SOTB II - Trip Report - Day 6
Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:39 pm
It was a beautiful day, everyone was up early, as usual, and this was a non-dive day for Terese, Karin and Diana, so we all headed out for the beach. Well, almost all. Unfortunately, Karen wasn't feeling well so she opted to stay behind at the villa. We chose to go to Maho, primarily because we didn't want Susan to have to walk too far with her injured foot, secondary because we were planning to go to Shipwreck Landing in Coral Bay for lunch. Today was to be Terese's first day to drive the big switchback just before Peter Bay. Let me just report now that it was a breeze for her; no problem, and we all pretty much concluded that it's scarier being the front seat passenger than it is being the actual driver. Anyway, no need to pack anything for lunch, so no stops other than to buy the necessary beach beverages; the sippie cups, a few snacks, snorkel gear and beach chairs had already been loaded into the cars. Shortly after arriving, some of us headed out for a morning snorkel. The snorkeling was great. We saw turtles, rays, a variety of fish, an eel, Queen and French Angelfish. The divers felt that they had seen more during the snorkel than they had on their dives thus far. After returning to the rest of the group and reporting of the great snorkel, some others headed out. I was able to convince my non-forum friend, referred to in previous SOTB II reports as Sybil, to give snorkeling another chance. She'd snorkeled before but with all the wrong equipment and had been so frustrated that she declared snorkeling was something she could do without. Once fitted with the right borrowed gear, she was off with the second group. I'm not sure if she's totally hooked yet, but I know it was a positive experience. The rest of us pretty much just hung out in the water talking. It was such a great day that we decided to forego our lunch plans in Coral Bay until another day and to just hangout and enjoy our Maho time. Sometime around 1:00ish, we were joined by Christine, Rick, Mr. and Mrs. B and Jorge. After talking with them for awhile, they invited the group up to their villa for drinks and sunset, which we accepted. By mid afternoon, we realized we were getting hungry so we decided to stop at Woody's on our way home for a late lunch/early dinner. We had a great time and the drinks and food were perfect after our day at the beach. We returned to the villa and were hoping that Karen was feeling better. She said she was feeling a little better but that she had missed us and spent the day cleaning up, finishing up some laundry, making a video tour of the villa and swimming in the pool. We all hung out for awhile and then talked about getting changed for our sunset invite. A short time later, Terese, Janet and I headed out to Allesandra. They had accurately reported and it was truly a beautiful sunset with great people; thank you RickG, Christine, Mr. & Mrs. B and Jorge. We had some rum cocktails with them and some time later decided that we didn't want to impose on their dinner hour, so we headed back to Oceana. Although no one was hungry for a real meal, some had snacks of cheese and crackers and chips and salsa. We enjoyed our villa, the beautiful night and each other's company a little longer and then headed off for an early night to bed. Aagh, another perfect day in STJ. Ali~ (pics to be posted by the photographers in the group)
