Day 73: St. John, USVI

Oh what a wonder it is to tender directly into Cruz Bay on St. John!  In all the times we've been on the island, this was the first one that didn't involve a taxi ride and a ferry ride from St. Thomas to get there. We loved it!

Backing up, though, to that alarm that went off at 5:30am...I turned it off, looked out the window at the still-night sky, re-set it for 6:30am and immediately fell back asleep. When the alarm sounded again, it was getting lighter outside, and I dressed in the dark (laying everything out the night before helps) and went up to the Panorama Buffet where I enjoyed coffee, stollen and an egg white veggie omelet with Johnny on the Panorama Terrace. The scenery was gorgeous...I could see a larger cruise ship approaching Havensight pier on St. Thomas, but was happy to sail on by, heading for St.  John. There were clouds at the horizon obscuring the sun but it soon poked through them and I was busy taking photos first of the sunrise off the starboard side, and then of St. Thomas and the myriad of little islands that surround it on the port side. 

It felt so very good to return!

Shortly after 7am, I phoned Mom using the AT&T signal I'd had since I awakened at 6:30am. She said she was glad I called when I did. Today was going to be a busy one for her:  Christmas trivia followed by the Christmas party revealing the results of the door decorating contest, then lunch, then the Walking SenioRitas, then a Christmas movie. I asked if I could phoned her later today, and she said she thought she might be back in her apartment by 5:30pm my time. (All of this was music to my ears.)

And how was I planning to spend my day, she asked. Um...lying on a beach, swimming in crystal blue water and drinking alcoholic beverages, though i was a bit ashamed to admit it after hearing how productive she was going to be. 

G eventually showed up for breakfast but I had to return to the cabin to plug in my iPhone before going ashore. Still, by 8:30am or so!we were taking a rough tender ride through Cruz Bay to the tender dock, which is located in a harbor just north of the ferry dock, next to the Virgin Islands National Park office. All along, we had felt certain we didn't want to go to Trunk Bay today. First, we were at St. John with the Azamara Quest, which is the same ship as the Pacific Princess, plus a SeaDream Yacht Club ship (very small) was also at anchor there. Then there were all the cruis ship passengers coming over from St. Thomas, and finally all the people staying on both islands for the holiday week. Instead we had decided to go to Honeymoon Beach, the first beach just north of Cruz Bay and one that involved a hike to reach. 

We decided to hike from the National Park office. The Lind Point trail leaves from behind the office and takes about 30-40 minutes to reach Homeymoon Beach. We took 45 minutes because, although it's not a steep  trail, it is a very rocky one. It had just rained last night and it was fairly slippery, but I had come prepared with my collapsable walking stick. We did not encounter any mosquitoes walking through the rain forest, but did hear the bleating of donkeys all along the way. 

 

The Line Point trailhead just behind the National Park Service office

 

Our first sighting of the beach was heady stuff. The view of the surrounding small islets and St. Thomas was breathtaking but it was the crystal blue water that had me ditching my backpack and diving in as fast as I could get there. The beach is fairly wide with perfect soft sand and is rock free, and though it isn't a bery long beach, it is a perfect one for walking. The water was just like the water at Matira Beach in Bora Bora, but on Honeymoon Beach there are waves, while Matira Beach is protected by the surrounding reef. 

 

 

 

 

 

G rented one chair for the astronomical price of $15; I decided I didn't want one, and there was plenty of shade without an umbrella. We went down to the north end of the beach, because a ship's tour was using the middle part. I'm glad we went to a beach that was a little harder to reach today, because even Honeymoon had a fair amount of people. I can't imagine what Trunk Bay was like. 

We had packed thoughtfully, but it was our first beach outing of the year and I forgot to take reading glasses. While I initially busied myself with swimming and drinking the sangria we had bought in Barcelona (We had purchased a 1.5 liter plastic bottle. Today I put .5 liter in an empty water bottle and poured it over ice in a disposable  cup we had brought from the ship), eventually I started realizing I was missing a window of opportunity to test beach pictures to friends. I ended up removing my hard contacts on a sandy beach so I could see my iPhone, and quite happily spent several hours interneting and swimming without them. Cleaning the sand off my fingers to re-insert them was a bit tricky but I managed just fine. (G just shook his head, picturing himself digging through sand looking for a tiny piece of plastic when things went wrong.)

I had had enough sangria and nothing to eat since breakfast to lead us to choose to walk the 10 minutes or so along a trail north to the Caneel Bay Resort to catch a taxi back to the tender pier ($5 per person).

 

We arrived back on the ship about 3:45pm, covered in sand. G, of course, showered and made himself scarce, leaving me to empty out and wash out and hang up to dry the many things that were coated with sand and salt water. I joined him on the Panorama Terrace' bringing the cold bottle of Barefoot Bubbly from Walgreens that we hadn't drank at sailaway from Fort Lauderdale and..:.well, this is when things started to get fuzzy. We each had a slice of pizza which was not enough to cancel out the wine, and watched sailaway from the Panorama Terrace (gorgeous) and by 5:30pm decided to go to dinner in the Club Restaurant and just eat lightly and I ended up finishing off an open bottle of Reisling while I wa there. It is now 8:25pm and I am already in bed for the night, having had a fairly inebrious day. G is in the Cabaret Lounge watching juggler Thien Fu. I'm sure he's very good, but that is not in the cards for me tonight.

Day 137: St. Thomas/ St. John

It was another of the best days of the winter, but before I get into what made it so, I'll provide what little additional information I have on the thruster control mechanism issue. 

Captain Stenzel announced that the technical department had worked on it all day, and that they believed that they had two of the six thrusters working. As the Emerald Princess was leaving St. Thomas, we would notice more tests being performed (we did). There was no announcement following that. 

As we'd been told to expect, we tendered into downtown Charlotte Amalie today (When was the last time we did something for the first time?  Today, tendering in St. Thomas.) Unlike yesterday, when tendering in St. Kitts stymied our plans for the day, tendering today actually made our day easier. For the first time in several years. we were planning to take a ferry to the neighboring US Virgin Island of St. John (Singular, non-possessive. St. John's is the town in Antigua where cruise ships dock).  We had originally thought we'd walk into downtown Charlotte Amalie (pronounced a-MAL-ya) from Crown Bay, in time to catch the 10am ferry. As it turned out, we tendered from the Emerald Princess to within a very short distance of the ferry dock, arriving at 9:45am 

We were surprised at how far out of the harbor the Emerald Princess was anchored. We have seen smaller ships, such as the Maasdam, anchor right in the middle of the harbor. Not so today. We were all the way on the other side of Hassel Island. It felt a bit like being in the naughty corner, and made for a fairly long tender ride, but it was a scenic one, with lots of sailboats and yachts and even seaplanes taking off and landing. 

The ferry from downtown Charlotte Amalie is $13 per adult, and takes 45 minutes to get to Cruz Bay on St. John. It doesn't run nearly as frequently as the ferry from Red Hook, on the eastern side of St. Thomas, to Cruz Bay (20 minutes, $7), but we've always liked to try to go at least one direction on the longer ferry. It offers spectacular views, and, today, spectacular waves. It was certainly a rush, a bit akin to a shotover jet boat ride, and we were covered with sea spray several times. G had found me a ginger ale to sip, and I intermittently popped Altoids mints, and I was fine. 

Once at Cruz Bay on St. John, we were immediately reminded of how beautiful that island is. The views in either direction simply from the ferry dock are picturesque. 

The little park at the end of the ferry dock offers a good place to sit on a bench in the shade and watch the roosters and chickens and peeps. I recalled the first time we had ever seen roosters on an island (Kauai in 1995) and how tickled we were by that. Almost 20 years later, we're used to goats, pigs, monkeys, you name it, roaming freely on the islands we visit, 

There are several restaurants with outdoor seating in the immediate area, and we took advantage of the bathrooms at one of them (The Landings) before continuing in our way, which led us to another great sign in the Caribbean:

We had not brought snorkel gear, and, in fact, weren't even wearing swimsuits. Our previous visits to St. John had focused primarily on the water:  snorkeling at Trunk Bay, and renting a dinghy and taking it up the northwest coast of the island, stopping at every single beach as far as Waterlemon Cay. We'd also done some hiking in the Virgin Island National Park in previous visits, but we'd never taken an island tour. That was our intention today, and we couldn't have found a better way to do it. 

While we saw one after another open air safari taxis leave, taking people to beaches, we talked to the dispatcher about setting us up with a driver who could provide a tour. He pointed us in the direction of Charlo (340-642-0337), who told us that, if he could get a few more people, he'd give us a two hour island tour for $25 per person, or we could do a private tour for $160. We didn't have $160, and so waited just a short time before three ladies showed up wanting to do the same, and then get dropped at Trunk Bay beach. Charlo outlined the tour for us on a map of St. John, and, since there are just two main roads on this 18-square mile island, we truly were going to see the entire island. It sounded good, but we could never have anticipated what a great tour guide Charlo would be. He pulled off the road several times, not just for photo stops, but to provide an explanation of what we were seeing. With four bench seats and five people, we almost had a seat per person, and that was perfect for sliding from side to side to take photos in both directions. 

Our first photo stop was Great Cruz Bay (not Cruz Bay where the ferry dock is), where the new Westin Resort is located. 

We continued down Centerline road to enter the national park. Most of St. John is part of the Virgin Island National Park, which limits all new development to a few areas on the western and southern coasts. 

The island in the distance is British Virgin Island Jost Van Dyke. 

From left to right- Mary Point, Great Thatch Island, Jost Van Dyke:

We stopped for about 20 minutes at the Annaburg Sugar Mill Ruins near Waterlemon Cay.  These were extremely interesting, with excellent signage along the 7-10 minute walk. 

We returned to the taxi and continued on along the western coast of the island, where most of the beaches are located. There is one beautiful bay after another, all the way back to Cruz Bay. 

Cinnamon Bay:

Trunk Bay:

Caneel Bay:

I can't recommend Charlo and his taxi strongly enough. He made the day for us, taking the time to show us local flowers and fruits, and telling us about the history of the island. On our tour, we happened to spot a tiny deer bounding through the national park, and a mongoose, which was brought over from Europe to kill the rats that were eating the sugar cane crops, but instead killed all the snakes (I personally don't consider this to be a bad thing). 

Shortly after 1:30pm, we returned to the ferry dock at Cruz Bay. We had to take a ferry back to Red Hook, on the western end of St. Thomas, as these run more frequently (roughly every hour). The ferry into Charlotte Amalie wouldn't have returned us  in time. This ferry was two decks high, and the ride was not nearly as rough as the longer ride had been. Almost immediately, we were thrilled to see a large hawksbill turtle just under the surface of the water. We didn't know, until we talked with the other passengers in the ferry, that all snorkeling at Trunk Bay had been cancelled due to the rough water (and we later learned that people booked on Emerald Princess snorkel excursions at Trunk Bay were told this and were allowed to cancel their excursions without penalty or take them just for the beach experience for half price). 

We hadn't been in Red Hook since the new ferry terminal was built. That's a huge improvement over what used to be there, which was a tiny ticket booth. We caught a taxi for $10 per person back to downtown Charlotte Amalie, and, since traffic was very light today- at least going westbound- it took only 25 minutes. Our driver deposited us right at the tender dock, where we were pleased to see a large local ferry had been pressed into service to tender passengers back to the ship. It held between 250 and 300 people on two levels. 

To find the Emerald Princess, look in the middle of this photo. Just its bow is shown jutting out from behind Hassel Island. In addition, a seaplane taking off can be seen just above it. 

Unloading the tender took a long time. The waves were rough, and disembarkation had to be stopped a couple of times while the tender rose and fell against the Emerald Princess pontoon. The entire process: tender loading and unloading and the ride took an hour, but most people were happy to have been deposited in town for free, instead of for the $5 taxi fare from Crown Bay. 

G headed to a hot tub, but I showered and dressed for formal night as I charged my iPhone. I then went up to Skywalkers to call Mom, and upload these photos while I still had 4G Internet. Mom is better, but I think full recovery is going to take awhile. She remains hospitalized, which is a bit of a relief. I know she's getting good care there. 

While I was sitting in Skywalkers, I could see the tug boat that had remained off the Emerald Princess's starboard side all day. 

Sailaway as seen from Skywalkers, with Water Island in the distance:

Looking back toward Charlotte Amalie, with Hassel Island in the foreground:

G soon joined me, and we went to Dinner with Darko. We were hungry, having skipped lunch, but I think that, after four ferry/tender rides today and an island tour, we were even more tired. We ate lightly, went to the 7:15pm performance of production show Disco:  Blame it on the Boogie, and started back toward our cabin. Fuzzy water, but not even popcorn later, we'll be asleep in a few minutes.