Virgin Islands Trip, Trunk Bay

That's Ken standing on the beach of Trunk Bay with our snorkel gear!

After a great day on the island of St. John, we decided to head there again the next day.  With the majority of the island being a national park, there was so much we wanted to see.  Unfortunately, we only had a couple of days left of our vacation so we had to choose from so many beautiful places on the island.  Since we love to snorkel, we chose to spend the day at Trunk Bay, which is known for its underwater snorkel trail.

After breakfast at the resort, we were once again on the ferry in Red Hook.

Again, we were treated to a beautiful ride from St. Thomas to St. John.  The first picture below is a little blurry, but it gives an idea of all the beautiful islands so close to each other.

After the ferry ride to St. John, we quickly found an open-air taxi and were on our way to Trunk Bay.  Again, the views from the hillside were amazing and I snapped the picture of Trunk Bay from the taxi.

Minutes later we were at Trunk Bay, which is a part of the National Park.  As luck would have it, we didn't have to pay the $4 per person entrance fee because all national parks were waiving their fees for the weekend.  

The wooded walkway had several entrances to the beach, just welcoming you to come in!

The beach was beautiful, but I don't think you'd find an unattractive beach on these islands!

Like Cinnamon Bay, this beach also had lots of natural shade underneath the bushes, where we grabbed our spot.

After snorkeling the underwater trail, we kicked back on the beach for a while and enjoyed the views!  To be honest, we loved the beach of Trunk Bay but the snorkeling wasn't the best.  The water was clear and beautiful, but this particular day didn't provide very many fish.  However, it was still a great time.

When we were ready to head back to town and catch the ferry, we took advantage of the clean showers and changed clothes.  We also noticed that there were camp sites along the path for rent ... what a cool place this would be to camp!

We grabbed the ferry back to St. Thomas, and once again were treated to beautiful sights.  If you look towards the center of the picture below you'll see a sailboat on the horizon among the islands ... love it!

We arrived back to the Sugar Bay Resort in time for a few evening cocktails at the pool bar.  That drink in my hand was a "Moonlight Sail", which was full of alcohol (will post recipe soon) but tricked me with its innocent taste.  Let's just say that after two of these drinks on an empty stomach ... I had to ask Ken what we ate for dinner!  Ahhh ... good times!  I'm such a lightweight, but luckily I passed out before 9pm so I was feeling fine early the next morning for our 8am ferry ride (only runs once a day) to Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands.  Thank goodness for alarms ... the only time we used one the entire vacation.  Thanks to Ken as well for setting it ... he knew there was no way I had!

Ken said that after dinner I kept trying to get him to go to the resort's casino and play blackjack with me.  Luckily, he got me to our hotel room instead because the next day was another great one.

More to come about Jost Van Dyke and two of its famous bars ... Foxy's and the Soggy Dollar!

Hasta luego ... until then.  Mid-Life Cruising!

Virgin Islands Trip, Cinnamon Bay

Our last post showed the little town of St. John, which we enjoyed exploring the morning that we arrived by ferry.  After a while, we were ready to catch a taxi to Cinnamon Bay, which I heard was really beautiful.  The taxis are pretty much open air trucks, which is much nicer in my opinion.  Who would want to ride in a typical closed-up car?  Riding through the hills with the breeze through my hair and the island scents ... nice!  Since the island of St. John is so small, it only took minutes to arrive at Cinnamon Bay.  The views on the way were beautiful, and I managed to take a quick picture (above) as we sped past this site in the taxi.

Across the street from the beach path was the "Cinnamon Bay" trail, which was a short path leading through ruins of a sugar plantation.  Interestingly, the ruins were occupied as late as the 1960's ... hard to believe!  Some of the ruins were from the house of the the supervisor.  The supervisor wasn't the owner of the plantation, as he lived on St. Thomas.   With the ruins located only about a mile from the beach, it seems that the supervisor had it pretty good!

Ken exploring the ruins and reading one of several plaques throughout the trail

The ruins also contained an old cemetery, which held the remains of the owner's family.  I wanted to get a closer look, but Ken was spooked.  He wasn't getting close and gave me a hard time about "walking on the dead".  In my defense ... I wasn't walking ON the tombstones, just around them!

The ruins that I'm sitting in front of were the supervisor's home.

The trail made a loop and took us back to where we began.  We walked across the street and these were some of the first views of Cinnamon Bay ... ahhh!

Although these two guys were windsurfing and it looks calm in these pictures, it was very windy and there were no beginners ... only these two guys.  They were really moving.  I definitely want to try this someday!

As expected, Cinnamon Bay was beautiful!  We sat for a few minutes and watched the windsurfers while absorbing the surreal beauty around us.  Since we wanted to be flexible and didn't know what the day would hold for us, we had packed our swimsuits and a towel into our "Pampered Pirate" backpack.  It didn't take long to determine that we needed to change clothes and get in that beautiful water!

After changing into our swimsuits we walked along the beach and noticed that although the beach was fairly crowded, it wasn't obvious.  The beach was lined with large sea grape bushes, which provided the perfect place to tuck yourself away under the shade of the bushes.  How nice to have natural shade!

This picture is kinda dark, but it shows the beach and natural shade!

Our "Pampered Pirate" waterproof backpack ... you can get one too!

The water wasn't only beautiful and clear, but it was just the right temperature.  Ken and I spent most of the afternoon at Cinnamon Bay, swimming and sunbathing.  The sand was soft and felt great on my feet!  Also, this particular beach had a lot of little seashells on it.  I was determined to find two little shells that were similar and good for making matching necklaces for me and my daughter.  I enjoyed searching for my "treasures", and I did find two cute little shells that will soon be on a little satin or leather chord.  Oh, and did I mention how perfect the weather was?!  Well, it was ... the entire trip!  After being used to the heat and humidity of Louisiana, having low humidity and a constant breeze was awesome.  It was like being on vacation or something!

Okay, here's the bikini shot!  Some of you may have read my post before our vacation about my personal challenge, and my efforts to get bikini ready for our trip.  In that post, I included a bikini picture from 15 years ago.  At 45, I think I'm doing pretty good at maintaining my weight.  I owe it all to exercise and discipline ... not luck!

After a great afternoon, we figured we'd head back to the restrooms for a quick rinse in the shower (very clean and convenient) and to change back into our clothes.  We had no idea what time it was ... no watch or cell phone.  We were getting into the "island time"!  Getting a taxi back into "town" was very easy, as there were several waiting in the beach's parking lot.  Once we were back in town we went to a bar that one of the guests at Sugar Bay told us about.  It was called "Cowboys" and was supposed to have a good "happy hour"  with great brisket sliders.  Ken and I love brisket and a good bargain, so we tried it out even though the place didn't sound very "island" like.  We really enjoyed the sliders and the $3 rum punch, but not the country music ... the one type of music we just don't get into.  The views made up for the music, since the bar was located right across from the water, the Visitor Center, and the dinghy dock.  We watched a few "cruisers" pull up in their dinghy, and imagined pulling up in our own dinghy someday.

Afterwards, we walked across the street to get a better look at the dinghys.  Just like the sailboats we saw, the dinghys were a little intimidating.  We recently bought a dinghy with an inflatable floor, and all the ones that we saw had hard bottoms ... damn it!  We did speak to a couple as they were tying up to the dock.  They appeared to be in their sixties, and they had been cruising for about 3 months.  They said they were learning a lot, but enjoying it!  I asked where they cruised from, and they said nearby in Tortola.  They decided to buy a sailboat that was already in paradise ... smart couple!

We then meandered to the beach nearby, where the ferry had dropped us off earlier that day.  We enjoyed another cocktail (and another happy hour) at a bar called "High Tide".  This bar was right on the beach, so the views were even better.  While kicking back, I noticed a little sign in the corner of the bar that said "Clearance - $5.00".  My frugal self had to check out the clearance rack.  I found an orange (my favorite color) tank top for 5 bucks!   I love a bargain and now had a shirt from St. John!

View from the beach at "High Tide"!

Ken tried "Banks Caribbean Lager", which he said was pretty good ... especially when sipping it at a beach bar on St. John!  You can see the bartender's "High Tide" shirt in the background.

The ferry back to St. Thomas runs every hour, so when we saw the ferry pull up to the dock we figured it was about time to head back to the Sugar Bay resort and enjoy a good dinner.  Like that morning, the 20-minute ferry ride was a lot of fun, with great views.  I snapped the shot below of St. Thomas as we approached and enjoyed the sunset! 

Ahhh ... another great day in paradise!  We had so much fun that we decided to spend the next day back on St. John so we could snorkel at Trunk Bay.  I'll have more about in the next post!

Hasta luego ... until then.  Mid-Life Cruising!

Virgin Islands Trip, St John

Pulling into St. John, USVI ... view on our right

After two great days on St. Thomas, we decided to head to Red Hook and ride the ferry to St. John.  Once again, we jumped on the local bus and were at the ferry terminal in just minutes, and only $1 each!  The ferry runs every hour, so we were headed to St. John without much of a wait.  Below is the type of ferry that we rode to St. John.

As we approached St. John we had this beautiful view to our left ...

and this to our right (after passing all the boats in first picture) ...

  View of the dock ...

and the central area of St. John

that included this statue that I really liked .... "FREEDOM", with a conch shell and machete

We loved St. John, with its quaint shops and streets ... there are no high rise condos here!

Now Zen ... my kinda store!  I love Buddhas and zen stuff!

We went into the Zen store above, and the woman working there had moved to St. John about a year earlier.  She was working part-time at the store, and also paints to make extra money.  I'm not really into tattoos, but she had some matching "bracelet" tattoos on each wrist ... really cool!  This long-haired blonder definitely had that "zen" look, and I envied her laid-back lifestyle.  I went over my thoughts with Ken ... renting a place on St. John after we finish our cruising chapter, working at a "zen" store and getting a few tattoos ... someday?! 

Right alongside the dock of St. John was a great little beach (didn't need to go far) with cool beach bars, providing beautiful views.

I had to write our "MLC"  (Mid-Life Cruising) in the sand!

After exploring, we grabbed a taxi to Cinnamon Bay for the day.  More about that in our next post!

Hasta luego ... until then.  Mid-Life Cruising!