St. John Day 2: Turtle Time

We were both awake relatively early the next morning which was planned but also happened on its own since we'd gone to bed early the night before. We threw on our bathing suits, made some sandwiches, packed the cooler, grabbed our snorkel gear and chairs/towels (which were provided by the condo), and made it to Maho Beach by about 915a. This is a beautiful little beach right off the road on the north side of the island. It's famous for its turtles which we were hoping to see.

As part of trip planning, I read on Trip Advisor that there wasn't a lot of shade on St. John beaches and since they were currently more crowded than usual due to COVID, we needed to get there early and carry our shade with us. So I bought a Neso tent...a tent that is supposed to be easy to set up on the beach and stay standing in the wind. It even had cute pink flamingoes all over it. Needless to say it was neither easy to set up nor stay standing so we gave up and used it as a beach towel.

Maho beach is stunning and set between green hills on both sides.

I was pretty antsy to get in the water so we donned all our snorkel gear and set out. This was Melissa's first time snorkeling. I have an extra set of gear and I taught her the basics in the pool at home. Unfortunately, she didn't enjoy it and after seeing a couple of turtles, she swam back to shore. I stayed in and swam across the bay and back. In total, I saw six different green sea turtles.

This guy was underneath a boat that was anchored. There was a man sitting on the boat with his leg hanging out into the water. I ran right into him while watching this turtle go up and down for air.

I made sure to get some pics of the topside from the water.

Then it was more turtles.

I watched this turtle for a while and learned something new. When the cleaner fish attach to the back of the turtle, they do so upside down. They swim up, turn over on their backs, and attach.

I got my fill of snorkeling and started to get hungry so I headed back to shore and we had our picnic from the sandwiches, dip, and crackers we brought with us. Across the street was a drink truck where we also got some rum punch.

We spent the rest of the day alternating between beach and water. It got a bit more crowded after lunch and by 3p or so, we were ready for some a/c. We stopped at the overlook on the way back to the condo. This would end up as my favorite beach and favorite view on the island.

After we got back to the condo, we cleaned ourselves up in order to walk into town for drinks and dinner.

Just by our front door was a back gate that led to the road into town.

It also led to the big hill which this photo does no justice at all.

We made our usual stop at Beach Bar for BCBBBC and sunset.

Then we walked down the waterfront to Morgan's Mango for our 8p dinner reservations. It was Saturday night which was supposed to be lobster night but unfortunately, the fishermen didn't catch any lobster that day. So we started with the ceviche.

Melissa had coconut shrimp and a salad.

I had whole red snapper.

After dinner, the thought of walking up that hill was just too much for either of us to bear so we called Chico, the taxi driver recommended by our leasing agent. For $10, he took us the short way home. It was the best $10 we could spend.