:
This gentleman tried to join us for lunch but we are antisocial and refused him a place at the table:
After lunch we headed to Caneel’s main beach to hang out and snorkel:
It was not crowded and we never felt unwelcome here or at the restaurant. In fact, all of the Caneel staff we interacted with (main gate, front desk, restaurant, bar) were very accommodating and kind. Just remember not to use the resort’s chairs
Snorkeling was decent. Flounder:
Corals
Octopus hiding:
Graysby
Turtle
Nimble Spray Crab
Trunkfish
Trumpetfish
After we were finished snorkeling we stashed our gear in the jeeps and then came back for a drink at the bar. We sat on the upper terrace (which we had to ourselves) and enjoyed the view:
We were going out on a private sunset sail with Sail Caneel Bay on the Spitfire, kindly arranged by the lovely Pia from this forum. Heading to the boat:
Having fun:
My sister and me. Parents of warring siblings take comfort. We hated each other for many years and now are inseparable!
Liam the sailor:
Not much of a sunset but who cares:
What a great night! I highly recommend this sail, it is by far my favorite sunset sail I have taken. The boat is beautiful and the crew is friendly. Plus they serve good wine! (haha).
Back to the house for a random dinner. This is the kind of cooking I managed this trip….in other words, not much. Yes, that is leftover pizza, a bowl of blueberries, some random Italian meats, hot dogs, and a salad. At least the salad is Josephine’s greens, so that counts for something:
Day 10. Gibney. John and I dropped everyone and the gear of at the gate, then drive over to Hawksnest and snorkeled back. After getting a flat tire at Gibney last year, I am not parking at the gate anymore. It only takes a few minutes to snorkel over from Hawksnest. Lovely Gibney:
Strange “nuclear attack” beach ball tethered to the Beach Cottages. Quirky St. John humor….
We went snorkeling. It was only OK. This spot is weird like that. Sometimes it is teeming with fish, and other times it is a ghost town. This was a ghost town day. Elkhorn:
Blue tang:
Littlest Hawksnest:
Fun in the water:
Back to the house for dinner. Yup, more slavish cooking for me:
Spent the night at Pool Beach.
Day eleven:
Spent the morning at Pool Beach and then went to Shipwreck Landing for lunch again. We all basically ordered the same thing as last time so no pics. After lunch we went to Maho and went snorkeling. Queen angelfish:
Indigo hamlet:
Lobstah:
Filefish:
Then the skies opened up!
We stuck around for the sunset anyway (insert ominous music here…). It was lovely
So very peaceful and quiet, we had the beach to ourselves...(insert more ominous music here)
And then it was time to get out of the water. And we got feasted on! Clouds of no see ums as thick as the Sahara dust descended on us as we made our way to the jeeps. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands of them. Trying to take a shortcut to the car we ran through a grove of trees….and right into a fire ant nest! So now we had no see ums biting, fire ants stinging, and people screaming! It was not the tranquil ending to the evening that we had been anticipating. I know that we should have known better to stay for the sunset, but we had not been having any problems at Francis. Note to self: no more Maho sunsets!
Day 12-boat day
Today was our boat day. We had to stay in US waters since the kids don’t have passports, so once again I asked Pia to help choose a charter. We went out with Copeland Charters, Captain Kevin and his boat the Beer Cooler. I had no set itinerary other than to snorkel some spots we could not get to on our own and just to have fun in general. It worked out well and was a great day. First stop: Lovongo Cay.
Lovely and abundant corals. Fan:
Puddingwife:
Trumpetfish:
Giant school of fish under the dock:
Are you looking at me?
I could have just stayed here all day! I think I might have to rent the Lovongo Beach House now…
There were more places to explore though, so off we went. Next stop: Whistling Cay. Caili skipped this snorkel but Liam was in the water with us like the fish he is:
Elkhorn:
Porcupinefish:
Queen triggerfish (this is Liam’s photo):
For our next stop I asked Kevin to take us to Leinster/Waterlemon. Obviously we had been here a bunch of times before, but John couldn’t make the hike out this time because he has a nerve injury at the moment. Getting there by boat was our only option this time. We started off at the Leinster drift, one of my favorite snorkels. Trunkfish:
Barracuda:
Corals:
Spotted drum:
Hawksbill turtle:
Then Kevin drove a short distance to the mooring balls at the Cay. Caili sat out the Cay snorkel, but it turned out that she could have come….this was the easiest Waterlemon snorkel I have ever done! You barely had to kick to get around the Cay, we just floated along. I was hoping to see a spotted eagle ray in the deep water heading to the Cay but no luck.
Elkhorns with blue tang:
Fire coral:
We ate lunch on the boat at Waterlemon then headed around towards the east end. It was really choppy going over. Apparently there was a swell building up. Well, we felt it! We ended up at Newfound Bay:
Looking back towards Tortola:
It was a lovely spot but we didn’t see too much snorkeling so after a while we just all went swimming. Even Caili jumped in despite the fact that Kevin told us that there are sometimes sharks here:
Big stingray:
The boat and Captain:
After heading back to the North Shore, we had time for one more snorkel, but everyone was pretty much done for the day, so Kevin took us to Little Cinnamon for some swimming.
I helped the kids find the plane wreck and then relaxed in the water with a nice cold beer. Before we knew it t was time to head back to the National Park dock.
This was a really fun day! I enjoyed the itinerary and the captain as well. He was really good with the kids, especially Caili who can be rather shy. He was also good about adapting the itinerary to have something for everyone. We had two novice snorkelers on the boat and even they got out and about a little bit. I would definitely recommend this charter if you are looking for an “around St. John” day.
Back to the house where we grilled snapper for dinner and went to bed early after our busy day.
Day 13: tropical wave
I woke up early and one glance outside told me that the day was shot. The sky was filled with the kinds of clouds that don’t have an end. I have seen this before and knew that there was a weather front coming in. Sure enough a look at Captain Brandi’s facebook page told me to expect rain all day since a tropical wave was coming through. We spent the day just relaxing, reading, occasionally swimming in the pool, etc. There was no point in going to the beaches since there was off and on thunder.
Towards the end of the day everyone was a bit restless so we decided to go for an early dinner. I allowed the kids to weigh in on location, so of course we ended up at their favorite, Shipwreck Landing.
Conch fritters:
Plantains with peanut and coconut:
Waterlemon wahoo with coconut sauce and grilled shrimp:
Blackened grouper:
Strip steak:
Back to the house for conversation on the deck, watching the lightning streak across the sky.
Day 14
The weather was still rather rotten and the guys wanted to sleep in, so I took Caili and Laura into town to go shopping and lunch menu perusing. The guys agreed to meet us for lunch at the place of our choosing. I don’t usually take the overlook shots anymore since I have so many already, but today I stopped at the Trunk Bay overlook for a “different” kind of photo:
Even a rainy Trunk Bay photo is pretty, in my opinion.
Shopping didn’t net us too much other than at St. John Spice, where I got some wine glasses and coffee etc to send home and chatted with Ruth and Ron. As an aside, earlier in the trip we shopped at their other store, St. John Kids, and got a bunch of the cutest beach coverups! My sister and I each got two, and so did Caili. Actually Caili’s coverups are supposed to be shirts for grown women, but they fit her like a sundress. If you need a beach cover up you should check here, there are lots of cute and inexpensive options.
After deliberating, we decided on Ocean Grill for lunch, and met the guys in Mongoose Junction. Crispy chicken sandwich:
Chicken fingers:
Fish tacos baja-style:
Grilled mahi sandwich:
The food was pretty good, but where we really hit the jackpot was the dessert menu. Liam, like almost every kid, loves desserts, but he is allergic to eggs (as well as shellfish). Because of that, many desserts are off limits to him. However, at Ocean Grill, the chef used to be a pastry chef, and the dessert menu is huge, and it’s also allergy coded! I wish I had known about this earlier in the trip! Look at all of the choices. Page one:
Page two, with allergy key:
Liam was so excited to have multiple dessert choices. Making a selection was serious business:
Lemon tart:
Egg-free chocolate something (it might have been the cloud tart, I forget):
The adults shared a guava sundae with chocolate sauce:
I have a feeling that Ocean Grill will be in heavy rotation on our next trip!
It’s good to know that the zombie problem is under control here on St. John…
Back to the house, where we walked to Francis for a sunset snorkel and swim:
Day 15
We tried to go to Trunk, but the moment we got out of the car there was a huge thunderclap and the skies opened up. We have a “no beach during thunder” policy so instead packed the jeeps back up and headed in to town for some final shopping and lunch with the hopes that the bad weather would blow out in time for us to enjoy our final afternoon at the beach. Caili and I already had hook bracelets from prior trips, so we decided that Laura had to get one too. Hooked on St. John:
We ended up back at Waterfront Bistro for lunch (John’s choice). View from Waterfront Bistro:
Cheers!
Mahi seveche:
Steak frites:
BLT:
Tuna tacos redux:
After lunch we headed back to Mongoose so that the guys could go to the Tap Room and I could show John a piece of jewelry I liked at RI Patton. Of course it was one of those “hidden price tag” pieces! John made inquiries after I left and the stupid thing cost as much as a week at a villa! Needless to say I told him not to buy it. For now anyway…
While the guys went to the Tap Room Laura and I took the kids back to Ocean Grill for another dessert. Caili was full but Liam ordered the white chocolate cheesecake. He had never had cheesecake before:
I think he liked it:
The weather did end up clearing, so we decided to...yes, you guessed it, head back to the house and walk to Francis. We snorkeled over to big Maho and back. Visibility was only OK. Feather duster worm and coral:
Liamfish:
Southern stingray:
Cailifish:
John found a dead sand dollar (yes they put it back after looking at it!):
Beautiful sunset:
Day 16, last day
Took one last look at the view:
Had one last lunch in town:
Met the taxi:
For the walk of woe:
We will be back!
Good bye for now St. John. Thank you for sharing your beauty with us again
John and Becky
Last edited by liamsaunt on Fri Aug 03, 2012 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It's like looking in your soup and finding a whole different alphabet.
-
Backtotheislands
- Posts: 371
- Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:32 pm
- Location: Rockwall, Texas
So enjoyed your trip report! 35 hours and 27 minutes til we board our plane!Less than 48 hours til we are on island! Can't wait! What is the Leinster Drift?? I may need to do this so please let me know! I loved Waterlemon so much last time that we went there 2 days back to back! If our trip hadn't been almost over I think I'd have gone there more!
-
msgcolleen
- Posts: 1497
- Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 8:33 am
- Location: Allen, Texas
WINNING trip report ~ And just in case you need more family members, I'm up for adoption! 
I think we just missed each other at Francis this time but hope we'll see you again next year! Hint, hint, I think Liam and Cali would love Carnival~~~~~
I think we just missed each other at Francis this time but hope we'll see you again next year! Hint, hint, I think Liam and Cali would love Carnival~~~~~
I've got 2 tickets to paradise~Pack your bags we'll leave tonight!
[url=http://www.TickerFactory.com/]
[url=http://www.TickerFactory.com/]
What a great way to start Monday! Thanks for the report. I am adding the St. John Catering drop off and that sunset sail to the February to-do list.
The Ocean Grill is one of our favorite lunch spots too. I am not a dessert person either and I was impressed with the homemade ice cream. They made my son an awesome sundae last trip.
The Ocean Grill is one of our favorite lunch spots too. I am not a dessert person either and I was impressed with the homemade ice cream. They made my son an awesome sundae last trip.
-
needmesomesun
- Posts: 236
- Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 3:51 pm
- Location: Unfortunately, not on St. John
Diana2, yes, we were at Francis Bay Estate House rented through Catered To. I will do a detailed review in the villa review section.
For fans of staying in the Francis area there is a brand new house going in above Francis Bay Estate. It comes on the rental market in the fall, I think. All the exterior work must be done because we had no construction noise. I found it on Caribbean Villa's website. It's called "On A Clear Day...."
For fans of staying in the Francis area there is a brand new house going in above Francis Bay Estate. It comes on the rental market in the fall, I think. All the exterior work must be done because we had no construction noise. I found it on Caribbean Villa's website. It's called "On A Clear Day...."
It's like looking in your soup and finding a whole different alphabet.
-
Marcia (Mrs. Pete)
- Posts: 1576
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:40 pm
- Location: Madison Area, Wisconsin