Wildlife:

• Deer
• Mongoose
• Quail
• Humming Birds (iridescent blue and green)
• HUGE spiders
• Donkeys
• Iguanas
• Lizards
• HUGE butterflies (bird-sized)
• Hermit crabs
• Land crabs
• Other weird looking crabs
• Coral banded shrimp
• Barracuda (up to 5 ft)
• Sea turtles (8)
• Sea cucumber
• Squid (hundreds)
• Crawfish
• Rays
• Conch
• Flounder

Tuesday, June 23rd

After anxiously waiting for Chris to wake up, we packed all of our hiking gear and started to town, choosing the harder trail because of the nicer vistas.  Well, the vistas were magnificent, but the hike was really hard, even for two seasoned hikers.  Turns out that there are two key differences between California hiking and St. John hiking: (1) in St. John, it’s hot and muggy; and (2) it’s uphill, all of it.  Nevertheless, it was beautiful and fun!  Good thing we brought extra water.  We saw our first Gungalo, a millipede that will, according to the locals, “pee in yo eye and blind yo.”  After reaching town, we found a nice outdoor cafe for lunch and got directions from the waitress to a grocery store.  We picked up some provisions (sunblock!) and took a taxi back to Caneel.  After lunch, we donned our snorkel gear and headed over to honeymoon beach.   The snorkeling was fantastic.

Wednesday, June 24th

We bummed around Caneel for the whole day.  I talked Chris into packing a beach bag, and we lounged on the beach, kayaking (Chris is an expert kayaker thanks to Camp Ocoee.), snorkeling (Eastern edge of Caneel Bay was surprisingly great.), reading, and jumping off of the incredible floating dock.  The donkeys were even sunbathing with us.  After showers and a bit of down time in the A/C, we headed off to town (by taxi this time), and had dinner at Morgan’s Mangos (delicious Island food!)

Thursday, June 25th

I woke Chris up at the crack of dawn (literally), dressed him in his hiking attire, and we headed out the door.  We took a taxi to Maho Bay to find the Maria Hope trail.  The taxi driver had never heard of it before and outright told us we were crazy.  I gotta admit, he did have a point.  We found the trailhead marked on a gutter as “MH” in white paint.  Indeed, the beginning of the trail was in fact a gutter.  After scrambling for a bit, it opened to a really beautiful trail.  Since it wasn’t a park trail, I wasn’t sure that it would be passable.  The trail was pretty open, but filled with spider webs.  My gallant knight (see picture) cleared the trial for me with his palm frond sword.  We learned later that these were mostly golden orb spiders, and their silk was once used as thread.  We also saw these huge seed pods from the “stinking toe tree,” though we were fortunate not to smell them.  After about a mile of strait uphill, we reached Centerline Road and the trailhead for the Bay Reef Trail, which was totally awesome.  It was well maintained (and all downhill!!!)  In the shade of the trees, the temperature was really nice.  We saw the petroglyphs, which were carved on the side of a rock and reflected perfectly into a small fresh water pond made by a waterfall.  My gallant night entertained himself by sparring with some crawfish in the pond.  After the petroglyphs, we hiked to the ruins from an old sugar plantation that even contained an old rum still, then on to the beach.  (Yes, we hiked across the whole island, North to South, from beach to beach.)  From here, we hiked east via the Lameshur trail, then along the road to Salt Pond Bay.  It was beautiful, but hot.  When we came to the beach, we asked a nice family to take our picture.  That’s when I realized that we had already been to two beautiful beaches, but had had them all to ourselves!  We took the Vitran bus (much less sketch than the SF Muni, but with crazy fast drivers) to Coral Bay, and had the best hamburgers ever at Skinny Legs whose motto is “Same Day Service.”  We then took the Vitran bus to Cruz Bay, where we picked up some Band-Aids, and headed back to Caneel.  After such an intense exploration, Chris was quite content spending the rest of the afternoon taking it easy.

Friday, June 26th

We took a taxi to Annaberg and hiked along the Leinster Bay trail.  After plopping our bag on the beach, we swam out to Waterlemon Cay, which had THE best snorkeling that I’ve ever experienced.  The coral around the cay teemed with life.  There were millions of fish.  We saw two sea turtles that were just hanging out.  One of them just sat there munching on grass.  Most of the fish we saw weren’t even in our book of Tropical Fish of the Virgin Islands. Chris also noticed the 2nd biggest barracuda that I’ve ever seen. (For the biggest, see Saturday’s entry.)   It was huge!  And yes, Carrie, it was looking at me!  After two goes of the island, we decided to swim into shore to get a snack.  That’s when we found that something (a mongoose maybe?) had eaten our trail mix.  We split the rest of the snacks (which were luckily untouched), and started hiking toward the closest place to catch a taxi, the Maho campground.  On the way, we found two fishermen, who were mistakenly waiting for a taxi along a not well traveled section of road.  So, they hiked with us up to the campground, where Chris and I had lunch and saw the Iggy, the iguana.  We took a taxi to Hawksnest Bay, which had a beautiful beach and good snorkeling, though nothing like Waterlemon.  Then, we hiked back to Caneel, took showers, and headed into town for dinner.  We ate at Saint John’s version of a taco stand, which was different, but good nonetheless, hiked up to the grocery store to buy some more snacks (on account of losing our trail mix), and stopped on the way down to get some ice cream.

Saturday, June 27th

While letting Chris sleep in some, I learned a very important lesson: always eat your muffin as soon as you get it.  I set my muffin on my plate while enjoying some orange juice.  Immediately, a seagull flew down, and in one swoop took my whole muffin.  Very impressive!  So, I went back, got a second, and ate it without ever letting it touch my plate.

After Chris woke up, we took a taxi to Cinnamon Bay on a pilgrimage to find the great Theobroma cacao, also known as the god of chocolate.  Since we got there early, the beach was empty, and we had the bay all to ourselves.  (Well, we had to share it with a family of 4, but it was essentially empty.)  We snorkeled for a while, and saw hundreds of squid, in addition to two more sea turtles.  After some lunch at the cafe, we went back to Caneel, and snorkeled over near Honeymoon Beach again.  Here is where we saw the 5 ft barracuda (biggest that I’ve ever seen).  And yes, Carrie, he was looking at me.  We went for tea, met a nice couple from Mobile, and ended up talking with them until the sun set.  They have two kids and vacation with them, guess where, at St. Joseph’s Peninsula State Park!  Then, Chris took me to the fancy restaurant at Caneel where we enjoyed its beautiful view.

Sunday, June 28th

We hiked around Caneel Bay in the morning, as they have two really nice hiking trails with beautiful vistas.  Then, we went into town for the St. John festival.  We saw Miss St. John, heard a children’s steel band, and dinned on bbq chicken, lobster, macaroni and cheese, and rum cake.  Good times.  We spent the afternoon bumming around Caneel.  Chris read mostly, while I snorkeled.  All in all, it was a great afternoon.