Trip Report: October 8 - 16, 2013
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 9:36 pm
**** Warning**** This is a really long trip report on our latest visit to our favorite place on earth. You will find a picture and video link at the bottom of the report.
We recently completed our third trip to St. John. We were on the island from October 8th through October 16th. The week prior to our trip was when the government shut down and beach closures happened. While we didn’t panic, we did research some options on St. Thomas and on the BVIs that we had never done before. Ultimately, the beaches opened back up on Sunday (October 6th) before we arrived on Tuesday (October 8th). Needless to say there was much rejoicing in our house that Sunday morning.
This was our 3rd trip in the last 13 months. To be able to go this often, we pack a lot of food and eat out one meal a day typically. When we do eat out, it is usually at lunch time or happy hour. One of the things we take advantage of is that we have a place where we live that we get meals that they make and freeze. You simply let the meals thaw out and then throw them in the oven. We brought several of these meals in a cooler we checked, so we were able to cook dinner at our cottage a few nights. We also cooked a quick breakfast every morning and usually pack sandwiches to take to the beach.
Tuesday, October 8 – We departed Little Rock on a 6:00am flight. Over the last couple of months, I had been exchanging PMs with another person that lives about 2 hours from us. Jimg20 was traveling back home from a business trip and we were able to meet face to face for the first time in the Atlanta airport. Jim took us to the Delta Sky Club and we got to visit for about 20 minutes. We had uneventful flights on to St. Thomas, arriving around 1:30pm and met Rachel outside the airport. Rachel had another couple in her car that had come over from St. John to have lunch with her. As Rachel was driving us to Red Hook, we got to talking and realized that the other couple was Mary Beth and Charlie from the forum (mbw1024). We caught the 3:00 ferry and once we got to St. John, we dropped our stuff at our cottage (Rendezvous) and had dinner (nachos and fish tacos) at Spyglass. After an early dinner we bought coffee at St. John Spice, water at St. John Ice and groceries at St. John Market and Starfish.
Wednesday, October 9 – We started our routine of getting up early. We ate a quick breakfast and headed to the beach. Most mornings we got up around 6:00 and were at the beach by 7:00 or 7:30 (and we usually fell asleep before 9:00 every night, wore out from snorkeling all day). We started the day at Maho and were the first people to arrive at the beach. When we got there, we saw a large presence of pelicans. When we started snorkeling, we realized that the bay was full of bait fish. As we swim through the bait fish, we saw numerous large tarpons. The tarpons were swimming alongside us and using us to help them corral the bait fish. We saw several turtles and 3 sting rays. We left Maho mid-morning and went to Haulover North to snorkel. The elk horn coral and sea fans at Haulover North are spectacular, and there always seems to be a big school of blue tang swimming around. When the water started getting rough, we went to Skinny Legs for lunch. We had BLT’s. It was one of the best BLTs I have ever had. After lunch, we snorkeled at Francis Bay and hung out for a while. At Francis we saw turtles, sting rays, a school of about two dozen parrot fish and tons of yellow grunts. For dinner we hit Tap Room and took advantage of the ½ price pizzas during happy hour.
Thursday, October 10 – This was our lazy day. We went to Great Lameshur Bay. Again we were the only ones there when we arrived. We snorkeled out to Bee Hive Cove. We saw a pretty good variety of fish, but nothing really stuck out. As we were coming back to our car, there were finally a few other people pull up. After our LONG swim, we ate sandwiches that we had packed in our cooler. We then decided to go back to our cottage. On the way back to Cruz Bay, we stopped at Chateau Bordeaux shared a hamburger and fries and a million dollar view. This has to be one of the best views on the entire island. When we got back to Rendezvous Cottage, we spent the afternoon hanging out at the pool. For dinner, we went to The Fish Trap. This was our first time to eat there. I had the seafood jambalaya and the wife had the Mahi sandwich, both were excellent.
Friday, October 11 – We started the day by hiking to Salomon. When we got to Salomon, it was just the two of us and a chicken on the beach. We snorkeled from Salomon over to Honeymoon. We were also the only people on Honeymoon, when we got there. We were surprised at how good the coral was here, since this is the closest beach to Cruz Bay. We saw several Gray Angelfish, turtles, rays and literally hundreds of yellow grunts (?). After we hiked back to town, we had brunch at Deli Grotto. The omelets were terrific. We then drove out to Cinnamon Bay and hiked up to American Hill. This was a very difficult hike with some very steep inclines. While American Hill did have some spectacular views of Maho Bay, we found American Hill ruins to be overgrown and not worth the effort to hike there. After American Hill, we went to Maho and swam with the turtles and the rays. We had dinner in the cottage.
Saturday, October 12 – Our morning snorkel was at Leinster Bay and Waterlemon Cay. This is always one of our favorite snorkels and this time didn’t disappoint. We found an octopus and followed it for several minutes as it swam from rock to rock out by the cay. We got a really cool video of the octopus swimming. Then we found a moray eel that was swimming along the bottom in the same area. After snorkeling around the cay, we saw 5 turtles, 4 rays and a large lobster. After a quick snack, we hiked to the ruins above Leinster Bay. When we got to the old guard house, (5 minute hike) we enjoyed a great view. We then hiked on up to the old boys home (another 5 minute hike). The view from here was breath taking. You could look down at the clear water around the cay, see the BVIs and see all the different colors of water as you looked back down the trail towards the parking lot below Annaberg. We then hiked back to our car. As were leaving the area, we stopped to see the Annaberg school house. This was not nearly as interesting as most of the other ruins we have explored. We went to Coral Bay and had lunch at Aqua Bistro. We had a Jerk chicken sandwich, a crab cake and fries. The food was very good, but this is one of the more expensive lunches we had. After Aqua Bistro, we went to Haulover North and Haulover South. Both Haulovers had been among our favorite snorkels when we were on the island in May, but we didn’t see much there this trip.
Sunday, October 13 – We parked at Peace Hill and hiked to Denis Bay and were the only ones there. The beach was beautiful, but the water was too rough to snorkel. After a while, we left Denis Bay and went to Little Cinnamon Bay. We were the only ones at Cinnamon Bay (you can tell we go really early) and Little Cinnamon. The best way to get to Little Cinnamon is to snorkel over from the far left end of Cinnamon Bay. Little Cinnamon is a very nice beach, with views of the massive homes at Peter Bay. There is part of a small plane a few feet from the beach, but there is not much else to see in the water. Lunch was BBQ nachos (huge) and wings at Skinny Legs. In the afternoon, we went to Maho. We snorkeled around the right side over to Little Maho and were the only ones on the beach there, since the camp grounds are closed. We saw several turtles and rays, a barracuda, a moray eel, reef squid and two of my new favorite fish (Queen Angelfish). We had dinner at the Tap Room during Happy Hour. We had a half price pizza, a pretzel with cheese and hummus. After dinner, we made our third stop at St. John Spice and got to talk a little SEC football with Ruth. Then we returned to the cottage and had desserts we had bought earlier in the day at Baked in the Sun.
Monday, October 14 – We stopped and got a “Pink Cadillac” sandwich, which was a great sandwich, from Deli Grotto to take to the beach with us. Salt Pond Bay was the destination for the day. We had a great snorkel along the east side of Salt Pond Bay. We took our first hike over to Drunk Bay, which offered some spectacular views. We then ate our sandwich and hiked over to Blue Cobblestone Beach (only ones there) and snorkeled back to Salt Pond Bay. During the day, we saw a barracuda, tons of different types of fish, turtles, rays and 4 small reef sharks. We ate dinner at Tamarind Inn that night. It was Italian night, which consisted of a three course meal for $30 a meal. Our main courses were Chicken Alfredo and Chicken Parmesan. The food was excellent and was very plentiful. We took over half the main course home with us.
Tuesday, October 15 – We went back to Leinster Bay and Waterlemon Cay. As we were getting out of the car, PIA pulled up to take her dogs for a walk. After a quick introduction, we had a nice visit with PIA. We left our cooler at the beginning of the beach and walked the end of the trail to snorkel around the cay. This was the 2nd time during this trip that we were the only ones snorkeling around Waterlemon Cay. During our snorkel we saw 30 star fish, 10 sting rays, 4 turtles and a huge spotted eagle ray. We had seen an eagle ray on a previous trip, but this eagle ray swam circles under us for about 5 minutes and then slowly swam off. As we were making our way out of the water at the beach, we saw a mongoose scamper off. The mongoose had unzipped our cooler and pulled out our brownies. Luckily the mongoose didn’t get to anything else in our cooler and we were able to enjoy the sandwiches we had picked up at Baked in the Sun that morning. When we left, we went to Francis Bay. From there we snorkeled over to Little Maho and then on to Maho. At the point between Little Maho and Maho, we saw the Queen Angelfish again, and then we saw a 5 foot long Nurse Shark. We followed the Nurse Shark for about 10 minutes as it leisurely checked out various coral and rock formations. For dinner we went to back to Spyglass, where we loaded up on the $1 wings, nachos and some of the best French fries I have ever eaten. Spyglass during Happy Hour was our favorite restaurant to go to. The bartenders were so great and really friendly.
Wednesday, October 16 – We got up early and went to Hawksnest, unfortunately we had packed up most everything the night before and didn’t have our bug spray with us. After an hour or so, we went back into town and had breakfast at Jake’s. The food was good, but the view wasn’t as nice as I thought it would be. After breakfast, we checked out of our cottage and James dropped us off at the ferry for our “Ride of Doom”.
It is hard to believe that with each trip we fall more and more in love with St. John. Maybe one day we will go there and actually relax, but for now there are still many things that we haven’t had a chance to explore. Here is a link to some pictures and videos we took during this trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/107431813@N05/
We recently completed our third trip to St. John. We were on the island from October 8th through October 16th. The week prior to our trip was when the government shut down and beach closures happened. While we didn’t panic, we did research some options on St. Thomas and on the BVIs that we had never done before. Ultimately, the beaches opened back up on Sunday (October 6th) before we arrived on Tuesday (October 8th). Needless to say there was much rejoicing in our house that Sunday morning.
This was our 3rd trip in the last 13 months. To be able to go this often, we pack a lot of food and eat out one meal a day typically. When we do eat out, it is usually at lunch time or happy hour. One of the things we take advantage of is that we have a place where we live that we get meals that they make and freeze. You simply let the meals thaw out and then throw them in the oven. We brought several of these meals in a cooler we checked, so we were able to cook dinner at our cottage a few nights. We also cooked a quick breakfast every morning and usually pack sandwiches to take to the beach.
Tuesday, October 8 – We departed Little Rock on a 6:00am flight. Over the last couple of months, I had been exchanging PMs with another person that lives about 2 hours from us. Jimg20 was traveling back home from a business trip and we were able to meet face to face for the first time in the Atlanta airport. Jim took us to the Delta Sky Club and we got to visit for about 20 minutes. We had uneventful flights on to St. Thomas, arriving around 1:30pm and met Rachel outside the airport. Rachel had another couple in her car that had come over from St. John to have lunch with her. As Rachel was driving us to Red Hook, we got to talking and realized that the other couple was Mary Beth and Charlie from the forum (mbw1024). We caught the 3:00 ferry and once we got to St. John, we dropped our stuff at our cottage (Rendezvous) and had dinner (nachos and fish tacos) at Spyglass. After an early dinner we bought coffee at St. John Spice, water at St. John Ice and groceries at St. John Market and Starfish.
Wednesday, October 9 – We started our routine of getting up early. We ate a quick breakfast and headed to the beach. Most mornings we got up around 6:00 and were at the beach by 7:00 or 7:30 (and we usually fell asleep before 9:00 every night, wore out from snorkeling all day). We started the day at Maho and were the first people to arrive at the beach. When we got there, we saw a large presence of pelicans. When we started snorkeling, we realized that the bay was full of bait fish. As we swim through the bait fish, we saw numerous large tarpons. The tarpons were swimming alongside us and using us to help them corral the bait fish. We saw several turtles and 3 sting rays. We left Maho mid-morning and went to Haulover North to snorkel. The elk horn coral and sea fans at Haulover North are spectacular, and there always seems to be a big school of blue tang swimming around. When the water started getting rough, we went to Skinny Legs for lunch. We had BLT’s. It was one of the best BLTs I have ever had. After lunch, we snorkeled at Francis Bay and hung out for a while. At Francis we saw turtles, sting rays, a school of about two dozen parrot fish and tons of yellow grunts. For dinner we hit Tap Room and took advantage of the ½ price pizzas during happy hour.
Thursday, October 10 – This was our lazy day. We went to Great Lameshur Bay. Again we were the only ones there when we arrived. We snorkeled out to Bee Hive Cove. We saw a pretty good variety of fish, but nothing really stuck out. As we were coming back to our car, there were finally a few other people pull up. After our LONG swim, we ate sandwiches that we had packed in our cooler. We then decided to go back to our cottage. On the way back to Cruz Bay, we stopped at Chateau Bordeaux shared a hamburger and fries and a million dollar view. This has to be one of the best views on the entire island. When we got back to Rendezvous Cottage, we spent the afternoon hanging out at the pool. For dinner, we went to The Fish Trap. This was our first time to eat there. I had the seafood jambalaya and the wife had the Mahi sandwich, both were excellent.
Friday, October 11 – We started the day by hiking to Salomon. When we got to Salomon, it was just the two of us and a chicken on the beach. We snorkeled from Salomon over to Honeymoon. We were also the only people on Honeymoon, when we got there. We were surprised at how good the coral was here, since this is the closest beach to Cruz Bay. We saw several Gray Angelfish, turtles, rays and literally hundreds of yellow grunts (?). After we hiked back to town, we had brunch at Deli Grotto. The omelets were terrific. We then drove out to Cinnamon Bay and hiked up to American Hill. This was a very difficult hike with some very steep inclines. While American Hill did have some spectacular views of Maho Bay, we found American Hill ruins to be overgrown and not worth the effort to hike there. After American Hill, we went to Maho and swam with the turtles and the rays. We had dinner in the cottage.
Saturday, October 12 – Our morning snorkel was at Leinster Bay and Waterlemon Cay. This is always one of our favorite snorkels and this time didn’t disappoint. We found an octopus and followed it for several minutes as it swam from rock to rock out by the cay. We got a really cool video of the octopus swimming. Then we found a moray eel that was swimming along the bottom in the same area. After snorkeling around the cay, we saw 5 turtles, 4 rays and a large lobster. After a quick snack, we hiked to the ruins above Leinster Bay. When we got to the old guard house, (5 minute hike) we enjoyed a great view. We then hiked on up to the old boys home (another 5 minute hike). The view from here was breath taking. You could look down at the clear water around the cay, see the BVIs and see all the different colors of water as you looked back down the trail towards the parking lot below Annaberg. We then hiked back to our car. As were leaving the area, we stopped to see the Annaberg school house. This was not nearly as interesting as most of the other ruins we have explored. We went to Coral Bay and had lunch at Aqua Bistro. We had a Jerk chicken sandwich, a crab cake and fries. The food was very good, but this is one of the more expensive lunches we had. After Aqua Bistro, we went to Haulover North and Haulover South. Both Haulovers had been among our favorite snorkels when we were on the island in May, but we didn’t see much there this trip.
Sunday, October 13 – We parked at Peace Hill and hiked to Denis Bay and were the only ones there. The beach was beautiful, but the water was too rough to snorkel. After a while, we left Denis Bay and went to Little Cinnamon Bay. We were the only ones at Cinnamon Bay (you can tell we go really early) and Little Cinnamon. The best way to get to Little Cinnamon is to snorkel over from the far left end of Cinnamon Bay. Little Cinnamon is a very nice beach, with views of the massive homes at Peter Bay. There is part of a small plane a few feet from the beach, but there is not much else to see in the water. Lunch was BBQ nachos (huge) and wings at Skinny Legs. In the afternoon, we went to Maho. We snorkeled around the right side over to Little Maho and were the only ones on the beach there, since the camp grounds are closed. We saw several turtles and rays, a barracuda, a moray eel, reef squid and two of my new favorite fish (Queen Angelfish). We had dinner at the Tap Room during Happy Hour. We had a half price pizza, a pretzel with cheese and hummus. After dinner, we made our third stop at St. John Spice and got to talk a little SEC football with Ruth. Then we returned to the cottage and had desserts we had bought earlier in the day at Baked in the Sun.
Monday, October 14 – We stopped and got a “Pink Cadillac” sandwich, which was a great sandwich, from Deli Grotto to take to the beach with us. Salt Pond Bay was the destination for the day. We had a great snorkel along the east side of Salt Pond Bay. We took our first hike over to Drunk Bay, which offered some spectacular views. We then ate our sandwich and hiked over to Blue Cobblestone Beach (only ones there) and snorkeled back to Salt Pond Bay. During the day, we saw a barracuda, tons of different types of fish, turtles, rays and 4 small reef sharks. We ate dinner at Tamarind Inn that night. It was Italian night, which consisted of a three course meal for $30 a meal. Our main courses were Chicken Alfredo and Chicken Parmesan. The food was excellent and was very plentiful. We took over half the main course home with us.
Tuesday, October 15 – We went back to Leinster Bay and Waterlemon Cay. As we were getting out of the car, PIA pulled up to take her dogs for a walk. After a quick introduction, we had a nice visit with PIA. We left our cooler at the beginning of the beach and walked the end of the trail to snorkel around the cay. This was the 2nd time during this trip that we were the only ones snorkeling around Waterlemon Cay. During our snorkel we saw 30 star fish, 10 sting rays, 4 turtles and a huge spotted eagle ray. We had seen an eagle ray on a previous trip, but this eagle ray swam circles under us for about 5 minutes and then slowly swam off. As we were making our way out of the water at the beach, we saw a mongoose scamper off. The mongoose had unzipped our cooler and pulled out our brownies. Luckily the mongoose didn’t get to anything else in our cooler and we were able to enjoy the sandwiches we had picked up at Baked in the Sun that morning. When we left, we went to Francis Bay. From there we snorkeled over to Little Maho and then on to Maho. At the point between Little Maho and Maho, we saw the Queen Angelfish again, and then we saw a 5 foot long Nurse Shark. We followed the Nurse Shark for about 10 minutes as it leisurely checked out various coral and rock formations. For dinner we went to back to Spyglass, where we loaded up on the $1 wings, nachos and some of the best French fries I have ever eaten. Spyglass during Happy Hour was our favorite restaurant to go to. The bartenders were so great and really friendly.
Wednesday, October 16 – We got up early and went to Hawksnest, unfortunately we had packed up most everything the night before and didn’t have our bug spray with us. After an hour or so, we went back into town and had breakfast at Jake’s. The food was good, but the view wasn’t as nice as I thought it would be. After breakfast, we checked out of our cottage and James dropped us off at the ferry for our “Ride of Doom”.
It is hard to believe that with each trip we fall more and more in love with St. John. Maybe one day we will go there and actually relax, but for now there are still many things that we haven’t had a chance to explore. Here is a link to some pictures and videos we took during this trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/107431813@N05/
glad you had another great trip. Your pictures are great!
