Teddy Salad's Trip Report - WARNING - LONG
Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:56 pm
Sorry for the length of this report. I didn't plan it that way, but the words just kept coming. Those of you who don't like long reports should skip this one. Those of you who like long reports will hopefully get something out of it. Special thanks to liamsaunt and sea-nile for their help with posting photos.
We took a 10-day trip to St. John to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary and had a great time. It was our second trip to St. John, the first time being seven years ago. My photos aren't great, certainly not in Vicki's class, all from a Pentax digital and with no editing or correction. No underwater photos. I've never been happy with the underwater shots I've taken with the disposables and haven't taken the plunge for a good underwater camera yet.. Some more pictures are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N ... 01/detail/
Day 1, Thursday January 3, we flew on American from Denver to Miami, then Miami to St. Thomas. The flights were on time and uneventful, except for the coffee with cream that my wife got that she said tasted like goat's milk. Not sure what happened there, but I was glad that even the airlines haven't figured out how to mess up a sealed bottle of apple juice. Miami was experiencing an unusual cold snap. It was 52 outside and seemed almost that cold inside the airport. We landed a little after 8 PM in St. Thomas. By the time we got our luggage and the taxi got us to Red Hook via a not so direct route which made my wife a bit carsick, it was about 9:30. We waited at the bar and called our property manager who was picking us up in Cruz Bay to tell her we would be on the 10 PM ferry. The bartender was a very friendly guy, and I was tempted to imbibe, but knowing I would have to drive in the dark on the left, just had water. After we landed at the ferry dock, the property manager, a very nice lady named Cindy,
picked us up to take us to Courtesy Car Rental so we could get the Jeep Wrangler we had reserved. She couldn't find one that was unlocked, so she said she could drive us out to our house and bring us back in the morning to get the Jeep. That was fine with us, since I didn't feel like driving that night anyway. Turns out I could have had that drink though. Cindy took us to the house, which overlooks Fish Bay and is called Fishbone.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N05/2195400696/" title="IMGP0531 by TeddySalad, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2153/219 ... 99c223.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMGP0531"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N05/2195406632/" title="Untitled by TeddySalad, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2342/219 ... 2ff1bc.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt=""></a>
A little about Fishbone. My wife and I have no children and never travel with anyone else, so we are always on the lookout for small houses, which we prefer to hotels and condos. We are not pool people. We prefer privacy and seclusion, but didn't want to be way out of town. We had stayed at Gallows Point on our previous visit, which was very nice. However, Gallows has priced themselves a bit out of our range and we wanted to be away from the Cruz Bay noise. Fishbone, which we found on vrbo.com, seemed to fit our needs and turned out to be just what we were looking for. If you are looking for luxury, look somewhere else, but it was clean and has a great view of Fish Bay. The driveway is steep and rough, but was no problem for a 4-wheel drive. The layout is a bit different. The bedroom is on the bottom floor along with a bathroom that features an outdoor shower which was very cool. The kitchen, dining, and living areas are all in one room on the top floor along with another bathroom that has a shower. We never
used the upstairs shower. There is no interior staircase, so to go from one floor to another you have to use the outside staircase. Kind of quirky, but no big deal once you get used to it.
Cindy showed us around and said she'd pick us up in the morning. After she left, we did a little stargazing on the deck (Orion was almost right overhead) while we listened to the surf crashing on Ditleff Point and knew we were going to have a great vacation.
Day 2, Friday January 4, I awoke before dawn and looked out at the Southern Cross above the lights of St. Croix and enjoyed the quiet for a little while before going back to bed. Cindy had gotten some groceries for us so we had breakfast and she picked us up a little after 9 and took us into Cruz Bay. She drove us around the town and pointed out some things before going to Courtesy Car Rental. When we got there, the manager, a very nice man named Greg, informed us that his shipment of Jeeps hadn't come in and that we would be renting a Ford Escape instead for the same price. The first thing I thought was it would be harder to park than a Wrangler, but it was a beautiful morning, the first of 8 full days on St. John, and besides, the Escape would give us more protection in case I forgot to drive on the left and had a head-on, so no problem mon!
On the way back out to Fishbone, we stopped at Starfish market to get some groceries. I was doing fine driving on the left with only an occasional gentle reminder from my copilot - "LEFT! LEFT!" - when I would forget where I was and drift to the right. We had lunch on our deck and decided to do a hike/snorkel starting at Parrot Bay and going up the shore to Genti Bay, which are all part of greater Reef Bay.
We saw a little parking area and some cars parked and figured we had found the trailhead. Our book, St. John Off The Beaten Track, had described the trailhead as steep with ropes to hang onto. There were nice steps here with a sign that said Reef Bay View. Well, our book is over seven years old, so I figured that they've built these nice new steps since then. We went down the steps and then I saw a grill and realized we were in somebody's back yard. We turned around and sprinted up the steps and then a lady inside the house said, "Is anybody up there?". My better half kept fleeing, but I, not knowing if this lady had a shotgun, called out "Just a couple of lost tourists". The lady came out and we explained that we were trying to find the way down to the beach. She told us to wait a minute and had her husband come out to tell us which way to go. He couldn't have been any nicer.
Thanks to his directions, we found the trailhead and scrambled down to the beach. There were a few kids surfing, but as we walked along the beach, we found that we were alone. We scrambled around the rocky point and continued our walk along the next beach. The day was perfect, there was a nice breeze, and there was no one else in sight. We encountered a few people on the way, but the place was very uncrowded. We decided not to do the last rock scramble before Genti Bay and stopped at a little isolated cove and did some snorkeling. We didn't have our fins, but the water was smooth and there were no currents to deal with. We didn't see many fish there, but the sun was out, the water felt great and we were glad that we had found that spot.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N05/2195400838/" title="IMGP0534 by TeddySalad, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2285/219 ... cd9b41.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMGP0534"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N05/2195400998/" title="IMGP0538 by TeddySalad, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2075/219 ... afc62b.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMGP0538"></a>
A couple hours later, we headed back, got cleaned up, watched a beautiful sunset from the deck, and went into town for dinner.
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There was a crazy amount of traffic but we managed to find a parking spot at Courtesy. The crowd of twentysomethings at Woody's was almost spilling out into the street and things were really hopping. We ate at the Lime Inn. I had shrimp Dijon and Mrs. Salad had the shrimp pasta special. Both were very good. Our waiter was a very genial, hardworking fellow. I forgot his name, but he told us he was a native of Mexico. There was a lot of pasta left over which we took home. For dessert we split a Key Lime pie which was outstanding. I like it on the tart side and found it perfect for my taste. Some more stargazing and we called it a night.
Day 3, Saturday January 5, we decided to hike to Salomon and Honeymoon beaches. We parked again at Courtesy and walked over to the Park visitor's center. The ranger was telling a couple that weekends were the best times to visit Trunk Bay because the cruise ships came during the week, especially, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We decided to go to Trunk the next morning. The hike over to Salomon was nice, and Salomon was gorgeous. We saw a yacht that had a helicopter on it.
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There were some other yachts without helicopters. Those folks must have felt like total failures in comparison.
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We also saw some jerk in a "pirate" ship dumping the ashes from his barbecue into the bay. I thought about yelling at him, but I didn't want to disturb the tranquility of the place for the few other people who were there. I really wanted to swim over and slap him upside the head, but decided to just grit my teeth and invoke the Curse of Poseidon on him.
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The waves were kind of rough over to the right where the good snorkeling is supposed to be, so we just swam in the middle of the bay where the water was smoother, but the water was kind of cloudy and we didn't see anything. A brief rain shower came but was no big deal. After about an hour and a half we went over to Honeymoon for awhile. We hiked back to town and had a late lunch at the Sun Dog cafe. I wanted the mahi sandwich but they had just run out so I had a burger instead. My wife had a Caesar salad. Both were good.
We stopped at Starfish and got some more groceries along with some Dramamine since my copilot was having carsickness issues. We went back out to Fishbone. By now I was getting the hang of driving on St. John. I found that the best way to position yourself on a road is to have the tree branches slapping your side mirror. Since many of the oncoming drivers like to drive in your lane as well as theirs, if no branches are hitting your mirror, you know you are too far to the right and are in danger of being within 5 feet of the center line (assuming there is one) which puts you at risk of a head on.
We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing around on the deck, feeding the bananaquits the sugar they are addicted to and doing some cloud watching. That evening, kabobs on the grill with the leftover pasta from the previous night's dinner, a couple of Cuba Libres, stargazing, and listening to the distant surf. Much preferable to the hustle and bustle in Cruz Bay that we guessed was happening on a Saturday night.
Day 4, Sunday January 6 - Woke up to a cloudy morning, so we puttered around and waited for it to clear up. When we, or rather I -- Mrs. Salad was content to read her book -- couldn't wait around anymore we hopped into the Escape and headed for Trunk Bay. We didn't go there on our previous trip seven years prior because the morning we planned on going the park employee there told us that the water was too rough for snorkeling. We got to Trunk just as it started raining. We decided to keep driving and figured that a rainy day would be a good time to do a little geocaching on the East end. For those of you unfamiliar, geocaching is hunting for "treasure" using a GPS receiver that has the cache's coordinates. We don't do it much, but we had a travel bug we wanted to leave (a travel bug is a metal tag with a serial number on it that can be tracked as it makes its journeys from geocache to geocache). The first geocache we tried to find was at Haulover. By the time we got there, the rain had stopped, so we hiked
through the trees which were dripping wet and proceeded to look for the cache.
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Haulover was a pretty spot, but our ears were assaulted by some horrible music coming from the nearest house. It's hard to describe this music, but it was sort of like Elvis sitting in with The Sons Of The Pioneers. Just awful. And loud. Maybe the people who live there use it to keep people away like fast food places play opera outside so kids won't congregate there. Anyway, we looked for the cache but couldn't find it. It was getting darker and the music was too much for us to take anymore so we scurried back to the car and just as we got in the rain started again. We drove to the second cache - there were only two on our agenda - which was in Hansen Bay. As luck would have it, the rain stopped again when we got there. There was a couple sitting at the picnic table there . Non-geocachers at a cache site are called muggles for some reason. We set about looking for the cache and all the while the muggles were watching us. We didn't find it, felt some raindrops, so we went back to the car. On our way back the
lady asked us if we made the drop. We explained that we were geocaching, not drug running. The guy's breath smelled like a distillery. We got back in the car just as it started to pour.
It's now about 12:30 and we decided to go to Miss Lucy's for Sunday Brunch. I was going from memory of seven years prior but I recalled that Miss Lucy's was a ways from Coral Bay. We drove in the pouring rain looking for Miss Lucy's and just when we thought we missed it and were about to turn around, there it was. There was a great jazz duo playing and we both ordered the special, which was a lobster omelet. It was good but a bit on the pricey side. We decided that dinner that night would be pancakes at Fishbone. Breakfast all three meals in one day? Sounds like heaven to me. The rain had pretty much quit by the time we left, but a few minutes later it started again harder than ever. We drove back to Fishbone through a deluge, hoping that at least our cistern might get full. Also hoping that the rest of our vacation would have sunnier weather. We got back to the house and by about 3 PM the rain had quit. We took a walk through the neighborhood on the steep roads there. On the way back to the house a man in a
Jeep stopped and asked us where we were from and where we were staying. He was a nearby resident and a really nice guy. That evening we did in fact have pancakes. With peanut butter and real maple syrup. We decided to finally turn on the radio and listen to a weather report. We found an FM station called 104.9 the Mongoose. Great classic rock station. They actually played the entire 17 minute studio version of Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida that night. I hadn't heard that in many a year. The weather said highs tomorrow 80 to 85 with an occasional shower and lows 70 to 75. It turned out that that's what the weather people there said every day. Sounds like an easy job to me.
Day 5, Monday January 7 - It was a beautiful morning so I got my bride up at about 7 and we decided that we were going to do the Reef Bay hike, down and back. We had done it on our previous trip to St. John and wanted to do it again. We filled our camelbacks with ice water and drove up to the trailhead. The weather was perfect, not too hot. Even with the previous day's rain, the trail was in good shape. Another car was already at the trailhead and we caught up with the people who belonged to it at the petroglyphs, a young woman and two young men.
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We didn't linger long at the petroglyphs since it looked like they were going to wait us out, and we continued down to the sugar mill.
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We explored it for a little while and then instead of going to the beach close by, we decided to take the trail marked Genti Beach. It turned out to be a good choice as we had Genti all to ourselves. We stayed almost an hour. We hadn't brought any swim gear so we didn't go into the water but it looked real nice.
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On the way back to the main trail we heard a huge buzzing overhead and looked up at an enormous swarm of bees. We hustled along and didn't get stung. We met quite a few people coming down on the way back, including the guided ranger tour which had about 30 people in it. As anyone who has hiked this trail knows, the closer you get to the trailhead on top, the steeper it gets. That is what makes this a fairly strenuous hike. We have been on longer hikes and steeper hikes, but the last quarter mile or so of steep uphill after you've gone more than 5 miles is pretty tough.
We made it to the top, sweating profusely, and decided to go to the Bordeaux mountain restaurant. After we did that hike seven years ago we stopped there for lunch where we had a great burger. When we got there we found that they aren't open for lunch anymore so we each got a mango banana smoothie, which tasted like it had alcohol in it, but it really hit the spot after that hike. We had a sandwich back at the cottage. Cindy had told us to try Ditleff for snorkeling, so after lunch we made the short drive down. Ditleff was recently sold and is going to be developed, but there are no houses there yet. The beach there is rocky at the waterline, but sandy further away from the water.
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There were a few other people there who looked like locals. We saw someone snorkeling off to the left, so we decided to go out that way. Sand and seagrass were all we saw for quite a ways and we were starting to wonder if Cindy had steered us wrong. The shelf of sand then ended and we were in coral. We started seeing fish. There were lots of soldierfish, yellow snapper, parrot fish, and other kinds of fish. We were glad that we had found such a nice snorkeling spot so close to where we were staying. We watched a beautiful sunset from the deck and then went into town for dinner and had ribs at Uncle Joe's. They were excellent. Cruz Bay was much less hectic than it was the previous Friday night. Another evening of Cuba Libres, stargazing and listening to the surf finished off the day.
Day 6, Tuesday January 8 - Our 15th wedding anniversary. We decided to hike to Ram Head that morning. We left at about 8 and when we arrived at the parking area, four people were just exiting their vehicle. They didn't seem to be overly happy that we were there, so I decided that if they were going to Ram Head and were faster hikers than us, we would stop at Blue Cobblestone beach and let them go to Ram Head first.
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It turned out that they were also going to Ram Head, but we were much faster hikers and we had Ram Head all to ourselves, and were feeling pretty good about our timing. Ram Head to ourselves and 15 years of marriage to the greatest woman in the world, how lucky can a guy get?
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N05/2195403636/" title="IMGP0611 by TeddySalad, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2377/219 ... 09daa9.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMGP0611"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N05/2195403450/" title="IMGP0612 by TeddySalad, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2118/219 ... dc29c9.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMGP0612"></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N05/2194615219/" title="IMGP0607 by TeddySalad, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2262/219 ... c078dd.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMGP0607"></a>
We spent about a half hour there and headed back. On the way, we met the four and a few other people. One guy said we should check out Drunk Bay which we hadn't been to before. We hadn't brought snorkel stuff, so we hiked back to Salt Pond Bay without stopping at Blue Cobblestone and then to Drunk Bay, which we also had to ourselves. We spent about 15 minutes there and headed back. By then there were probably 20 people or so at Salt Pond Bay.
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We decided to try the Hansen Bay geocache again so we could leave our travel bug. On the way there we saw a herd of goats which made us think of airline coffee for some reason. When we got to the parking area at Hansen Bay, an old pickup was parked there. My GPS receiver told me that the cache was somewhere up on a steep, rocky hillside, so I climbed up it, trying not to fall and break my neck. Just then a couple of local chaps passed by below us heading for the pickup. I was hoping they wouldn't see the crazy tourist (me) up on the hillside. They didn't, but they did see Mrs. Salad, who bade them good morning. The guys were very friendly. A third local passed by. Just then I spied the cache. I opened it up and was writing in the logbook when a fourth local came by with two barracuda he had just caught. He thought I was trying to find the trail he was on and gave us directions. I asked him what he was using for bait. "Squid", he told me.
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I left our travel bug and, flush with success, we had lunch at Skinny Legs. We both had burgers that were excellent and found out that LSU had beaten Ohio State the night before. That was the only TV we watched our whole time on the island. After lunch went back to Fishbone and then snorkeled at Ditleff again.
We had made reservations at Stone Terrace since it was our anniversary. The waiter asked us if we wanted bottled water or tap. We said tap was fine. We both ordered the tuna and a salad along with wine. They gave us bread with an excellent olive spread. We were asked if we wanted more bread and we declined which turned out to be a mistake since it was more than a half hour from the time we finished our bread and salads until our entree came. We were not sure what happened, but finally the waiter (one of about 5 we had, why do restaurants do that?) apologized for the wait and said our tuna was coming in a minute. Less than a minute later, our tuna came and it was delicious. For dessert we split a mango sorbet that they make at the restaurant. It was awesome. We are very forgiving diners, having both worked in restaurants in our younger days. We tip at least 20% unless the service is abominable, in which case we leave 15%. Final bill with the 20% tip: $167. This included $7 for water. Tap water. Maybe it was a
mistake or maybe that's really what they charge. We decided not to ask about the $7 tap water because I would rather fork over a few bucks than look like a cheap hick.
Day 7, Wednesday January 9 - We decided to head to Brown Bay and then later to Waterlemon so we packed a lunch. Just after we turned onto Centerline Road at the concrete plant, a cement truck entered the road in front of us. Drat! We were hoping he's only going a short way, but I had a hunch he was going to the big construction site south of Coral Bay. So we got to follow him and breathe his exhaust and listen to his horn as he honks going into every turn, of which there are about a thousand. A couple of advantages come to mind, however. On the esoteric side, we got to see the countryside at a very leisurely pace. A more practical advantage was that oncoming vehicles were actually staying in their lane! This was a welcome departure from the norm and I was thankful that I didn't have to drive with my left wheels in the gutter for a change. By now a parade was forming behind us and we hoped that Concrete Mon would pull over in a turnout and let us all pass. Does he do that? No, he does not. I realize that he
had a delivery to make, but he was going so slow that if he stopped to let us by he would be going at practically the same speed. It would have cost him maybe 15 seconds and saved the rest of us a lot more time than that. We decided not to risk a head on, but a couple of suicidal locals elected to pass us all on the downhill on the far side of Bordeaux Mountain, honking all the while. The first one succeeded in making it past the whole procession. The second one succeeded in barely avoiding a head on by swerving in between us and Concrete Mon. A short time later, he passed Concrete Mon and we were back in our familiar spot, eating diesel fumes again. Finally we got to the Coral Bay intersection and he did indeed turn off. We continued on, and found that we are the only vehicle at the parking area of the Brown Bay trailhead and walked over to the bay in our sandals.
We figured we were delayed about 20 minutes by Concrete Mon but hey, we are on vacation in St. John and it's a beautiful day so we were not really upset. We got to Brown Bay and were the only ones there. We snorkeled to the left and saw some nice coral and fish. We sat on the beach for awhile enjoying the solitude and realizing how very lucky we are. We went back out for another snorkel and my wife says "There's a huge fish on the bottom over here!" I swam over and saw that it was a nurse shark about four feet long, motionless on the bottom. I said "It's a shark!" Mrs. Salad swam for shore at warp speed. I was trying to remember if these sharks bite people or not, but decided not to take a chance and headed back for shore also.
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Later we decided to try snorkeling the right side of the bay. On our last visit to St. John, we swam with a friendly turtle in Brown Bay so we figured there might be one in the sea grass on the other side of the bay. We swam over a lot of conch shells, but saw nothing else. A little while later we saw a few fish. Before we knew it, we were at the edge of the bay and a ginormous cruise ship sailed by. It looked pretty close so we decided to head back. Now we found out why we had gotten out there so quickly. We were now swimming against a strong current. Geniuses that we are, we didn't want to carry our fins from the car. So here we are, sans fins, swimming for our lives. Well, maybe not swimming for our lives, but it's a real pain in the butt. I tried every stroke I knew, but I was only going about an inch with every stroke. Mrs. Salad is a better swimmer than I am and was probably going an inch and a half with every stroke, so after awhile she was way ahead. Now I was remembering something about currents
being strongest during the new and full moons and new moon was only the day before. Great! We finally made it back to shore, exhausted. I told my wife that maybe we should have swum at a right angle to the current toward the middle of the bay until we were out of the current. She thanked me for not having that idea sooner. Well, what do we know about swimming stuff anyway? We're from Colorado.
We noticed that we finally had company, a lone woman, but she was at the other end of the beach and was quiet, so it was still like we had the place to ourselves. After about a half hour, a couple of more people came, and then another couple came up to us as we were readying to leave. They were from Long Island, originally from Russia, and were real nice folks. We told them about the swimming and snorkeling conditions. I got to use the only Russian phrase I know "Da svedanya" (goodbye) which seemed to really impress them.
We walked back to the Escape and found a shady spot for our picnic, a low stone wall on the outside of a hairpin turn on the road from Centerline down to the North Shore road. A passing motorist declared that we had found an "awesome picnic spot dudes!". We continued on to the Leinster Bay parking lot and walked over to Waterlemon, this time with our fins. On the way, we passed two local ladies who were preparing to fish. I asked them what they were using for bait. "Squid" they said. I asked them what they were fishing for, and they said "Anything we can catch". Very nice ladies.
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We got to the beach near Waterlemon Cay and swam over to the Cay. We went to the left of the Cay but the snorkeling didn't seem as good as we remembered. We rested on the sandbar for awhile and then went to the other side where we were fighting a pretty strong current. We were still kind of worn out from our "Swim For Your Life" at Brown Bay, so we decided to let the current take us back to the beach. After we dried off, we went back to our vehicle and drove into Cruz Bay. We went into St. John Spice hoping to meet Ruth, but her associate told us she wasn't there but that she would be there in the morning. We bought a few things and went back out to Fishbone, cleaned up, and grilled boneless pork chops for dinner that we had gotten at Starfish. They were excellent.
Day 8 Thursday January 10 - We decided to do the Cinnamon Bay trail hike starting from the bottom and drove there via Centerline Road. No Concrete Mon this time fortunately. We hiked up to Centerline and back down. It was a nice shady hike. We met a couple from Boston who had parked on top and were doing the downhill first. We prefer to get the uphill over with first, and the steepest uphill on this trail is at the very first part.
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After our hike, we walked the trail around the ruins, then walked around the beach and the campground. We decided to go back to Fishbone for lunch and stop at Bordeaux for another smoothie, but just as we arrived there, a taxi had stopped in the road to show his passengers the view of Coral Bay. I wasn't sure when he was going to go again, so I just waited behind him. He finally started going and I pulled into the lot to park. Someone said I can't park there, the taxi started backing up right toward us, and a collision looked imminent. I gave it the gas to get out of the way. By the time I found a parking spot, about 20 people from the taxi had descended on the shop, so we decided to have some rum raisin ice cream back at the house instead. Lunch again at Fishbone and another snorkeling trip to Ditleff. We stayed at Ditleff this time until almost sundown. We would have stayed longer but the flying critters were being bothersome even though we had practically bathed in repellent. Pancakes again for dinner, yee
haw!
Day 9 Friday, January 11 - Our last full day on St. John, how could it be here already? We decided to get out early and go to Trunk Bay. We got there at 8:20 and there was already a car in the lot but no one to take our admission fee, although the sign said they open at 7:30. We went down to the beach and there was only one other person, who we judged to be a local lady doing exercises in the water. It was a picture perfect morning and no one else showed up until about 9. We did the snorkel trail and a little yellow fish swam right in front of my wife's mask the whole time we were in the water. We saw some very friendly yellow snappers that followed us around for awhile. That crazy little fish was still there in front of her face when she was exiting the water. We have no idea what it was attracted to. We lingered awhile until more people came, but it wasn't really crowded.
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We went into Cruz Bay and went back to St. John Spice. Ruth was there this time and we met her. For some reason I chuckled when she answered that she was indeed Ruth and she said that everyone from the Forum does that when they meet her. We went out to Fishbone to finish off all of our remaining food for lunch since we were leaving early the next morning. We were in search of a box to carry the booze we'd bought back home. Starfish had run out of the boxes. They said to try Sparky's. I called Sparky's to ask if they had them and the lady there said yes. I asked her where they were located and she said "Right next to JJ's barbecue". OK, I knew right where that was. After lunch we went back to Parrot Bay.
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We were totally alone this time. We only went as far as the first rock outcrop, stayed there for awhile until the sun got to be too much and then went back down the beach and found some shade.
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After awhile we hiked back up the hill and went back to Fishbone. We were perspiring heavily but couldn't figure out why since we hadn't hiked very far. At about 4 PM, it started raining so we guessed that the humidity was high and that's why we were sweating so much. We got cleaned up and went into town to get the Escape checked out since we were leaving early the next morning.
We got the car checked out and everything went fine. We went looking for Sparky's but couldn't find it. We asked someone where it was and he said right next to JJ's. The place next to JJ's was called Captain Beefheart's or something like that. Anyway it was closed. We went back to St. John Spice and saw Ruth again. We asked where Sparky's was and she told us. I said that it wasn't called Sparky's. She said, "Oh, yeah they changed the name, but everybody still calls it Sparky's". I swear even the lady that answered the phone there called it Sparky's. We had to wonder why they would ever change their name, to confuse tourists like us I guess. We said that it was closed. Ruth and the gentleman working with her told us to try Mixology Warehouse in the Lumberyard Complex. We went over there and it was stiflingly hot inside. The gentleman behind the counter said yes, he had some of those boxes. We already had 4 bottles and they carry 6 so we decided to buy 2 more and give him a little business. He told us that he
was getting out of retail because the overhead was killing him. We could believe that. He also said his power bill had gone up 26 percent. I supposed that was why the AC was off. We were the only customers, so we started to chat with him. We had found one of our favorite things: a local who liked to give us the inside scoop. I asked him where St. John's electricity comes from. He said from St. Thomas via underwater cable. I asked him how the power there was generated. He said fuel oil which I had guessed. Then he said "We have the sun, wind, waves here, but do we use any of it to make power? No." We got into a discussion about where the garbage ends up, the lack of recycling in the islands which bothers my wife very much, the school system and the like. We would have liked to stay longer, but it was very hot and humid in there. He also informed us that we couldn't carry our booze on the plane anymore. Now I had visions of smashed Cruzan, Grand Marnier and Grey Goose bottles when we got back to Denver. Too
late I remembered the story about the guy who drank a whole bottle of vodka when TSA wouldn't let him take it on the plane. Thank you very much terrorists!
We bade our new friend adieu and went over to Uncle Joe's for dinner. I had the ribs again but Mrs. Salad had the combo this time. The ribs there are great, but the chicken, sad to say, was on the dry side. We went back to Fishbone. This, our 9th night there, was the first night that it was too cloudy for stargazing. We finished packing and went to bed before 9 because we had to catch the 6 AM ferry the next morning. Ouch.
Day 10 Saturday January 12 - The alarm went off at 4:30 and I jumped in the outdoor shower. I looked out at the Southern Cross while I was showering which was pretty cool. We left the Escape at Courtesy, walked with our luggage to the dock and did the walk of woe. When the ferry landed at Red Hook, we were amazed at all the people who were going to St. John. People who work in St. John but can't afford to live there obviously. We got lucky in that the exact number of people to fill a van were going to the airport so we didn't have to go all over St. Thomas this time. While we were standing in the check in line at the airport, we noticed that nobody else was carrying a liquor box. Not a good sign, but no turning back now. We checked in, said goodbye to our liquor, and boarded the flight to San Juan. We were pleasantly surprised that the San Juan airport was nicer than we had expected. Our flight to Miami was on time and so was our flight to Denver. My wife decided to try the coffee again. She grimaced and said
"I swear it tastes like goat". I decided to taste it even though I can't stand coffee unless it has a 50% or higher Bailey's Irish Cream content. Sure enough, essence of goat. Must have been the cream, we're not sure, but coffee drinkers flying on American, beware! We landed in Denver and all of our luggage made it, including the booze. I picked up the box and shook it. Intact! The guy standing next to me laughed and told us how brave we were. I have a theory. Baggage handlers might toss suitcases around like tiddley-winks, but like all people they have pride. I figure that they see one of those boxes and think "Hey, someone has faith in us, let's make sure their faith is rewarded." Either that, or we just got lucky.
All in all, we had a great trip and won't wait another 7 years to revisit St. John. It is a wonderful place and has terrific people.
We took a 10-day trip to St. John to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary and had a great time. It was our second trip to St. John, the first time being seven years ago. My photos aren't great, certainly not in Vicki's class, all from a Pentax digital and with no editing or correction. No underwater photos. I've never been happy with the underwater shots I've taken with the disposables and haven't taken the plunge for a good underwater camera yet.. Some more pictures are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22826825@N ... 01/detail/
Day 1, Thursday January 3, we flew on American from Denver to Miami, then Miami to St. Thomas. The flights were on time and uneventful, except for the coffee with cream that my wife got that she said tasted like goat's milk. Not sure what happened there, but I was glad that even the airlines haven't figured out how to mess up a sealed bottle of apple juice. Miami was experiencing an unusual cold snap. It was 52 outside and seemed almost that cold inside the airport. We landed a little after 8 PM in St. Thomas. By the time we got our luggage and the taxi got us to Red Hook via a not so direct route which made my wife a bit carsick, it was about 9:30. We waited at the bar and called our property manager who was picking us up in Cruz Bay to tell her we would be on the 10 PM ferry. The bartender was a very friendly guy, and I was tempted to imbibe, but knowing I would have to drive in the dark on the left, just had water. After we landed at the ferry dock, the property manager, a very nice lady named Cindy,
picked us up to take us to Courtesy Car Rental so we could get the Jeep Wrangler we had reserved. She couldn't find one that was unlocked, so she said she could drive us out to our house and bring us back in the morning to get the Jeep. That was fine with us, since I didn't feel like driving that night anyway. Turns out I could have had that drink though. Cindy took us to the house, which overlooks Fish Bay and is called Fishbone.
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A little about Fishbone. My wife and I have no children and never travel with anyone else, so we are always on the lookout for small houses, which we prefer to hotels and condos. We are not pool people. We prefer privacy and seclusion, but didn't want to be way out of town. We had stayed at Gallows Point on our previous visit, which was very nice. However, Gallows has priced themselves a bit out of our range and we wanted to be away from the Cruz Bay noise. Fishbone, which we found on vrbo.com, seemed to fit our needs and turned out to be just what we were looking for. If you are looking for luxury, look somewhere else, but it was clean and has a great view of Fish Bay. The driveway is steep and rough, but was no problem for a 4-wheel drive. The layout is a bit different. The bedroom is on the bottom floor along with a bathroom that features an outdoor shower which was very cool. The kitchen, dining, and living areas are all in one room on the top floor along with another bathroom that has a shower. We never
used the upstairs shower. There is no interior staircase, so to go from one floor to another you have to use the outside staircase. Kind of quirky, but no big deal once you get used to it.
Cindy showed us around and said she'd pick us up in the morning. After she left, we did a little stargazing on the deck (Orion was almost right overhead) while we listened to the surf crashing on Ditleff Point and knew we were going to have a great vacation.
Day 2, Friday January 4, I awoke before dawn and looked out at the Southern Cross above the lights of St. Croix and enjoyed the quiet for a little while before going back to bed. Cindy had gotten some groceries for us so we had breakfast and she picked us up a little after 9 and took us into Cruz Bay. She drove us around the town and pointed out some things before going to Courtesy Car Rental. When we got there, the manager, a very nice man named Greg, informed us that his shipment of Jeeps hadn't come in and that we would be renting a Ford Escape instead for the same price. The first thing I thought was it would be harder to park than a Wrangler, but it was a beautiful morning, the first of 8 full days on St. John, and besides, the Escape would give us more protection in case I forgot to drive on the left and had a head-on, so no problem mon!
On the way back out to Fishbone, we stopped at Starfish market to get some groceries. I was doing fine driving on the left with only an occasional gentle reminder from my copilot - "LEFT! LEFT!" - when I would forget where I was and drift to the right. We had lunch on our deck and decided to do a hike/snorkel starting at Parrot Bay and going up the shore to Genti Bay, which are all part of greater Reef Bay.
We saw a little parking area and some cars parked and figured we had found the trailhead. Our book, St. John Off The Beaten Track, had described the trailhead as steep with ropes to hang onto. There were nice steps here with a sign that said Reef Bay View. Well, our book is over seven years old, so I figured that they've built these nice new steps since then. We went down the steps and then I saw a grill and realized we were in somebody's back yard. We turned around and sprinted up the steps and then a lady inside the house said, "Is anybody up there?". My better half kept fleeing, but I, not knowing if this lady had a shotgun, called out "Just a couple of lost tourists". The lady came out and we explained that we were trying to find the way down to the beach. She told us to wait a minute and had her husband come out to tell us which way to go. He couldn't have been any nicer.
Thanks to his directions, we found the trailhead and scrambled down to the beach. There were a few kids surfing, but as we walked along the beach, we found that we were alone. We scrambled around the rocky point and continued our walk along the next beach. The day was perfect, there was a nice breeze, and there was no one else in sight. We encountered a few people on the way, but the place was very uncrowded. We decided not to do the last rock scramble before Genti Bay and stopped at a little isolated cove and did some snorkeling. We didn't have our fins, but the water was smooth and there were no currents to deal with. We didn't see many fish there, but the sun was out, the water felt great and we were glad that we had found that spot.
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A couple hours later, we headed back, got cleaned up, watched a beautiful sunset from the deck, and went into town for dinner.
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There was a crazy amount of traffic but we managed to find a parking spot at Courtesy. The crowd of twentysomethings at Woody's was almost spilling out into the street and things were really hopping. We ate at the Lime Inn. I had shrimp Dijon and Mrs. Salad had the shrimp pasta special. Both were very good. Our waiter was a very genial, hardworking fellow. I forgot his name, but he told us he was a native of Mexico. There was a lot of pasta left over which we took home. For dessert we split a Key Lime pie which was outstanding. I like it on the tart side and found it perfect for my taste. Some more stargazing and we called it a night.
Day 3, Saturday January 5, we decided to hike to Salomon and Honeymoon beaches. We parked again at Courtesy and walked over to the Park visitor's center. The ranger was telling a couple that weekends were the best times to visit Trunk Bay because the cruise ships came during the week, especially, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We decided to go to Trunk the next morning. The hike over to Salomon was nice, and Salomon was gorgeous. We saw a yacht that had a helicopter on it.
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There were some other yachts without helicopters. Those folks must have felt like total failures in comparison.
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We also saw some jerk in a "pirate" ship dumping the ashes from his barbecue into the bay. I thought about yelling at him, but I didn't want to disturb the tranquility of the place for the few other people who were there. I really wanted to swim over and slap him upside the head, but decided to just grit my teeth and invoke the Curse of Poseidon on him.
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The waves were kind of rough over to the right where the good snorkeling is supposed to be, so we just swam in the middle of the bay where the water was smoother, but the water was kind of cloudy and we didn't see anything. A brief rain shower came but was no big deal. After about an hour and a half we went over to Honeymoon for awhile. We hiked back to town and had a late lunch at the Sun Dog cafe. I wanted the mahi sandwich but they had just run out so I had a burger instead. My wife had a Caesar salad. Both were good.
We stopped at Starfish and got some more groceries along with some Dramamine since my copilot was having carsickness issues. We went back out to Fishbone. By now I was getting the hang of driving on St. John. I found that the best way to position yourself on a road is to have the tree branches slapping your side mirror. Since many of the oncoming drivers like to drive in your lane as well as theirs, if no branches are hitting your mirror, you know you are too far to the right and are in danger of being within 5 feet of the center line (assuming there is one) which puts you at risk of a head on.
We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing around on the deck, feeding the bananaquits the sugar they are addicted to and doing some cloud watching. That evening, kabobs on the grill with the leftover pasta from the previous night's dinner, a couple of Cuba Libres, stargazing, and listening to the distant surf. Much preferable to the hustle and bustle in Cruz Bay that we guessed was happening on a Saturday night.
Day 4, Sunday January 6 - Woke up to a cloudy morning, so we puttered around and waited for it to clear up. When we, or rather I -- Mrs. Salad was content to read her book -- couldn't wait around anymore we hopped into the Escape and headed for Trunk Bay. We didn't go there on our previous trip seven years prior because the morning we planned on going the park employee there told us that the water was too rough for snorkeling. We got to Trunk just as it started raining. We decided to keep driving and figured that a rainy day would be a good time to do a little geocaching on the East end. For those of you unfamiliar, geocaching is hunting for "treasure" using a GPS receiver that has the cache's coordinates. We don't do it much, but we had a travel bug we wanted to leave (a travel bug is a metal tag with a serial number on it that can be tracked as it makes its journeys from geocache to geocache). The first geocache we tried to find was at Haulover. By the time we got there, the rain had stopped, so we hiked
through the trees which were dripping wet and proceeded to look for the cache.
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Haulover was a pretty spot, but our ears were assaulted by some horrible music coming from the nearest house. It's hard to describe this music, but it was sort of like Elvis sitting in with The Sons Of The Pioneers. Just awful. And loud. Maybe the people who live there use it to keep people away like fast food places play opera outside so kids won't congregate there. Anyway, we looked for the cache but couldn't find it. It was getting darker and the music was too much for us to take anymore so we scurried back to the car and just as we got in the rain started again. We drove to the second cache - there were only two on our agenda - which was in Hansen Bay. As luck would have it, the rain stopped again when we got there. There was a couple sitting at the picnic table there . Non-geocachers at a cache site are called muggles for some reason. We set about looking for the cache and all the while the muggles were watching us. We didn't find it, felt some raindrops, so we went back to the car. On our way back the
lady asked us if we made the drop. We explained that we were geocaching, not drug running. The guy's breath smelled like a distillery. We got back in the car just as it started to pour.
It's now about 12:30 and we decided to go to Miss Lucy's for Sunday Brunch. I was going from memory of seven years prior but I recalled that Miss Lucy's was a ways from Coral Bay. We drove in the pouring rain looking for Miss Lucy's and just when we thought we missed it and were about to turn around, there it was. There was a great jazz duo playing and we both ordered the special, which was a lobster omelet. It was good but a bit on the pricey side. We decided that dinner that night would be pancakes at Fishbone. Breakfast all three meals in one day? Sounds like heaven to me. The rain had pretty much quit by the time we left, but a few minutes later it started again harder than ever. We drove back to Fishbone through a deluge, hoping that at least our cistern might get full. Also hoping that the rest of our vacation would have sunnier weather. We got back to the house and by about 3 PM the rain had quit. We took a walk through the neighborhood on the steep roads there. On the way back to the house a man in a
Jeep stopped and asked us where we were from and where we were staying. He was a nearby resident and a really nice guy. That evening we did in fact have pancakes. With peanut butter and real maple syrup. We decided to finally turn on the radio and listen to a weather report. We found an FM station called 104.9 the Mongoose. Great classic rock station. They actually played the entire 17 minute studio version of Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida that night. I hadn't heard that in many a year. The weather said highs tomorrow 80 to 85 with an occasional shower and lows 70 to 75. It turned out that that's what the weather people there said every day. Sounds like an easy job to me.
Day 5, Monday January 7 - It was a beautiful morning so I got my bride up at about 7 and we decided that we were going to do the Reef Bay hike, down and back. We had done it on our previous trip to St. John and wanted to do it again. We filled our camelbacks with ice water and drove up to the trailhead. The weather was perfect, not too hot. Even with the previous day's rain, the trail was in good shape. Another car was already at the trailhead and we caught up with the people who belonged to it at the petroglyphs, a young woman and two young men.
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We didn't linger long at the petroglyphs since it looked like they were going to wait us out, and we continued down to the sugar mill.
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We explored it for a little while and then instead of going to the beach close by, we decided to take the trail marked Genti Beach. It turned out to be a good choice as we had Genti all to ourselves. We stayed almost an hour. We hadn't brought any swim gear so we didn't go into the water but it looked real nice.
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On the way back to the main trail we heard a huge buzzing overhead and looked up at an enormous swarm of bees. We hustled along and didn't get stung. We met quite a few people coming down on the way back, including the guided ranger tour which had about 30 people in it. As anyone who has hiked this trail knows, the closer you get to the trailhead on top, the steeper it gets. That is what makes this a fairly strenuous hike. We have been on longer hikes and steeper hikes, but the last quarter mile or so of steep uphill after you've gone more than 5 miles is pretty tough.
We made it to the top, sweating profusely, and decided to go to the Bordeaux mountain restaurant. After we did that hike seven years ago we stopped there for lunch where we had a great burger. When we got there we found that they aren't open for lunch anymore so we each got a mango banana smoothie, which tasted like it had alcohol in it, but it really hit the spot after that hike. We had a sandwich back at the cottage. Cindy had told us to try Ditleff for snorkeling, so after lunch we made the short drive down. Ditleff was recently sold and is going to be developed, but there are no houses there yet. The beach there is rocky at the waterline, but sandy further away from the water.
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There were a few other people there who looked like locals. We saw someone snorkeling off to the left, so we decided to go out that way. Sand and seagrass were all we saw for quite a ways and we were starting to wonder if Cindy had steered us wrong. The shelf of sand then ended and we were in coral. We started seeing fish. There were lots of soldierfish, yellow snapper, parrot fish, and other kinds of fish. We were glad that we had found such a nice snorkeling spot so close to where we were staying. We watched a beautiful sunset from the deck and then went into town for dinner and had ribs at Uncle Joe's. They were excellent. Cruz Bay was much less hectic than it was the previous Friday night. Another evening of Cuba Libres, stargazing and listening to the surf finished off the day.
Day 6, Tuesday January 8 - Our 15th wedding anniversary. We decided to hike to Ram Head that morning. We left at about 8 and when we arrived at the parking area, four people were just exiting their vehicle. They didn't seem to be overly happy that we were there, so I decided that if they were going to Ram Head and were faster hikers than us, we would stop at Blue Cobblestone beach and let them go to Ram Head first.
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It turned out that they were also going to Ram Head, but we were much faster hikers and we had Ram Head all to ourselves, and were feeling pretty good about our timing. Ram Head to ourselves and 15 years of marriage to the greatest woman in the world, how lucky can a guy get?
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We spent about a half hour there and headed back. On the way, we met the four and a few other people. One guy said we should check out Drunk Bay which we hadn't been to before. We hadn't brought snorkel stuff, so we hiked back to Salt Pond Bay without stopping at Blue Cobblestone and then to Drunk Bay, which we also had to ourselves. We spent about 15 minutes there and headed back. By then there were probably 20 people or so at Salt Pond Bay.
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We decided to try the Hansen Bay geocache again so we could leave our travel bug. On the way there we saw a herd of goats which made us think of airline coffee for some reason. When we got to the parking area at Hansen Bay, an old pickup was parked there. My GPS receiver told me that the cache was somewhere up on a steep, rocky hillside, so I climbed up it, trying not to fall and break my neck. Just then a couple of local chaps passed by below us heading for the pickup. I was hoping they wouldn't see the crazy tourist (me) up on the hillside. They didn't, but they did see Mrs. Salad, who bade them good morning. The guys were very friendly. A third local passed by. Just then I spied the cache. I opened it up and was writing in the logbook when a fourth local came by with two barracuda he had just caught. He thought I was trying to find the trail he was on and gave us directions. I asked him what he was using for bait. "Squid", he told me.
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I left our travel bug and, flush with success, we had lunch at Skinny Legs. We both had burgers that were excellent and found out that LSU had beaten Ohio State the night before. That was the only TV we watched our whole time on the island. After lunch went back to Fishbone and then snorkeled at Ditleff again.
We had made reservations at Stone Terrace since it was our anniversary. The waiter asked us if we wanted bottled water or tap. We said tap was fine. We both ordered the tuna and a salad along with wine. They gave us bread with an excellent olive spread. We were asked if we wanted more bread and we declined which turned out to be a mistake since it was more than a half hour from the time we finished our bread and salads until our entree came. We were not sure what happened, but finally the waiter (one of about 5 we had, why do restaurants do that?) apologized for the wait and said our tuna was coming in a minute. Less than a minute later, our tuna came and it was delicious. For dessert we split a mango sorbet that they make at the restaurant. It was awesome. We are very forgiving diners, having both worked in restaurants in our younger days. We tip at least 20% unless the service is abominable, in which case we leave 15%. Final bill with the 20% tip: $167. This included $7 for water. Tap water. Maybe it was a
mistake or maybe that's really what they charge. We decided not to ask about the $7 tap water because I would rather fork over a few bucks than look like a cheap hick.
Day 7, Wednesday January 9 - We decided to head to Brown Bay and then later to Waterlemon so we packed a lunch. Just after we turned onto Centerline Road at the concrete plant, a cement truck entered the road in front of us. Drat! We were hoping he's only going a short way, but I had a hunch he was going to the big construction site south of Coral Bay. So we got to follow him and breathe his exhaust and listen to his horn as he honks going into every turn, of which there are about a thousand. A couple of advantages come to mind, however. On the esoteric side, we got to see the countryside at a very leisurely pace. A more practical advantage was that oncoming vehicles were actually staying in their lane! This was a welcome departure from the norm and I was thankful that I didn't have to drive with my left wheels in the gutter for a change. By now a parade was forming behind us and we hoped that Concrete Mon would pull over in a turnout and let us all pass. Does he do that? No, he does not. I realize that he
had a delivery to make, but he was going so slow that if he stopped to let us by he would be going at practically the same speed. It would have cost him maybe 15 seconds and saved the rest of us a lot more time than that. We decided not to risk a head on, but a couple of suicidal locals elected to pass us all on the downhill on the far side of Bordeaux Mountain, honking all the while. The first one succeeded in making it past the whole procession. The second one succeeded in barely avoiding a head on by swerving in between us and Concrete Mon. A short time later, he passed Concrete Mon and we were back in our familiar spot, eating diesel fumes again. Finally we got to the Coral Bay intersection and he did indeed turn off. We continued on, and found that we are the only vehicle at the parking area of the Brown Bay trailhead and walked over to the bay in our sandals.
We figured we were delayed about 20 minutes by Concrete Mon but hey, we are on vacation in St. John and it's a beautiful day so we were not really upset. We got to Brown Bay and were the only ones there. We snorkeled to the left and saw some nice coral and fish. We sat on the beach for awhile enjoying the solitude and realizing how very lucky we are. We went back out for another snorkel and my wife says "There's a huge fish on the bottom over here!" I swam over and saw that it was a nurse shark about four feet long, motionless on the bottom. I said "It's a shark!" Mrs. Salad swam for shore at warp speed. I was trying to remember if these sharks bite people or not, but decided not to take a chance and headed back for shore also.
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Later we decided to try snorkeling the right side of the bay. On our last visit to St. John, we swam with a friendly turtle in Brown Bay so we figured there might be one in the sea grass on the other side of the bay. We swam over a lot of conch shells, but saw nothing else. A little while later we saw a few fish. Before we knew it, we were at the edge of the bay and a ginormous cruise ship sailed by. It looked pretty close so we decided to head back. Now we found out why we had gotten out there so quickly. We were now swimming against a strong current. Geniuses that we are, we didn't want to carry our fins from the car. So here we are, sans fins, swimming for our lives. Well, maybe not swimming for our lives, but it's a real pain in the butt. I tried every stroke I knew, but I was only going about an inch with every stroke. Mrs. Salad is a better swimmer than I am and was probably going an inch and a half with every stroke, so after awhile she was way ahead. Now I was remembering something about currents
being strongest during the new and full moons and new moon was only the day before. Great! We finally made it back to shore, exhausted. I told my wife that maybe we should have swum at a right angle to the current toward the middle of the bay until we were out of the current. She thanked me for not having that idea sooner. Well, what do we know about swimming stuff anyway? We're from Colorado.
We noticed that we finally had company, a lone woman, but she was at the other end of the beach and was quiet, so it was still like we had the place to ourselves. After about a half hour, a couple of more people came, and then another couple came up to us as we were readying to leave. They were from Long Island, originally from Russia, and were real nice folks. We told them about the swimming and snorkeling conditions. I got to use the only Russian phrase I know "Da svedanya" (goodbye) which seemed to really impress them.
We walked back to the Escape and found a shady spot for our picnic, a low stone wall on the outside of a hairpin turn on the road from Centerline down to the North Shore road. A passing motorist declared that we had found an "awesome picnic spot dudes!". We continued on to the Leinster Bay parking lot and walked over to Waterlemon, this time with our fins. On the way, we passed two local ladies who were preparing to fish. I asked them what they were using for bait. "Squid" they said. I asked them what they were fishing for, and they said "Anything we can catch". Very nice ladies.
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We got to the beach near Waterlemon Cay and swam over to the Cay. We went to the left of the Cay but the snorkeling didn't seem as good as we remembered. We rested on the sandbar for awhile and then went to the other side where we were fighting a pretty strong current. We were still kind of worn out from our "Swim For Your Life" at Brown Bay, so we decided to let the current take us back to the beach. After we dried off, we went back to our vehicle and drove into Cruz Bay. We went into St. John Spice hoping to meet Ruth, but her associate told us she wasn't there but that she would be there in the morning. We bought a few things and went back out to Fishbone, cleaned up, and grilled boneless pork chops for dinner that we had gotten at Starfish. They were excellent.
Day 8 Thursday January 10 - We decided to do the Cinnamon Bay trail hike starting from the bottom and drove there via Centerline Road. No Concrete Mon this time fortunately. We hiked up to Centerline and back down. It was a nice shady hike. We met a couple from Boston who had parked on top and were doing the downhill first. We prefer to get the uphill over with first, and the steepest uphill on this trail is at the very first part.
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After our hike, we walked the trail around the ruins, then walked around the beach and the campground. We decided to go back to Fishbone for lunch and stop at Bordeaux for another smoothie, but just as we arrived there, a taxi had stopped in the road to show his passengers the view of Coral Bay. I wasn't sure when he was going to go again, so I just waited behind him. He finally started going and I pulled into the lot to park. Someone said I can't park there, the taxi started backing up right toward us, and a collision looked imminent. I gave it the gas to get out of the way. By the time I found a parking spot, about 20 people from the taxi had descended on the shop, so we decided to have some rum raisin ice cream back at the house instead. Lunch again at Fishbone and another snorkeling trip to Ditleff. We stayed at Ditleff this time until almost sundown. We would have stayed longer but the flying critters were being bothersome even though we had practically bathed in repellent. Pancakes again for dinner, yee
haw!
Day 9 Friday, January 11 - Our last full day on St. John, how could it be here already? We decided to get out early and go to Trunk Bay. We got there at 8:20 and there was already a car in the lot but no one to take our admission fee, although the sign said they open at 7:30. We went down to the beach and there was only one other person, who we judged to be a local lady doing exercises in the water. It was a picture perfect morning and no one else showed up until about 9. We did the snorkel trail and a little yellow fish swam right in front of my wife's mask the whole time we were in the water. We saw some very friendly yellow snappers that followed us around for awhile. That crazy little fish was still there in front of her face when she was exiting the water. We have no idea what it was attracted to. We lingered awhile until more people came, but it wasn't really crowded.
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We went into Cruz Bay and went back to St. John Spice. Ruth was there this time and we met her. For some reason I chuckled when she answered that she was indeed Ruth and she said that everyone from the Forum does that when they meet her. We went out to Fishbone to finish off all of our remaining food for lunch since we were leaving early the next morning. We were in search of a box to carry the booze we'd bought back home. Starfish had run out of the boxes. They said to try Sparky's. I called Sparky's to ask if they had them and the lady there said yes. I asked her where they were located and she said "Right next to JJ's barbecue". OK, I knew right where that was. After lunch we went back to Parrot Bay.
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We were totally alone this time. We only went as far as the first rock outcrop, stayed there for awhile until the sun got to be too much and then went back down the beach and found some shade.
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After awhile we hiked back up the hill and went back to Fishbone. We were perspiring heavily but couldn't figure out why since we hadn't hiked very far. At about 4 PM, it started raining so we guessed that the humidity was high and that's why we were sweating so much. We got cleaned up and went into town to get the Escape checked out since we were leaving early the next morning.
We got the car checked out and everything went fine. We went looking for Sparky's but couldn't find it. We asked someone where it was and he said right next to JJ's. The place next to JJ's was called Captain Beefheart's or something like that. Anyway it was closed. We went back to St. John Spice and saw Ruth again. We asked where Sparky's was and she told us. I said that it wasn't called Sparky's. She said, "Oh, yeah they changed the name, but everybody still calls it Sparky's". I swear even the lady that answered the phone there called it Sparky's. We had to wonder why they would ever change their name, to confuse tourists like us I guess. We said that it was closed. Ruth and the gentleman working with her told us to try Mixology Warehouse in the Lumberyard Complex. We went over there and it was stiflingly hot inside. The gentleman behind the counter said yes, he had some of those boxes. We already had 4 bottles and they carry 6 so we decided to buy 2 more and give him a little business. He told us that he
was getting out of retail because the overhead was killing him. We could believe that. He also said his power bill had gone up 26 percent. I supposed that was why the AC was off. We were the only customers, so we started to chat with him. We had found one of our favorite things: a local who liked to give us the inside scoop. I asked him where St. John's electricity comes from. He said from St. Thomas via underwater cable. I asked him how the power there was generated. He said fuel oil which I had guessed. Then he said "We have the sun, wind, waves here, but do we use any of it to make power? No." We got into a discussion about where the garbage ends up, the lack of recycling in the islands which bothers my wife very much, the school system and the like. We would have liked to stay longer, but it was very hot and humid in there. He also informed us that we couldn't carry our booze on the plane anymore. Now I had visions of smashed Cruzan, Grand Marnier and Grey Goose bottles when we got back to Denver. Too
late I remembered the story about the guy who drank a whole bottle of vodka when TSA wouldn't let him take it on the plane. Thank you very much terrorists!
We bade our new friend adieu and went over to Uncle Joe's for dinner. I had the ribs again but Mrs. Salad had the combo this time. The ribs there are great, but the chicken, sad to say, was on the dry side. We went back to Fishbone. This, our 9th night there, was the first night that it was too cloudy for stargazing. We finished packing and went to bed before 9 because we had to catch the 6 AM ferry the next morning. Ouch.
Day 10 Saturday January 12 - The alarm went off at 4:30 and I jumped in the outdoor shower. I looked out at the Southern Cross while I was showering which was pretty cool. We left the Escape at Courtesy, walked with our luggage to the dock and did the walk of woe. When the ferry landed at Red Hook, we were amazed at all the people who were going to St. John. People who work in St. John but can't afford to live there obviously. We got lucky in that the exact number of people to fill a van were going to the airport so we didn't have to go all over St. Thomas this time. While we were standing in the check in line at the airport, we noticed that nobody else was carrying a liquor box. Not a good sign, but no turning back now. We checked in, said goodbye to our liquor, and boarded the flight to San Juan. We were pleasantly surprised that the San Juan airport was nicer than we had expected. Our flight to Miami was on time and so was our flight to Denver. My wife decided to try the coffee again. She grimaced and said
"I swear it tastes like goat". I decided to taste it even though I can't stand coffee unless it has a 50% or higher Bailey's Irish Cream content. Sure enough, essence of goat. Must have been the cream, we're not sure, but coffee drinkers flying on American, beware! We landed in Denver and all of our luggage made it, including the booze. I picked up the box and shook it. Intact! The guy standing next to me laughed and told us how brave we were. I have a theory. Baggage handlers might toss suitcases around like tiddley-winks, but like all people they have pride. I figure that they see one of those boxes and think "Hey, someone has faith in us, let's make sure their faith is rewarded." Either that, or we just got lucky.
All in all, we had a great trip and won't wait another 7 years to revisit St. John. It is a wonderful place and has terrific people.
You'll just have to click on them to see the larger sizes. 
