Welcome, and The Quick(er) Overview

Hello friends and family!

I created this blog as a journal for the memories of our trip, more for ourselves, but of course with our friends and family in mind.  This is a great way for us to share the moments of our trip with all of you, and also have something to keep for ourselves whenever we want to relive it.

I have blogged a day-by-day detailed account, one blog per day.  If at your leisure you're interested you can read, skim or skip days, whatever you feel like!  If you would rather have the overview, then I'm posting that below and you can ignore the day-by-day blogs.

I will be uploading pictures to a photo hosting site online shortly and will post the link to those when they are up.

Enjoy!

_________

The Overview

We left for St. Thomas and St. John bright and early Saturday morning, June 6.  My 30th birthday was June 7, and we had been planning this trips for months and were eagerly anticipating it.  We stayed in a condo at a lovely resort, The Sapphire Beach Resort & Marina, saving some money on accommodations so we could budget for more activities, dining and souvenirs.  We chose to eat in for breakfast and lunch and a few dinners, and only go out to eat a couple times.  It worked out well, especially since food is crazy expensive in the Virgin Islands.

So, after a purse mishap in the airport (I left it there when I got on the plane, along with our cash, credit cards, license, passport... but a stewardess went back and found it, thankfully with everything still in it!) and a delay on the runway due to weather, we landed in St. Thomas!  Met up (late) with our prearranged ride and got to our condo.  We ate that night at a little restaurant on the hillside in the resort behind us, by the poolside lit up pretty at night, and with a great view during our walk there.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of the waves crashing - Adam had opened our balcony door when he left to go detecting because he knew I loved the sound, and that put me in a great mood.  I went for a run around the three interconnecting resorts we shared, smiling and saying good morning to everyone.  It was a great feeling to wake up and have the whole week ahead of us, plus, it was my birthday!  I ended the run with a jump in the pool (on a very picturesque rocky point going out into the bay), and enjoyed the early morning peace as I swam laps.  The sunrise there is 5:30, and sets at 6:45, so we actually got up and went to bed earlier than normal the whole week!  Anyway, this became our morning ritual - Adam got up to detect, I ran and swam, then came back to the condo to pack up for the day, make breakfast and then we ate together on our balcony.  We both said those morning breakfasts on the balcony were some of our favorite memories from the trip.

For my birthday we had a special dinner out at a nice restaurant on the hillside overlooking the harbor, called Hervé.  It was a wonderful evening, the food was great, and the service was excellent.  They saved a special table in the corner of the balcony which afforded us views of both the harbor and the hillside as the lights came twinkling on at dusk. We ordered surf-n-turf for me and grilled grouper for him, and we both tried their famous Wilted Spinach Salad, prepared tableside.  Delicious!  They brought out a dessert with a candle and "happy birthday" written in chocolate on it, and the owner walked us out and took our picture by their sign.  A memorable and happy dinner and day!

We rented a car for the week, and at first it was a little weird driving on the left, but I acclimated to it rather quickly.  We had spent some time our first day driving around the island to get our bearings and find the beaches Adam wanted to detect.  These beaches aren't like FL, where it's one big beach all connected to each other.  Instead it's little coves and bays, and some are tricky to find, especially since they don't use street signs in St. Thomas!  Not kidding!  But some of the views around the turns, on both St. Thomas and St. John were spectacular.  I took a ton of pictures.

Adam spent most of the days detecting, and he found a lot, A LOT of coins, mostly quarters.  He also found some silver rings, one gold and diamond man's wedding band, and a silver and amber pendant that he gave me for my birthday!  While he detected I soaked up some sun and read, getting through almost 5 novels.  I also snorkeled almost every beach we went to, and that was what I was really there for.  I loved the underwater world and the hidden treasures lying beneath the surface.  My one regret is that I didn't splurge on the nicer digital underwater camera.  I got our underwater pix back and they just aren't that great.  The vivid colors are not reproduced at all, and many of them are blurry.  I will post some, but they so don't show what it was really like.  The money spent on the nicer camera would have rewarded us with great photos as souvenirs and that would have been more than worth it to me.  Lesson learned.

As far as the snorkeling went, our favorite beach on St. Thomas is Coki Beach, which looks like the stuff travel brochures are made of.  That light, crystal blue aquamarine color lined with soft white sand, yet with rocky cliffs and green mountains in the backdrop.  The snorkeling there is fantastic, and we went here twice, one full day and back again our last morning.  We also snorkeled our "home" beach at Sapphire, which has a reef on it that is as good as Coki, but the waves crash and the current pulls harder, so it wasn't as easy and relaxing a snorkel as Coki was.  On St. Thomas, we also snorkeled at Secret Harbor and Cowpet Bay/Elysian Beach Resort (we loved the Elysian and may stay there when and if we return).  Adam detected all the above beaches as well as the Marriott (stunning hilltop resort and huge beach!), the Ritz, Bluebeard's Beach and Hull Bay.  The last three were rocky and hard for him to dig, so we didn't stay at those beaches very long.

We took a car ferry to St. John for a day, and loved it so much we returned again for a half day our last full day of the trip.  I had never done a car ferry before, so that was cool; it's only about 20-30 minutes between the islands. St. John is 3/4 National Park, so Adam couldn't detect over there, but that makes for different scenery than on St. Thomas.  It's more untouched and uninhabited.  The beaches there are unbelievable.  They're like what you see in travel magazines and coffee table books.  They're my Mac screensaver!  (If you have a Mac or have seen mine you are laughing right now!)  The blues are indescribable, from the skies to the varying shades of turquoise and clear aquamarines that tropical dreams are made of, all lined by pure softly sifted white sand and green, green vegetation.  Trunk Bay is one of these drop-dead gorgeous beaches, and is famous for it's underwater snorkel trail, which of course, we had to stop and do.  The trail was cool, but the snorkeling beyond the trail around the backside of the  little island was better.  After Trunk Bay, we hit the HIGHLIGHT of the trip, Waterlemon Cay.  You have to hike a little over a mile around Leinster Bay to get to the closest point to take off from to swim over to the Cay.  We enjoyed the pretty hike, and it was an easy swim over to the Cay from there.  And then, oh and then!... underwater paradise!  Technicolor coral and sea fans and plant life, schools of brightly, almost glowing fish, an octopus(!) and just amazing sea life.  It was like swimming through the best, most amazing underwater photography book come to life and surrounding you.  And the best part for me was something I had never experienced - sea turtles!  Lots of them!  One in particular I swam with for 10-15 minutes, holding onto him, bobbing up and down and just enjoying being a part of his world.  I dive down and swim in and amongst the coral formations and seeing it up close just makes the colors and textures so much more vivid and surreal.  It's stunning, breathtaking, really.  Loved it so much I couldn't stop talking about it, so we went back to St. John a second time, just to do Leinster Bay and Waterlemon Cay.  This time I snorkeled the Bay as well, saw more turtles and some rays, and finally... a starfish!  The Bay is a bed for starfish, but I guess it was the wrong time of year because I only saw the one.  But I was thrilled to see one!

We ate out a few nights. One place was a beach bar and grill which was nice, and the food was good, but not good enough for the price!  It was shocking how expensive food is there.  The little bit of groceries we had to get (I packed a whole bag of food so we could save money!) was 3x what it is here.  A dinner you might pay $35-40 here was $55-60 there.  Ouch!  So we tried to make the best of the nights we went out.  We ate in St. John, harborside on a deck by the ferry and people-watched.  That was fun.  The best night (beside my birthday dinner) was at Roberts, the restaurant at the Elysian, and the food was awesome.  Romantic setting with a view of the beach, live piano player, and artfully-arranged food on the plates.  It was Adam's favorite, and for me a very close second to Hervé.

Shopping was fun, although we didn't spend massive amounts of time doing it.  We got some bargains at the vendor market in downtown Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas, as well as some artwork from Gallery St. Thomas, also in Charlotte Amalie.  Picked up some other souvenirs there, and had a good time strolling through Cruz Bay on St. John, and picked up some more artwork in a gallery there.  I tell you what though, if you're shopping for jewelry, this is the place to be!  Holy cow are there a gazillion and a half jewelry stores with crazy low prices!

So when the week was over, I sat on our balcony and soaked it all in... and cried.  I so didn't want to leave.  But of course, the time came to say good-bye to our beloved island paradise, but someday.... someday we shall return.

_______

Hope you enjoyed the trip review... if you have some time, check back to read the day-by-day details!

Day 9: Sunday, June 14 - our last day

I awoke still sad, but eager to get every minute of time out of our remaining hours on the island.  We got up early, finished off the remaining breakfast food and got to Coki Beach (our favorite on St. Thomas!) by 7am.  Adam went to work detecting and I finished up a book.  By about 9, I decided to put my fins on and do one last snorkel of the trip.  I lingered and looked and swam and played and dove and had a great time taking it all in.  I couldn't believe that in 24 hours I would be sitting at a desk in Clearwater!  I just absorbed the moment, the colors, the sounds, the scents, and wished it wouldn't end.

I got back and soaked up a bit more sun and hoped and hoped Adam would find "the big one" before we had to leave, but then all too soon it was time to go.  Adam and I posed for one last photo op, then sadly walked out to the car and drove back to the condo.  I returned the car while Adam packed up his detecting gear, then we had one last meal on our balcony, showered, packed the last tidbits and waited for our ride.  He was on time this time, and soon we found ourselves going back the same road we had so excitedly come down a week earlier.  The airport called, and it was time to say good-bye.

After a kind of crazy check-in and customs (but all was good) we boarded the plane (I made sure I had my purse!), and upon take-off broke our necks looking out the window for every last little glimpse of our island paradise disappearing below us.  Good-bye St. Thomas and St. John, we'll be back!

Day 8: Saturday, June 13, 2009

So, after much talking and deliberation, and "are you sure?" from me, we decided to go back to St. John Saturday to do Leinster Bay/Waterlemon Cay again.  I felt bad taking another half day of detecting away from Adam, but how often do you get to experience amazing snorkeling like that? Plus, Adam noted, his detecting wasn't going very well... lots and lots of coins, but so far not much jewelry.  Therefore, we decided to get up early and have our typical morning (Adam decided to detect the Ritz, but the beach was rocky and hard to dig, so he went next door to Cowpet Bay again), and I ran then made breakfast.  As we were sitting down to eat, I checked the time and realized we had to hurry if we were going to make the 10am car ferry.  So we (literally!) wolfed down our food, threw our clothes on and ran out the door.

Turns out, the ferry never leaves on time and we would have had plenty of time, but I was happy to be sure we were on it.  We settled in then went up top to take pictures.  Since it was later in the day, it was much sunnier than the first trip over to St. John, and I got a little camera-happy.  We arrived in St. John and this time, didn't get lost as I drove straight to the parking lot at Leinster Bay to begin our hike.

We made the mile-ish hike around the Bay, admiring the blue, blue skies reflecting in the aqua waters... it's seriously too beautiful for words.  We got to the end point, got our snorkel gear on and hit the island once again for surreal underwater glory.  This time, I noticed a large grassy area off the the right of the island I hadn't caught before and remembered people saying online they kept seeing turtles in grassy patches.  Swimming over towards it, I saw two dark shapes in the distance, and as I approached about jumped for joy (as well as I can jump in water!) when I realized it was not one, but two large sea turtles!  I popped my head up and yelled for Adam to come join me.  He tried to get some pictures of me swimming with them, but unfortunately they didn't turn out real well.  It was amazing though!  One took off shortly after we got there, but I stuck with the other one, swimming with it for about 10-15 minutes, bobbing up and down with it, touching and holding on to it, watching and floating around it.  It was so cool.  He swam a lot, deeper out into the reef, but I was out of pix by that time to get some of him and the colorful coral and fish.  I finally left him to go back over to Adam and start the tour of the reef again.  Just as beautiful, if not moreso, than I remembered from a few days earlier!  I simply love this spot; it's truly gorgeous.  We saw tons of tropical fish, and even a 20-lb snapper!  I saw another turtle, Adam spotted my gimpy turtle from the other day (but I never saw him, boohoo!), and a large barracuda. After completing the circle around the Cay, we headed over to the grassy spot again, where we saw another turtle!  Adam and I both stayed and swam with this one for a while, and he had a bright yellow sucker fish cleaning him.  Pretty cool!

After getting out of our snorkel gear, we dried off and warmed up a bit in the sun, then decided to move our bags down to the beach (about a 1/4 mile), so Adam could read a bit and I could snorkel the Bay.  I got in and immediately saw a couple rays, then found some good patches of coral and some schools of fish, but not what I was looking for - the starfish beds the Bay is known for.  I was heading back in when I spotted another sea turtle, and knowing it would be my last chance, I went over to him and started swimming with him.  It was weird, I felt like he was leading me to something, I can't really explain it.  But just as I knew it was time to turn back to the beach, I saw something dark and kinda star-shaped down below... sure enough, it was a starfish!  The only one I saw.  I looked back to Mr. Turtle to thank him, then headed in to shore.  Still would love to see a whole bed of starfish, but maybe next time; guess it's not the time of year for them, as a family on the beach said they saw tons of them at Christmas.

Adam checked his watch and realized it was 2:30 – we weren't going to make the 3pm ferry.  Oh yes we were!  I needed to get him back so he could get a couple hours detecting in again, plus, we STILL hadn't snorkeled our home beach, Sapphire!  So we darn near ran the mile back to the car, drove the windy roads fast as we dared, made it there at 3:15 and they were still loading.  Yay!

So upon our return home, we both headed down to "our beach" in front of our condo and got our snorkel gear on again.  Sapphire was supposed to be very good snorkeling, but after Waterlemon, I have to admit I was expecting much.  I was surprised at how very good it was, though!  Lots of the pretty orange elkhorn coral I like so much, and at the rocky point around the pool area there is a large reef with quite a bit of coral formations and schools of fish on it.  It was actually as good as Coki Beach, but with one exception.  The waves crashed harder here, and there was a current, so it made swimming much more difficult.  Not really hard or anything, but not the calm bay like we'd had at other sites.  Also, the marina is next door, so boats and waverunners were passing by a little too close for comfort at times, plus the engines were distracting.  But all that aside, the actual snorkeling itself was very, very good and we had a great time seeing a new site, one that had been right under our nose all week!

Adam then detected Sapphire Beach again for a bit while I (wah!) started packing us up.  I just couldn't believe we were leaving the next day.  It had flown by.  That night I sat out on the balcony soaking in St. John, the lights of the marina, the waves crashing below me, pictured the beautiful reefs and just wished I could suspend time and stay in that moment forever.  Adam came out and put his arm around me as I cried sad but happy tears and we planned future visits to make us feel better about leaving the next day.

Day 7: Friday, June 12, 2009

After all the activity and adventure of St. John, we finally slept in on Friday morning! We still got up early, but I think it was 7:30ish.  I didn't run, just made breakfast, which we then of course ate on the balcony together, and we planned our day.  It was starting to sink in that we only had a limited amount of time left, and a lot we still wanted to do.  There were two beaches Adam really wanted to try detecting, so packed up and headed out to them.

The first was Hull Bay, which is next to Magen's Bay, the biggest and most popular beach on the island, but unfortunately government-owned.  We hadn't driven in this section of the island yet, so it was a good opportunity to also cross something off my to-do list, which was drive the scenic "Skyline Drive", or Route 40, which has some of the island's best views.  We stopped at famous Drake's Seat, a pullout overlooking beautiful Magen's Bay, and there is a bench on the hillside where legend has it Sir Francis Drake sat, observing all ships that came to harbor here.  Another overlook had stunning views of Charlotte Amalie and the harbor, and I only wish we had gone back there at sunset one evening to get the lights twinkling on and maybe a cruise ship or two in port with their lights coming on.  We saw a similar photograph in an art gallery and maybe I'll go to his website sometime and purchase it.

So we made the drive to Hull Bay, which was worth it just for the scenic drive.  We didn't stay long, about an hour and a half, as the beach and bay were too rocky for Adam to dig well, and he wasn't finding much.  After leaving there, we searched for this little ice cream shop I had heard rave reviews about that was supposed to be in the area.  We found it (Udder Delite), and ordered two of their famous milkshakes.  Mine was coconut, chocolate and Kahlua while Adam got something with egg nog (he loves his egg nog!).  I absolutely loved mine - it was very coconutty and the chocolate was just right, not too overpowering for the coconut.  Adam's was good, but I'm not a big egg nog fan.  He loved it, though!

The other beach he really wanted to get back to was Bluebeard's Beach, one we had found on our first day scouting them out.  A really lovely resort is there, with an excellent view from their reception/restaurant area.  On our first, quick visit, there was a wedding, which was neat to see!  On this visit, we didn't stay long because again the beach was rocky beneath the sand and in the water, so he couldn't dig well.

We decided to go to our tried-and-true Cowpet Bay at the Elysian Resort.  I made a beeline for the padded hammock on the point.  One of my most favorite vacation moments were these 2.5 hours laying in the hammock reading, lazily swinging back and forth, watching the sun dip below the mountain and observing Adam working the beach with his detector.  Truly lovely.

That night we decided to go for our last dinner out, as Saturday would be busy with beginning to pack everything back up.  (I wanted to enjoy Sunday as much as possible and NOT spend my whole last morning packing!)  So we went to Roberts at the Elysian. Beautiful, romantic setting. Not an overlook view, but pretty scenery right on the beach at Cowpet Bay. There is a live pianist, which was a really nice touch. Just very elegant, very nice. Loved the evening. The food was artfully arranged so pretty on the plates, too. The portobello mushroom appetizer with balsamic glaze and fruit/veggie salsa "stuff" was amazing, my favorite food order of the whole trip! I could have made an entire meal of it and died happy that night. Adam got the chowder-like soup that was deeee-lish, and I got the black bean soup, also good. (I hope I don't sound egotistical to say I like mine better!) He got their specialty, cherry-glazed chicken, which he raved about, and I got the Elysian Salad topped with grilled shrimp, also very good. This was his favorite restaurant choice, for me a very close second to Hervé. Very close.  A lovely dinner to end a lovely day... but I was beginning to get sad knowing we had one more full day before leaving.

Day 6: Thursday, June 11 - St. John!

I had been looking forward to our St. John day all week.  The only thing that made me a bit sad about it is that 3/4 of the island is National Park, which means Adam cannot detect those beaches.  But he was genuinely okay with not detecting for the day and was looking forward to the snorkeling, hiking, shopping and spending the day with me.  I had a lot I wanted to pack in to the day, so got up for the earliest car ferry (6:15, but were told to get there at least 20 mins early), and left on the last car ferry (7pm).  The ferry didn't really leave on time, but I'm glad we had time to spare and got on it without a problem.  I had never been on a car ferry before, so that was kinda cool.  It's a short 20-30 minute trip over, with great shots of the sailboats, harbors and islands on the way.  Actually, it was really cool to look back at St. Thomas as we passed right by our resort.  We could literally pick out our balcony!

The morning was a bit overcast with some misty sprinkles off and on, which had me down in the beginning.  I was looking forward to the snorkeling and the sun makes a big difference as the vibrancy of the colors underwater, plus more fish are out when it's sunny.  Upon arriving in Cruz Bay (the main town on St. John), we realized we were on E and needed a gas station fast!  The roads in Cruz Bay are rather maze-like and we must have went through the same intersection a dozen times and asked directions from a couple people before finding only one of two gas stations on the entire island!  (One on the west end and one on the east end!)  After that, we headed over to the National Park Welcome Center, found some parking and... it was closed.  Grrr.  Didn't open until 8am.  So we looked for a trail I wanted to hike that was supposed to start somewhere behind the Welcome Center.  But behind the center was... the bay. Eh? After wandering a bit, a worker helped us by pointing out the rather hidden sign by a trailhead behind the parking lot that basically went straight up the cliff!  By this point, it was 10 til 8, and a woman was there to open the Center.  I begged for an outlet to plug my camera battery in (can't believe I forgot the night before!), and she reiterated that indeed that was the trailhead we were looking for.  So off we went.  After that initial climb, it actually was a pretty easy hike up to a very pretty overlook with great views of Cruz Bay and St. Thomas in the other direction.

After our hike (and reclaiming my camera battery!) we took off on Route 20, the main road the beaches are on, and stopped at every scenic overlook we came to.  Great pullouts for stunning views of the picturesque bays on St. John.  Being in the Park, it was more natural than St. Thomas, untouched beauty.  Aquamarine waters in a myriad of blue and green hues, sandy palm-lined beaches, yet with green mountain and brown cliffs in the backdrop.  Postcard views. Travel magazine glossies.  Gorgeous.

We found our way to Trunk Bay, the most famous beach on St. John.  Truly a beautiful beach. The prized possession of Trunk Bay is the underwater snorkel trail, which I had been looking forward to.  There is a little island right off the beach, and to the left is a buoy marking the start of the trail. Underwater plaques contained information on coral and sea life, different fish we were seeing and the ecosystem in general.  Pretty cool, but for some reason I was disappointed in it.  I don't know why really... thought it would be longer... more detailed... more signs... better coral and reef life there?  Not sure.  But we continued around the island after the trail ended, and the snorkeling definitely got better.  The backside, and deepest side had the best snorkeling, with great coral formations, lots of color and schools of fish.  As good as Coki on St. Thomas.  The sun finally began breaking through the overcast skies and it was crazy to see the colors come to life as they were touched by the sun's rays!

We finished up our snorkel, took some pix on the beach, then headed back out on Route 20 for what was to be THE HIGHLIGHT of the trip – Waterlemon Cay and Leinster Bay!  I had done quite a bit of reading online - trip reviews, tips, recommendations, etc. - and Waterlemon Cay is a less-traveled snorkel site, but by all reviews, a killer knock-out punch for snorkeling!  The reason it's not as visited is because you first have to hike to get to Leinster Bay, then swim to get out to Waterlemon Cay to snorkel around the island.  We parked at the end of the designated road, then started the hike.  It wasn't bad at all!  It was about a mile, maybe a tad over, but on a clean (albeit rocky), well-marked path that wound around the edge of the bay, giving us a pretty view of Leinster Bay as we walked along it.  A little over halfway through, we came to the sandy beach, and saw the wild donkeys (yes, Adam, donkeys LOL!) sitting in the shade along the edge of the beach.  I of course had to stop for pictures. Adam and his donkeys. Anyway, the path then split, and I thought we were to go right, but it went uphill away from the bay, so we backtracked and went left, which was correct.  The hike took us all the way around the bay to be just across from the point of the island - the shortest swimming distance to it.  Some people swim to the island from the beach, which is probably 3x that distance.  I could do it, as I'm a pretty good swimmer, but I think Adam would have gotten tired if we had gone from the beach.  The point we came to was very rocky, but there were other people there, so we kept all our bags together, got our snorkel gear on and got in the water... and entered underwater paradise.

This was just too amazing for words. Seriously. I've never snorkeled anything like it. Imagine the most beautiful, colorful underwater pictures in a glossy coffee table book. Multiply that, magnify it and encircle yourself in it, swimming through it... that's what it's like and more. Amazing technicolor corals and sea fans and plant life. Huge, massive schools of silver fish so thick you literally can't see in front of you. Giant schools of "dory" (Finding Nemo) fish, parrot fish, yellowtail snapper, more varieties of fish than I can name. And the best part for me... something I've never done... sea turtles everywhere! On this day I only saw one, but (spilling the beans here) on our second trip I saw several. I swam alongside it, and noticed it had a gimpy left front fin. For some reason, that made me like him more.  I talked to a guy in the Park store later and he said several people have seen him out there and he's not a tagged turtle so he has survived without assistance and may have been attacked as an infant.  Made me happy he was my first sea turtle I snorkeled with.  We also saw an octopus! He was so cool! And barracuda, tarpon, snapper, it's all there. We spent a couple hours in the water. I absolutely could have sat there happy as a clam all day, I am so madly in love with this place.  Leinster Bay itself was supposed to have starfish beds lining it, and lots of turtles and rays and more coral formations.  But on this day I didn't have time to do the Bay, but Waterlemon Cay had me deliriously happy!

After hiking back to the car, we took just the camera and walked over to the Sugar Mill ruins. This was a cool historical site with the ruins of the windmill and processing plant and some other buildings.  It was neat to see that they had built them out of coral as well as stone - you could see the patterns of brain coral and such.  Since it was up on a hillside, we were rewarded with beautiful views of  the British Virgin Islands. The ruins were cool, up the Adam's historical-minded alley, and I got photo-happy! I love the bright orange flowering trees that were all over the islands, so I took pictures of those, as well as some other flowers and plant life, and of course the interesting shapes and textures of the ruins. 

After this, we drove the island for about an hour, taking lots of pictures, then wound up back in Cruz Bay with a few hours left to shop and eat. We enjoyed Mongoose Junction, (did I mention we saw mangoose on St. John?!), a shopping center with a maze-like multi-level layout. There were some good art galleries  and I bought a turtle photo from Waterlemon at the Friends of the Park store. We bought a few other souvenirs as well, then went in search of food. Cruz Bay is a nightlife hotspot, so most restaurants on don't serve dinner until 6 or 7. If you're leaving on the 7pm car ferry, that's not very helpful! But we found High Tide over next to the people ferry dock (different dock than the car ferry) that started dinner at 5. Adam got a hamburger, I got jerk chicken and the best Miami Vice I had anywhere (perfect texture, no ice chunks!), and great conch fritters.  We had a bit of time left to shop a little more in Wharfside Village, right next to the ferry dock, then get in the car and drive back to the car ferry.

I just kept raving about Waterlemon and how much I loved it, how I wanted to see the starfish and more turtles... and Adam kept saying, well, let's go back.  But I felt so bad taking more of his detecting time away, so I kept saying no.  At this point, we didn't plan to go back, and I fell asleep that night with visions of purple sea fans and turtles swimming in my head.  The best day yet!

Day 5: Wednesday, June 10, 2009

This day was going to be one of our favorites, as we decided to spend it at Coki Beach, which is the beach we visited on our one day to St. Thomas on the cruise, and the reason we came back.  Coki is a beautiful beach with awesome snorkeling, and our favorite on the island.  I had been anxious to get back to it - I wanted the snorkeling I remembered!

So after our morning run/detect/breakfast (Adam had headed back to the Marriott, but no jewelry), we were off for Coki.  We needed to get there early, as there is very little parking for some reason.  We found a spot, rented some chairs, and soaked in the beauty.  This beach is like the ones you see in tourist magazines... that crystal clear turquoise water that tropical dreams are made of lined by a fringe of softly sifted white sand that abruptly turn into rocky cliffs.  Those rocks are where the snorkeling.is.AMAZING.  I promptly got in the water this time and headed out to where I remembered the snorkeling to be good from when we were there before.  This time I went a bit further out, a bit deeper, and it was worth it.  The reef there was what I had been waiting for.  Brilliant colors, a huge variety of coral in all shapes and sizes, large sea fans and plants swaying in the current and hundreds, thousands actually of fish in schools or alone, darting about, in and out, chasing each other... and underwater world I was fascinated by.  I stayed out there until I got cold, then made my way back in to shore.

Adam had been detecting, and man was he finding the pull tabs and bottle caps!  He really felt like he was due for some jewelry and had talked to a beach worker who told him about a woman who recently lost a large diamond ring.  I settled onto my chair with a book and soaked up the sun for a while.  This beach is great for people-watching.  There are a lot of families, a lot of snorkelers of all experience levels, and local vendors patrolling the tourists... "princess, do you want your hair braided?" "sugar, you look hot, you need a drink", and the like.  I think it's fun and adds to the charm.

After a while, Adam decided to go snorkel with me, so we took the Wishbones the chair vendor had given us and swam out to the reef I had found earlier.  We took pictures of each other feeding the fish and in and around the coral and just floated, swam and had a great time taking it all in.  A sidenote to the underwater pictures: I really regret not splurging on a nice digital underwater camera.  It had seemed like an unnecessary expense, but man, the souvenirs of the photos to have gotten with those shots would have been so worth the money to me.  This trip had the greatest snorkeling I've ever done, and our underwater pictures didn't turn out great.  They don't show the true vibrancy of the colors, they're blurry, etc.  Lesson learned.

Anyway, we again stayed out there for over an hour, then headed in again, he for more detecting, me back to my book.  Before the day was done, I got in the water one more time to enjoy what lies beneath, and Adam had dug hundreds of pull tabs, LOL!  Still no jewelry, but lots and lots of coins and junk!

That night was another night in, as we were getting up early for long and active day on St. John Thursday.  After a quick and easy dinner we turned in, and I could barely sleep in anticipation of snorkeling at a somewhat remote site on St. John that I had found out about online... Waterlemon Cay.  Read about that experience in the next blog!

Day 4: Tuesday, June 9, 2009

After our morning detecting and breakfast, we went in search of the big Marriott beach.  The Marriott is one of the nicest and biggest resorts on the island, and has the second largest beach, but is actually the largest one Adam can detect.  (Magen's Bay is the largest, but it's government-owed, so no detecting.)  We finally found it (breathtaking views from the hilltop the resort is perched on!) and a lovely, big sandy beach lined with chairs and watersport rentals.  Unfortunately, that day (and the whole week), the surf was up in that direction, so Adam couldn't get in the water to detect.  Since the beach itself is so populated and lined with chairs, it was difficult for him.  So after a couple hours, he decided to come back at daybreak one morning to try that beach before everyone got there.

From there we headed to Cowpet Beach, the bay that the Elysian Beach Resort sits on.  We LOVED this beach and resort.  We're thinking of looking into staying here if the price is right sometime.  Very, very nice grounds, beautiful tree-lined beach with chairs and hammocks...  Adam had a great time detecting it.  He found a ton of coins here too, and finally! - a gold and diamond men's wedding band!  yay!  I enjoyed the snorkeling, about on par with what it was like at Secret Harbor, but a much smaller area.  My favorite part of this beach was the cushioned hammock on the point.  I loved rocking and lying there reading - one of my favorite memories!  (We came back here again, you'll read later.)

That night I wanted to go to a seafood restaurant at the Bolongo Bay Beach Resort, called the Lobster Grille.  We got to the resort (really pretty resort, reminded me of Holiday Isle where we used to go in the Keys for Spring Break) but unfortunately the Lobster Grille wasn't open that night.  Since we were there, hungry, and didn't feel like driving around, we walked over to their Beach Bar, Iggie's and ate there.  It was better than I thought, but not good enough for what the bill came to.  I wish the other place had been open... but we still had a nice dinner and it was right on the beach.  Another great day in paradise!

Day 3: Monday, June 8, 2009

The morning started with what would become our morning rituals - detecting for Adam, run/swim for me, then breakfast on the balcony.  We decided to go to Secret Harbor, a beautiful little cove with a resort and restaurant on it, and promises of good snorkeling.

Adam set out with his detector and began working the beach.  He was ecstatic to be finding a ton of coins on land, but kept hoping for the jewelry, of course.  I spent some time on a beach chair soaking up some sun and reading first, then decided to get in and try some snorkeling.  On both sides of the bay there were rocks, which is where I knew the snorkeling would be better, so I tried the right side first.  It was okay, but I was disappointed because I had been hoping it would be better.  When we came to St. Thomas for the day on our cruise, the snorkeling had been awesome, but that was at a different beach.  I guess I expected it to be like that everywhere that someone said it was good snorkeling.

So I read a bit more and then Adam came over and dropped something on my lap... a beautiful, twisting silver pendant with three amber stones of varying shades in it!  Very pretty, I loved it, as I love amber.  He then did something he never does - gave it to me!  yay!  Now I have a pretty amber necklace with special meaning from Adam, from St. Thomas!

A little later, I got back in the water and tried the left side and was relieved to find it was much better over there.  Still not quite what I had hoped for, but very good.  And the bay was calm, so that made swimming easy.  I got out and read/tanned some more, then Adam wanted to snorkel with me so I got in again and took him to the good spots on the left side.  We were out there for a long time and went further and deeper than I did the first time - it was really fun to be out there swimming with the fish together!

That night was our first dinner in.  It was kind of nice to end the day just showering and relaxing.  I made a simple dinner and we curled up to watch the Rays game on ESPN (they lost to the Yankees).  I was in the middle of a great book I couldn't put down, so I stayed up later and read after Adam went to sleep.  A great, relaxing and fun day!