St. Thomas / St. John 10-year anniversary trip

As you can surmise from the title of this post, Dan and I decided to go to St. Thomas for our tenth wedding anniversary. It seems to work out that we kind of take turns choosing our couple vacation destinations. Two years ago, I chose Peru, so it was Dan's turn. He seems to pick more beachy/relaxing type of places. So off to St. Thomas we went. Warning: This is probably going to be a long post. It will also include pictures of us in various beach attire. Just so you are prepared.

Saturday afternoon we dropped the kids off with G&G Cheney. We flew out of Richmond early Sunday morning. When we got to our rented condo, we were ready for some R&R, but, unfortunately, the condo hadn't been cleaned since the last people left. Dirty dishes in the sink, damp towels hanging everywhere, unmade bed... Just not good. So we called the housekeeper who was unavailable so she sent her sweet daughter over to clean. (The housekeeper had her dates wrong and thought we were coming the next day.) Meanwhile, Dan went out to get a few necessities like milk, eggs, and bread. Two and a half hours later she left. Not the best way to start things off, but that's okay. That evening we just cooked at the condo and walked down to the beach (Sapphire Beach) to enjoy the view.

 "Caribbean Lifestyle"

 A blurry picture of St. John in the distance.

(Dan's trip to the grocery store was apparently a harrowing experience. Dan said his driver didn't speak English very well and thought he wanted to go to this really sketchy place. So they go down this beat street and stop in front of some random hotel in the middle of nowhere and Dan thought he was going to die or end up on Locked Up Abroad. Once Dan realized the cabbie spoke Spanish, it made communication must easier.)

The next morning we took a taxi to Magens Bay, the prettiest (in our opinion) beach on St. Thomas. We got there early to try and beat the crowds.

 (Me and my sweet wristbands to help combat the nausea I always feel driving on those crazy curvy roads. I forgot to take them off.)

After lunch at the beach grill, we took a safari bus (an open-air truck thing that a lot of locals take) to town so that we could see Blackbeard's Castle and the 99 Steps, steps leading up the hill built in the mid-1700s.

A one-minute video showing you what it's like around St. Thomas.

Overlooking the cruise ship harbor and Charlotte Amalie.

Next it was on to Coki Beach, another supposedly nice beach, but we thought it was much sketchier than the first beach we went to. Dan snorkeled a bit. We both swam, I got a delicious smoothie.

Tuesday we decided to book a charter to Virgin Gorda to see the Baths. Here's a map of the Virgin Islands, both U.S. and British, so that what I explain next makes sense.

We caught our charter on the east end of St. Thomas and took it over to Cruz Bay, St. John, to pick up the rest of the people. We then sailed around the north shore of St. John and the north shore of Tortola. (All the while the first mate was telling us stories about the island. Really neat. It took a long time.) We had to stop in Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda, to show our visas and such and then it was south to the Baths.

They don't look like much in these pictures, but they were awesome!

We snorkeled in and then trekked through the giant rocks. Here are a few pics from the internet just to give you an idea. I didn't want to try and bring my camera and ruin it somehow.

So we explored in there a bit while the first mate told us all about it, and then we snorkeled back to the boat. Next stop was lunch at Cooper Island, which is a tiny island that only has a resort and a restaurant. It was yummy and gorgeous.

 After lunch we headed to The Indians, a rock formation jutting out of the water north or Norman Island. They don't look like much, but it was a great snorkeling spot. I hadn't really snorkeled before this trip. It kind of gives me the heebie jeebies, but it was really neat here. Really deep, too. Good thing they offered goobers like me a floaty thing to wear around my waist. Otherwise I think I would have freaked out.

Snorkel faces.

A quick note on my swimshirt. I bought it the day before we left and I'm SO glad I did. It was so nice to not have to worry about sunscreen all the time on my arms and back. Lifesaver.

Anyhow, after that snorkeling adventure, we cruised around the south side of St. John (which is 2/3 national park thanks to Rockefeller) and dropped everyone else off at St. John. Then we got a private ride back to St. Thomas.

Wednesday, we noticed that there were going to be four cruise ships in port on St. Thomas, so we decided to hop a ferry over to St. John for the day. Once we got there, we called the kids from an internet cafe type place and then took a hike to Salomon Beach. Like before, we tried to get there early to avoid crowds.

This was our favorite beach because it was so beautiful and secluded. Since you have to either hike in or swim in off a boat, it's pretty quiet.

We hiked over to a resort (Caneel Bay) for lunch at their grill and then walked over to Honeymoon Beach, which was much busier and less honeymoon-like than the other one. Still beautiful, though!

 ("Much busier" probably conjures up pictures of a Southern California beach in July. It wasn't that busy. But beaches are smaller here, so although there weren't hundreds of people, it could feel a little cramped if you couldn't find a spot to put your stuff in the shade.)

On our hike back to town, we took a detour past a bunch of wild donkeys to Lind Point - overlooking Cruz Bay.

We walked around town forever trying to find a restaurant I'd hear about on Tripadvisor and ended up walking around pretty much the whole town before we found it. I thought it was a seafood restaurant, but it was more of a foodie kind of place, which intimidates me, but it was yummy. We caught a ferry back to St. Thomas and got to see a beautiful sunset.

Thursday we decided to head back to St. John since we liked it so much. (If we ever went back, we would just stay on St. John the whole time.) This time, we went to Trunk Bay and then Oppenheimer Beach.

Trunk:

Oppenheimer:

I know, they all kind of look alike. We ate lunch at Trunk before Oppenheimer, then took a safari back into town, where we tracked down another restaurant I'd read good things about. I decided to order a native dish. Not a good idea. It had lots of little pieces of chicken with the bones still in and I am not good at picking meat off of bone. But Dan's was good and then we got ice cream so it all worked out.

Friday we woke up to pack and then spent another few hours at the beach near our condo. Then it was home to Richmond and off to Earlysville to pick up the kids, who had a wonderful time with my parents being spoiled absolutely rotten.