January 2022

Whenever you see pictures of St. John, you most often see a picture of Trunk Bay. It seems to be the most recommended beach on the island. For these reasons, I honestly wasn't that excited about it. Experience tells me it will turn out to be overrated. This was not the case. It was totally worth it above and below sea. We arrived around 930a and got one of the last two parking spots. Despite that, the beach didn't look crowded.

We found a spot with as much shade as we could get and got ourselves situated. I enjoyed the view for a while then suited up and hit the water for snorkeling.

Lizardfish on the bottom.

Parrotfish.

Doctorfish.

Suddenly I swam into a huge school of small silver fish grouped together in all different sizes. They went as far as I could see. These were the smallest.

Then there were some slightly bigger.

I popped up to see what was going on topside and caught this pelican at the right time.

Flat needlefish near the surface.

There was a lot to see and I had been gone for a long time at this point. I thought Melissa might be getting worried. As I started my swim back to shore, I followed a stingray for a bit.

I lost sight of him and another appeared shortly.

After getting back to shore, we broke out the cooler and had lunch.

We had to leave the beach a bit earlier than usual today because we were booked for a sunset sail leaving late afternoon. We stopped off at the Trunk Bay overlook on the way back to town.

After getting cleaned up, we called Chico and he dropped us off at the boat docks in town. Normally, I don't like these large catamaran rides. I would prefer something with less people. But we found a spot off by ourselves next to the captain and really enjoyed the trip. They collected all our shoes and drink orders before leaving the dock.

We headed out at a pretty good pace.

The building in between these two hills is Windmill Bar where we watched the sunset last night.

It was very hazy out so our sunset was pretty hazy as well.

The cruise lasted about an hour and a half. After getting our shoes back and docking, we walked over to Lime Inn for our 730 dinner reservations. Lime Inn only offers a four or six course price fixe menu. We opted for the four course and started with drinks called Hunter's Passion, a mix of mango rum, pineapple juice, passionfruit, and coconut cream.

Despite the four course requirement, Melissa only wanted three.

Bubu salad

Rum ribs

Key lime pie

I wanted all four courses, of course.

Tuna tartare

I don't remember what this dish was but it was good.

Lobster risotto

Brownie a la mode

We were stuffed after such a large dinner but the restaurant had a cute adjoining shop we wanted to explore. We waddled throughout the store, made a couple of purchases, then made our way to Beach Bar. We thought we might have a drink but decided we were too full and tired and we wanted to continue watching our Netflix series. Chico to the rescue again!

After a couple of days in the sun and water, we thought it was time for a dry day. We tried to sleep in but no luck. I guess we were falling asleep too early every night. We drove the Jeep into town and found a place to park near Mongoose Junction. Then we walked down the waterfront to Cruz Bay Landing for some eggs benedict with crab cakes.

We stayed in town for a few hours, hitting most of the shops. We bought some little things along the way as well as some metal photo art. Our condo was full of this same artwork of turtles, donkeys, and beach scenes. I purchased a donkey and a beach scene and arranged to have both shipped home to the US. When we had our fill of shopping, we retreated to the a/c for a bit to catch an episode of our show. Towards the late afternoon, we made our way to Windmill Bar, high up on a hill to watch the sunset.

With drinks, of course.

We were joined by a couple of younger women who both worked at the Ritz Carlton on St. Thomas. They took the passenger ferry over to have a night out on St. John. They were fun to talk to and it was interesting to get their perspective of living and working in the islands.

After the sun went down, we were starving, so we made our way to town to try and get a spot at Beach Bar. There was a huge line - people waiting for a table and for to-go food and drinks. While we were waiting outside, we encountered the well-known Greenie, a homeless person known all over the island. Our leasing agent had warned us about him but said he was relatively harmless. He came up to us, speaking incoherently. When we ignored him, he slapped my arm twice, very hard. The cops were already at the bar responding to a prior issue but they didn't do anything about the incident. We were able to get away from him so I let it go. Shortly thereafter we got our seats at the bar.

It took an excruciatingly long time to get our food and drinks. There was a huge group of young tourists taking up half the bar, monopolizing the kitchen and bartenders and being overall obnoxious. I was getting very hangry but finally Melissa's nachos and my buffalo thighs appeared. As soon as the hangry wore off, we got a BCBBBC to go and caught a ride home with Chico.

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.

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.

Some time around May 2021, at one of our pool Sundays, my friend Melissa and I decided we needed a beach vacation. Because of the pandemic, I hadn't been on a "real" vacation in two years and it had been even longer for her. We didn't want to deal with COVID testing to re-enter the US so we chose another of the US Virgin Islands, St. John. With only a couple of months to plan and what seemed like all US travelers making the same plan, the pickings for lodging were slim and reserving a Jeep was even slimmer. I finally found a nice little condo in Cruz Bay and a very expensive Jeep on St. Thomas.

As with our trip to St. Croix, we had a somewhat early morning flight so Melissa came over and spent the night before at my house. We had enough time at the airport to grab some coffee for Melissa and some McDonald's for me before our 9a flight. Five hours later, we arrived on St. Thomas. The Jeep wasn't ready when we arrived but after a semi-short wait we loaded everything into our dark green Jeep and made the 30 minute drive to the St. John car ferry.

This was the most nerve-racking part of the trip for me...backing the Jeep into a tight space on a bobbing car ferry. Ugh. We had lots of direction.

We made it as the last car on the boat and they raised the ramp.

We enjoyed the fairly smooth 20 minute ride over to Sl. John.

We arrived on St. John around 5p and it was a short drive to our condo where we met the leasing agent who gave us a tour. It was only a one-bedroom but it was convenient, clean, and new. Ours was on the second floor.

This trip, no grocery store run was needed. I used a service on St. John where you place an order for your groceries ahead of time and they stock your kitchen for you. It was a smart move. I had made dinner reservations for most nights on the island since it was more crowded than usual with tourists and COVID had created a labor shortage. Tonight was a reservation night and it was for 7:30p at Banana Deck. We had some time to kill before then and we were craving our first island drink. We made the relatively short walk into town to Beach Bar.

The walk to town started off walking down a very long, very steep hill then up a shorter, less steep hill to arrive at the cemetery outside of town. Across the street, a peacock was hanging out.

We arrived at Beach Bar and sat at the bar for our first island drinks. Melissa ordered a pina colada and I ordered what would become our nightly staple, a BCBBBC which was basically a pina colada with banana cream and bananas made with Blue Chair Bay rum. This was one of those places with good music, a sense of humor, and a beautiful sunset.

Banana Deck was just across the street so we stumbled over after our drinks for dinner. We hadn't eaten since the early morning McDonald's so we were starving and tired. And Banana Deck was slooooooooow. We started out with conch fritters which they forgot about and then when we reminded them, they brought them out overcooked.

For dinner, we both had the blackened shrimp and mahi mahi with broccoli and rice. It was fine but nothing special. Banana Deck would not get a repeat visit.

After dinner, we both just wanted to go back to the condo and relax. Unfortunately, that required walking up that very long, very steep hill that we came down into town. We thought...how bad could it be? The answer is "always take a taxi back to the condo" bad.