St. John Day 3: Limin' Out

It was another pretty early morning as we had a full day boat charter that departed from Coral Bay on the other side of the island. It was a curvy drive over with surprise pockets of rain showers as we went up and down the large hills. We arrived at the marina and boarded the Busy Bee with our captain, Justin. We took Dramamine ahead of time but Melissa was still concerned about getting seasick so we asked Justin to take us to snorkel areas that were on the calm side.

Our first stop was Flanagan's Island, a nature reserve for birds. I suited up and jumped in the water to swim towards shore. I was looking down, messing around with the camera and almost swam directly into a huge jellyfish. I was able to put the brakes on and snap a picture as it floated downward.

I made it to shore and walked around a bit but there wasn't much to see so I didn't stay long.

Underneath the water, this site had some rock formations and canyons that I don't often get to see as a snorkeler. The topography was very interesting but there was a swift current and I had to be careful not to get bashed against the rocks.

Our next stop was a shallow bay called Newfound Bay. This was supposed to be a good place to see turtles and rays but unfortunately, I didn't see either. I did almost run into yet another jellyfish.

Someone lost their boat in this bay.

Large school of blue tang.

Small red fish in the center is a squid.

Our last stop was Pelican Rocks, a snorkel spot that is widely acclaimed online. I guess it was an off day because I saw almost nothing there. The coral was in decent shape but the fish life was non-existent. We didn't stay long. We were getting hungry by this point and Lime Out, the floating taco bar was calling our name.

We started heading back toward the marina.

We passed the USVI version of Section 8 housing.

Then pulled up next to Lime Out. I've never seen anything like this. It's a completely floating taco bar. You pull up in your boat, anchor, and then swim over to the bar or they can deliver tacos to your boat.

We opted to swim over where there were 2 options:

Floatie tables

Or the swim up bar

We sidled up to the swim up bar where we sat on stools that were completely submerged and ordered our tacos.

The short rib tacos were amazing. Truly. I thought this was going to be a tourist trap but they really use fresh ingredients and make great tacos.

Justin took us on a brief tour of the marina after our taco fix. There were a lot of interesting boats anchored there and still some hurricane damage from the double effects of Irma and Maria. We opted to cut the day short an hour early since we were done snorkeling and had enough sun for the day.

Leaving the marina, we came upon some wild donkeys.

We returned to the condo for our usual routine of getting cleaned up for dinner. We didn't have reservations anywhere so we called Chico and asked him to drop us off at Mongoose Junction where there were several options. After a short wait, we got a table at Greengo's, a Mexican restaurant and ordered a couple of drinks.

The drinks and the queso were good but the chips were stale and my enchiladas were terrible. It was made worse by the garbage/sewage smell that wafted thru ever so often.

We were exhausted after our long day in the sun so we called Chico and he took us back to the condo. We found a good series on Netflix to binge during the rest of the trip but I think we only lasted through one or two episodes before falling asleep.