Wednesday we got up and had a set gameplan based around needing to get picked up for our sailing cruise at 9:45 am. Turns out the pickup time was 10 am which just threw the morning into ABSOLUTE CHAOS. Just kidding, it just meant we had a few extra minutes to hang out in the room reading our books before we needed to head in to town. Pops, still acting as chaperone, chauffeur, and decision making compass, drove us to town and we parked in the pay lot. Except nobody was there so we couldn’t figure out how to pay. We meandered down to the dock where, after a short wait, Captain Jason came and picked us up. He took us out on the dingy to his sailboat – Cloud 9 – which is a 47 foot sailboat! He lives on board and takes people for tours. We were also greeted by Romany, who was the deckhand he had hired for the day.
We motored out of the harbor and took off for the island of Levango. Drinks were included on the cruise but we all decided to start off with just some water… since it was 10 am and we hadn’t even snorkeled yet. When we got to Levango we discovered that all the moorings for the snorkel site were taken… so we began to actually sail around the island – no motoring involved! (Well, for some parts of it no motoring was involved). We sailed around some cool rocks sticking out of the water, and then between Levango and the island next to it Congo Cay. Levango is home to what appears to be a pretty swanky and epic resort. Once we got around the island we raced a dingy for a mooring and snagged it so that we could go snorkeling on a pretty cool reef. We saw some great coral there (and tons of purple sea fans!) and also a pretty good variety of fish. Snorkeling spot one complete we began to sail our way over to the Pizza Pi – which is located off of Great Saint James island. The Pizza Pi is a boat, where you put your order in the day before, and then go pick up pizza. It’s like the boat version of a food truck. We got two pizzas and Jason picked out another pizza – Georgia Peach (everyone’s favorite, it had peaches on it which sounds like it won’t work but does), Mediterranean, and a Mash Up (Jason’s choice). The pizza was absolutely fantastic and made better by the fact that we were eating it while on a boat.
After a little digesting we headed out snorkeling again around Fish Cay. It lived up to its name – we even saw a nurse shark just chilling on the ocean floor! We also saw a couple of sting rays just doing there thing. After snorkeling trip #2 it was time to sail back to St. John. We still had around 2 hours so we set a pretty leisurely pace on the way back. Hands down one of my favorite things we did on the trip. The breeze was great, just cruising through light waves while enjoying the shade of the sails was to die for. We made it in to port a smidge early (like 3:45, we had fifteen minutes of sailing left!) and then didn’t really have anything planned for the rest of the day. Except for allow our vestibular system to realize that we were not in fact still bobbing side to side. For some of us that took around 24 hours I think. For dinner we ate at the resort restaurant – the food was OK but the setting was really nice since the restaurant is right by the beach.
Our Thursday and Friday plan was developed with the idea that we wanted to maximize snorkeling, but also see some more beaches. For Thursday it was decided that we would visit Francis Bay. My parents have their Francis Bay strategy pretty much down pat – park at the parking lot and walk down the wooden boardwalk to the far end of the beach. Here is a picnic table under a nice shade providing tree! Unfortunately it isn’t absolute perfect as it was just on the rocky part of the beach as opposed to the sandy part, but the trade off was worth it. Well… it was worth it until a bird decided to rain on Adela’s morning a little bit XD Pops went fishing (just fishing apparently, no actual catching) at a nearby beach while we went snorkeling. The reef was a little bit of a swim away from the sandy part of the beach. The reef itself had some pretty good fishes and a little bit of coral to look at. But on the route back we saw two giant sea turtles! One we named El Gordo because of how ginormous he was, the other was El Jefe because he was the first big one we saw and thought he was huge until we saw el gordo. They were also big enough or old enough that they each had an escort of two remora who were just chilling on their shells.
We hung out at the beach for a while before making out way back to the resort. The way to Francis bay is along the north side of the island so it’s not quite as scary! We decided to spend the afternoon seeing what was so great about the pool. We weren’t quite feeling expensive bar drinks, so we brought down a couple of Juicy Booty’s we got (it’s from the local brewery and it’s delicious!) and soaked in the bath-warm pool water for a while. While there we managed to learn how the iguanas make it to the garden features of the pool – they swim! Dinner Thursday night was at El Tapa which is located right on the beach in Cruz Bay. We split three appetizers – grilled octopus (my favorite), lobster coquetas, and lamb albondigas (which are… meatballs!) – and got a few entrees. Dessert was of course necessary as well, this time we got crème brulee which was delicious.
And so we came to our final day in St. John. The plan was an extension of the previous plan – drive to the farthest away beach possible so we’d have it to ourselves. So we got in the car and headed off for Hansen Bay Beach. This beach is on a little bit of privately owned land on the very far side of the island. It’s not part of the national park so we had to pay for parking and to use the beach, but I’d say it was worth it! We got some pretty comfy lounge chairs, actually useful umbrellas, and near private access to the beach. After relaxing for a few minutes we donned our snorkel gear and headed out to Pelican Rock. Right away we say a stingray so the snorkeling was a success after just a few seconds. Once we got to Pelican Rock we found that the fish were OK but the coral was really good. We stayed out there until my camera case alarm started going off which freaked me out. Turns out snorkeling while holding something above the water is really tiring after a while! We got back to our chairs and read our books while listening to the little waves lap up against the beach. Awesome last beach experience.
On the way back we finally made it to the Windmill Bar! Pops had been talking about how we needed to go there since pretty much the first minute we got there. The setting for the bar is an old windmill that has a panoramic view of the north side of the island. We were pretty hungry and thirsty so we got a couple of cheeseburgers and some Windmill Breezes while we enjoyed watching all the boats and yachts pass by below us. On the way back we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some steaks and veggies to have one last vacation-grilling before waking up early to get the ferry back to St. Thomas. We felt like we probably didn’t need to wake up THAT early for the ferry, but better safe than sorry!
