The below is long, so pull up a chair and sit a spell. I hope you all enjoy reading my trip report. Coden

Characters in this True Life Adventure to Paradise:

C – Me
D – Husband
R – Son
L – R’s Friend

Airports! We all know the drill, so I won’t bore you with this portion of our trip!
But I do have to say that all of our travels, to and fro, went off w/o a hitch.

Tues Dec 19th – Island Day

Day 1 – So, here we are, we land on STT at 4:14 PM, catch a taxi, go to Red Hook, and catch the 6 PMish ferry to St. John. Man, did it ever feel good to be sitting on that seat, knowing that we are almost there!

Arrive on St. John and it is great!! People everywhere, lots of Energy floating around!

The villa that we are staying in is Bay House and we rented it through Great Caribbean Getaways and our Greater was Nancy. Everything went off w/o a hitch and Nancy was there waiting for us as we got off the ferry, and she had our car with her, so we loaded up, stopped at the Bougainvillea Car Rental agency, finished the paperwork and headed on out to Coral Bay – via Centerline Rd for our first time driving on the Left – with me up front, and it was in the Dark. We survived!!

Nancy shows us through the house, We Love It, Bay House is everything we had hoped it would be. We fell in love with this house and the views are to die for. It is so user friendly and just the perfect size for 4 people. The pool is too cold to swim in though. Although, 3 of us did jump in a couple of times each. Once in, it felt great.

Some may feel that Bay House is not Private enough, as it sits right above Aqua Bistro and Cocoloba, and the Police Station, and Crabby’s. But we loved where it was at. And for us it was perfect. Plus, the road and driveway up to it were steep enough for me. I don’t know that I could handle anything steeper. But, hey, I didn’t think I could drive on the roads there either, but I did!

We then haul in the suitcases, and head for Love City Market. It is now 7:30 PM and we need to get the important stuff for tonight…Beer, ice, Cruzan coconut rum and pineapple juice and for the morning…milk and coffee creamer. We run that back to the house and then head for Island Blues. Yippee!! I’m starving and need a drink as it has been a long day of meeting schedules and being on a timeframe. Time to relax!!

I check my cell phone messages and have a message from Pia. She wants to make sure that we’ve arrived safely. Is that sweet or what!! I call Pia to let her know that we are On Island and that we are actually at Island Blues. We have a lovely chat – I can’t wait to meet her.

So we’ve placed our orders, drinks 1st of course and just sit there in awe that We are finally in Coral Bay and how Cool is that!! I ordered a blackened mahi-mahi sandwich and fries, D orders a loaded seafood quesadilla, R has the veggie nachos, and L has a philly steak sandwich. The four of us toast each other, beers for the guys, and rum/pineapple juice for me. Life is good.

Wed Dec 20th

Day 2 – Waiting for the Sun Rise

The Rooster started @ about 5:15…he starts out kind of weak, and then gets a little louder and stronger with each crow. He crows about 5 times and then is quite. I get up, go upstairs and flip the switch on the coffee machine.

(I brought two of those little vacuum packed coffee’s with me, just incase we couldn’t get to Ruth’s 1st thing upon our arrival. I’m glad I did since our greeter was Johnny on the spot by being there with our car and all and we missed Ruth last night.)

I then open the 3 big slider doors to the porch, oh, the breeze is wonderful. The breeze all week is just great, sometimes gusty. I sit on our porch and with coffee cup in hand and watch as Coral Bay slowly comes to life. The rooster starts back up and is a little more persistent – funny rooster! It is now 6:30 and the sun is slowly coming up – Coral Bay is beautiful and anyone who lives here is very fortunate indeed.

• The above scenario played out the same for the next 8 mornings. I was normally by myself, (me & the rooster) watching as Coral Bay awoke. It was so very peaceful and I will cherish that time, for a long time to come.

9:10 AM – Everyone is up and eaten breakfast and we are getting ready to go about the island. Right now though, I am sitting on a chaise lounge, in the shade, w/ a nice breeze blowing, I could take a nap!

Coming out of the driveway and before heading to Cruz Bay, we decide to hang a right to check out the road to Salt Pond and the Lameshurs. We stop at our 1st Beach - Great Lameshur – and walk around a bit. We then drive down and check out Little Lameshur. We had a nice peaceful drive this morning, with beautiful views and we can’t wait to come back to this area.

Then off to Cruz Bay – today is stock up day and on this, our 1st trip to town, we decide to drive up 107 to 10, hit 20 and then run the North Shore road. This became “our” route to town and back and we did not hit Centerline Rd again for the rest of our stay.

Our first stop is at St. John Spice Co., where we meet Ruth and Ron. Ruth is busy mixing up spices and comes down to meet us; she is just as nice and helpful as she is on the forum. They were both so nice and made us feel so welcome to the island. The smell of their shop is Divine to say the least, there are so many aroma’s going on. We get coffee, teas, grill rub, curry powder, a yummy artichoke pesto sauce, Blind Betty pepper sauce, pepper jelly, and mango jam. D & I went back a couple of other times too, but we never ran into Ruth again. R & L did though on their shopping excursions. Lucky them! Thanks Ruth and Ron for every thing, especially your recommendation of the Lime Inn. More on that later!

We eat lunch at Panini Beach bar and had a wonderful pesto pizza and a salad pizza. I was a little leery of the salad pizza, I hadn’t ever heard of a salad pizza, but it was very tasty and I’m glad we ordered it.

We then hit Dolphin Mkt & Love City Mkt, where we bought food, beer, rum & ice. Then “home” to put it all up.

Next adventure for the day – Maho Beach!!

While we didn’t see anything spectacular, snorkeling wise, what we did do was SEE!! My son and I were using our new prescription snorkel masks and I was really nervous that something was going to be wrong with them. But, thank goodness, they are perfect and not only can we see in the water, but once we raise our head up out of the water, we can see what is around us. Clearly! Just like if we had our glasses on. This is a big deal when you are as visually impaired as we are.

We cook dinner at home tonight; we have angel hair pasta with the artichoke pesto sauce that we bought from Ruth. We also sautéed a couple of red peppers, onions, garlic and cannelli beans and poured that over the pasta. And we had a salad with blue cheese dressing.

Then a rousing game of dominoes and off to bed.

Thurs Dec 21st

Day 3 – Up early, drink coffee, eat cereal &/or English muffins with jam or provolone, pack lunches, grab water and head over to Cruz Bay. Today is our guided Reef Bay Hike with the National Park Service.

We get into a bus at the NPS Visitor Center, and they drive us to the start of the trail on Centerline Rd. Our hike starts there, we had all sprayed down with bug spray and thankfully none of us were eaten alive, so off we go.

• Note here though – C, D & R were lucky during our stay on St. John and were Not eaten alive by noseeums or mosquitos. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about L – for some unknown reason the bugs loved him and he was attacked, even with using bug spray. I felt so sorry for him, but thank goodness he took it in stride and just went with it.

The hike was great and we got to see termite nests, smell Bay Rum leaves, and smell & eat some Stinky Toe. We saw the Petroglyphs, this is where we all sat and had our lunches, and the Reef Bay Sugar Mill. We then had a really nice boat ride back to Cruz Bay. The boat ride is a really nice added touch at the end of the Tour. Once at the beach you can swim if you wish, you can even swim out to the boat and board on your own, if you wish, or the Capt. of the boat takes 6 passengers at a time out to the boat via a dinghy. Once all is aboard we head off around the island towards Cruz Bay. The views of the coastline and the horizon were Fantastic! Everyone was quite and enjoying the ride.

We had parked by the Visitor Ctr., so we load our car up and then head to Honeymoon Beach. The waves were really up, and it was gray and rained at one point, but I did get to see so many fish & Coral & Stingrays. Plus my first Rainbow Fish…how awesome is that fish? In my book, it puts all other fish to shame. We love Honeymoon Beach, and it is this beach that D & I have taken a Catamaran to twice before from STT. This beach brought us to STJ and it will always hold a very special place in our hearts. We swim and laze around and then decide to head back home.

Tonight is leftovers and then to bed. Tomorrow and here on out, we have no other Set Plans, other than meeting Pia at Sweet Plantains on Christmas Eve. Each day from here on out will be just to pick and choose to do something or go somewhere, as we think about it.

Fri Dec 22nd

Day 4 – Everyone slowly gets up, except for me and the rooster of course. We’ve been up for a long time already. Ha!

We had a nice little rain shower, and did for many of the mornings, which was really cool to see a little storm come over the island and then just go away. We eat our breakfast, made pb&j sandwiches, grab trail mix, water, beer, c’nut rum, p’apple juice, ice and head for the beach.

Little Lameshur was our first stop. Maybe 6 people total were there. Water fairly smooth. We snorkel out to the rocks and see lots of fish. Blue ones, striped ones & L sees a little starfish. We stay for a couple of hours, eat lunch here and basically just enjoy the calmness of it all. Love Little Lameshur!!

Salt Pond – I see and swim with a Turtle!!

We hike down to Salt Pond, find some shade, (this is our MO as we are shade dwellers) and set up camp. I quickly throw my stuff on and head for the water. I go out quite a ways, I’m just puttering along and then I look down and see The turtle. I can’t believe my eyes. How lucky am I to see this turtle? Very lucky from what I am told. I then look to the right and see a stingray. So I back up, turn around, and start swimming away. But then I stop and tell myself that I am not going to let that stingray run me off from My turtle. So I went back and the turtle and I swam around for a bit, I forgot all about that silly stingray. The turtle then slowly starts floating to the top so he can take a breath. This is where I lost him. The water was cloudy, and I didn’t keep a good eye on the turtle, I guess he got his breath of fresh air and split because B4 I know it, he’s gone. But, I saw him and it was great!!!

We hang for a bit longer and then go back to the house. Everyone takes showers, and we head for Cruz Bay. This trip to St. John “is” our Christmas, but everyone likes to have a present to open on Christmas morning so we draw names and we are going to buy each other a gift. I draw L’s name, D draws R’s. R draws my name and L draws D’s. But it is a secret, you can’t tell the name that you drew.

So we drive to Cruz Bay and split up. We are to meet back at the Lime Inn at 7 PM.
D and I finish up quickly as we knew what we wanted to get the guys, (you’ll have to wait until Christmas to find out what we bought for one another) and are at the Lime Inn at 6:30, which is a good thing as they have lots of reservations for this night. We put our name down for 7 and then sit at the Fiscus Bar and are served by a nice young man named RJ who kept us in pina coladas, beer and good conversation.

While sitting there, I ventured into the Pink Papaya and purchase a glass window hanging. It is a circle of blown glass and in the middle are two turtles and reef grass, with three air bubbles going up one blade of grass. I bought this because it was earlier in the day that I saw My turtle at Salt Pond. I then turn around and bought another one for my Best girlfriend. That way, it is almost like she was there with me.

R & L come at around 7 and we are seated not too long after. Our meals were great! R had a greek salad and a portabello mushroom sandwich and rice. L has a seafood pasta that is loaded w/ shrimp, tuna and clams. D has a 1 ½ pound grilled lobster and I have a whole snapper grilled with jerk seasoning. I ate every bite, well, I gave D two bites, and I ate the rest. I had to go back home and go straight to bed afterwards as I was stuffed to the gills. : ) I had read about the Lime Inn, and wanted to go, but already my brain had gone on Island Time and had forgotten about it and was in the mode of “we’ll do this or do that, if we think about it” I am so glad that Ruth mentioned it while we were in her shop on Wed., because it reminded me that we wanted to go there. Thank you, Ruth!!

Oh, by the time we got to Cruz Bay this evening it was 5:30ish and no parking to be had. We found a little parking lot, called Slimmans, and for $5 parked there. It sure beat trying to figure out where to park, because even if we did see a space, someone took it before we got to it, or we were just not sure if we could park there and we did not want our vehicle towed. This parking lot is right around the corner from Ruth’s place and was so easy to get in and out of. And hassle free – just drive into town and park…that it why we liked it so much. Plus the tall, grey haired man running it was Super Nice!!

Sat Dec 23rd

Day 5 – Woke up to rain & wind. Rain stops but the wind is still whipping about. We laze around the house a bit, going extra slow. We eventually pack up and head to Cruz Bay. I need new sunglasses as I lost my on Thursday sometime after our hike.

We go to the Market Place and end up eating lunch at Satyamuna which is on the 2nd level. If you get a chance, please go, they make wonderful food. I had a mushroom lasagna, D had an eggplant dish (which was awesome!) and R & L each ordered the Falafel plate. We love falafel and fix it here at home, so it was nice to have it while on vacation.

I then go to the pharmacy and buy a pair of clip-ons. We then head for Maho. We love Maho! We swim and snorkel, read, and just become bums.

At around 4 PM we go to Trunk Bay and use their facilities to clean up. We decided this morning, that instead of going back home to Coral Bay and then driving back to Cruz Bay for dinner that we would pack clean clothes for dinner and get cleaned up at Trunk Bay, which is what we did. We then drove to Cruz Bay, parked in Slimmans lot and just walked around checking out Cruz Bay, walking up the shore line in front of Panini’s et al, walked the streets and basically, just looked the town over. Love it!!

We then went to Café Roma for supper. And boy, another fine meal did we have! We started off with Antipasti, bread and a bottle of wine. Then I had baked penne pasta w/ hot Italian sausage (big enough to feed 4 people), D & L had a Seafood Manicotti that was Out of this World, and R had a Vegetarian pasta dish. We all took plenty of leftovers home, too, the guys ½ of their meals and me ¾ of mine as the Antipasti and bread did us in. But hey, nothing wrong with leftovers later in the week - Yum!

This was our last day/night coming all of the way into Cruz Bay as we’ve made a decision that we won’t come back until Thurs. Dec. 28th when it is time to go home.
We’ve been “running” the roads and it is time to stay home in our own neck of the woods!

Sun Dec 24th

Day 6 – Christmas Eve

Get up, grab a cuppa joe – go stand on porch, look out over Coral Bay. We are on St. John and it is Christmas Eve – how great is that!!

Everyone up early as today is Trunk Bay day. Lunches and coolers are packed, snorkeling gear is gathered and off we go. It is only 8:00, the earliest we’ve left the house thus far.

Drove to Trunk Bay, set up camp, and hit the Trail. I saw many fish, corals, anemones and a nurse shark. Did I have my camera, No! Seems to be a pattern with me. Ha! And I never did see that shark again, either. We snorkel for a couple of times each, then just relax and read, eat our lunches, swim some more – very relaxing. About 2 we pack up and go to Hawksnest. But it is way too crowded. So we decide to drive to Francis Bay, Annenberg and then over to the East End way past Skinny Legs, just to see the land. We then go home, everyone takes their showers, we do a couple loads of laundry and we chill at the house until 6:45. It was nice to spend some time at “home”.

So we are all cleaned up and ready to go to Sweet Plantains. I had read so many good reviews about SP (it did not disappoint) and just could not wait to go. Plus, I was going to meet Pia. Pia is a wealth of information on the forums, and always so nice, so I of course was very excited that at long last I was going to meet her. So yes, this is an extra special night for me.

Now, here is a funny story about our DRIVE to Sweet Plantains. We had driven past it numerous times already so knew it wasn’t far. So we have a discussion before leaving the house on Where Sweet Plantains is at and how long is it really going to take us to get there. Well, we didn’t want to be late because we were going to meet up with Pia & her husband, so we could chat before we each were seated for our reservations. Anyways, we decide we best leave the house at 6:45 so as not to be late…we get in the car, drive down our driveway, drive down our street (which is maybe 100 feet) turn the corner and WHAM there is Sweet Plantains right in our face. And it was only 6:46. Tee-hee-hee.

So, it is 6:46 and the parking lot is Packed. My gosh, thank goodness Pia had told me to make reservations or we would not be eating for a long time that night. We check in and they have our table ready. I look around and don’t see just a Couple seated; all of the tables are 3 or more people, so I guess Pia is not there yet. Since we are early. Ha! Pia and her husband do come in, I see them, but of course don’t know that it is Pia.

Our waitress collects our drink orders, and then our dinner orders. At this moment, Pia stands in the doorway, we are outside and she is inside, and I look up and she says, Coden? So I get up from my seat, we hug, I make introductions and she sits down to talk to us for a while. Have I mentioned how sweet and friendly that Pia is?
Well, she is! Our salads and soup arrives so Pia goes back into the restaurant while we eat. We make plans to meet up after we are all done with our meals.

This is what we all have: C – Salad & West Indian Chicken Curry, D – Soup and East Indian Shrimp Curry, R – Salad & West Indian Veg/Tofu Curry & L – Salad & East Indian Chicken Curry. As mentioned above, the food was wonderful. Every one of us got the clean plate award that night. We skipped dessert as I’ve made an eggless choc. cake with choc/butterscotch frosting for our dessert tonight and tomorrow night.
We are always too full after a meal to eat dessert right away, so very seldom ever order dessert out.

After paying up, D & I go inside to talk to Pia and to meet her husband. Who is Just as nice as Pia is!! We really enjoyed our visit with them and only wish we could have spent more time with them while we were on Island. I just don’t know where the days got off to and never had another chance to call Pia so we could meet up. Maybe the next time we will be able to.

So we head back home, man, the drive was atrocious. Ha!! Tonight I’m teaching L how to play Cribbage. He catches on quickly but doesn’t like the game. He says there are too many things to think about in one game. Oh well, it is not a game for everyone.

Good night – tomorrow is Christmas Day!!

Mon Dec 25th

Day 7– Christmas Day!!

I am writing this at 8 AM while looking out over Coral Bay. The seas are calm this a.m.; it is a good morning to be out on a boat – if only I had one. Ha!

I’ve dreamed for many years of being in the Caribbean for Christmas, of having a Christmas Holiday vacation. And here we finally are, we are doing it and it is wonderful and everything I dreamed up.

Just waiting for the guys to get up so we can have breakfast and exchange the gifts that we got one another and I hope they get up soon as I’m ready to get the show on the road.

Everyone is finally up and seated for breakfast. Today we are having whole wheat eggless pancakes, served with fig preserves for the topping, and mango slices on the side, coffee, tea & milk.

After breakfast we clean up the dishes and then pass around gifts. This is what we got: C – ½ pound of Kiss of Jumbie coffee beans, a nice STJ coffee mug, and two small plastic bottles of flavored rum. D – a bottle of Pirates Gold hot sauce and a big jar of jalapeno stuffed olives. Which are Wonderful by the way. R – a photo picture of Little Lameshur and L – a photo picture of Trunk Bay. The photo’s are matted and are 11 x 14 and the photos are shot through windows of ruins. The Little Lameshur one is my favorite as the angle is awesome. John Baldwin did the photos.

We then sit around until about 12:30 and then pack up and head to Little Lameshur. We find a spot in the shade and we all just sit and read, or just sit, or go for a swim. The water was very cloudy today, not good for snorkeling at all. But we enjoyed just being there with one another.

We come back to the house around 4 PM, and clean up and are lazy this afternoon. We eat our leftovers from Café Roma, and served with a salad we all have full meals. We then go to Island Blues for drinks and meet some of the locals from the area. They have all had a wonderful Christmas day and are all very friendly. It was nice to finally meet some of the people in the area.

Tues Dec 26th

Day 8

We are up early because today we are going to Francis Bay, we’ve not been yet, other than our drive there on Sunday when we drove around in the afternoon. We pack up the essentials - drinks and snorkel gear and head on over. Hey, guess what? WE LOVE FRANCIS BAY. And now we know that our two favorite beaches are Little Lameshur and Francis Bay. But please don’t tell anyone about these awesome beaches! ; )

So we hang at Francis until about 1 snorkeling. We love it!! R & L see a huge Tarpon. They say it was at least 5 feet long, huge. R has a great picture of it.
I see a lot of grouper and all I can think of is dinner. I love grouper. I also see a baby barracuda. Of course, there are ton of sea urchins, they are at each beach. Are they edible? I know that D loves sea urchin and orders it when we go to the sushi bar, are these the same? I don’t know. We don’t try to find out either. We see these Christmas tree looking things growing. We have to find out what they are.

We head to Skinny Legs for lunch. Yum! I have a blackened hamburger, D has a blue cheese burger, R has a veggie burger & a salad, and L has a cheeseburger. Great service!! We’ll have to make it there more often the next time.

Skinny Legs has great shopping, I bought R an awesome cloth over the shoulder bag here. It has STJ on the front and I got it from the Jolly Dog shop. I first bought it for myself, but it is beige and I really wanted another color, like blue or pink. They did have the same style there but only with Jolly Dog on them, not STJ. So they suggested that I try their other location over by Shipwreck Landing. We did, but no luck. So R gets the awesome bag and he’ll put it to good use with all of the caving and hiking that he does. It will get much more use with him having it than it really would have if I had kept it.

After Skinny Legs we head to Great Lameshur. D & I are so totally lazy at this point that we don’t even swim. We just sit in our chairs and read or look out at the most awesome view. Every beach is awesome and oh, so relaxing.

We go home around 6 and fix an onion, tofu, spinach pie, and served with a side of corn for supper. Yum! This is one of our favorite meals. After dinner we play the quick version of Monopoly. R won, he kicked everybody’s butts. In the Quick version you are pre-dealt some Land cards. The stinker got two Railroads and then after the game commenced he quickly landed on the other two. I hit them at least 4 times and so did L. Plus R had Boardwalk, I kept landing on my own property or free parking, or other non-property squares so I didn’t get a good chance to buy anything. Unless someone else landed on it and passed it up, then I got to bid on it. I did get all three Green one, but no one would ever land on any of them. Until after I had to mortgage them of course. I ended up having to mortgage all of my property to pay R off. The Tycoon that he is!! : )

Off to bed…can tomorrow really be our last full day? Boo-hoo!!

Wed Dec. 27th

Day 9

Up early so we can hit Francis Bay again. Did I mention how much we love this beach? We are stationed to the left, by the rocks. We’ve all been in once, and D & L are still in so they miss our little bit of Nat’l Geographic that we have at the waters edge.

A barracuda, about 4 feet long, has been running a fish back and forth, up to the shallow waters. R & I are watching it. The barracuda finally gets it grounded right in front of us and the next thing we know, it has grabbed the fish, and bit it, blood is in the water and the fish is a goner. WOW!! Seconds after it is over L comes up and R gives him his camera as L is still in the water and L snaps a couple of pictures of the barracuda, as it was still visible to us because it was just out a ways, in a little bit deeper water, finishing its meal, I presume. : )

Like I said - Nat’l Geographic right there at our feet. Amazing!!!

We pack up and go to Island Blues for lunch. I have a grilled tuna sandwich, D has a mahi-mahi sandwich, R & L both have nachos. We eat a nice peaceful lunch, knowing this is our last, take some pictures and just enjoy!

After lunch we head for Waterlemon. What a better way to walk off lunch, eh? And walk it off we did. R wouldn’t let us stop at the sandy beach, oh no, we had to walk to the point. D & I almost make it all of the way to the point, which is in front of the Cay, but we poop out and drop our gear. I thought I was gonna die! R & L go on towards the point and the Cay and drop their gear. D & I go in and this is where we saw all of the Starfish. About 15 of them and they were all Big. Some were a medium brown and some were speckled and a lighter brown. R had his camera so I didn’t get pictures and he and L never saw the starfish. But R does get some really nice pictures from Waterlemon Cay, so that is a good thing!

I snorkel all of the way back to the sandy beach while D grabs our gear and meets me there. What a sweetie pie!! I had hoped to see turtles, as I heard a family talking as they were snorkeling that they saw three. But I never did see a turtle there. Oh well, hopefully I will the next time. Seeing the starfish was awesome. I had never seen one before, not alive and in the wild. I did not touch them though. They were so pretty down there that I hated to disturb them.

We all meet back up on the sandy beach and start our trek back to the jeep. It is a hike to Waterlemon and I’m glad we finally fit it in and I am so glad we did not miss this beach, a good beach for the end.

We go home, the guys wash all of the snorkel gear and get it all set up to dry so it will be ready to pack in the a.m. We go to our bedrooms and start packing up our clothes, books, games, papers, etc., leaving out what we are wearing tomorrow. Done!

After getting cleaned up we go to Aqua Bistro for supper. Or that was our plan anyway. We get there at 7:15 and the maitre d’ says it will be an hour wait and writes our names down. At 8 I finally see him at the podium again and go ask him how are we doing, are we close to getting seated? He looks around and says that it is still going to be at least another 30 mins because the people aren’t getting up from their seats. Well, he leaves, and I just kind of stand around looking at what is going on, and why aren’t people getting up from their seats. And he was right, the people were not getting up, and it is because they aren’t getting served and are asking their servers where their food is. And then I see that the maitre d’ is back in the kitchen, with one other person – the only cook for the evening?, and he is making plates and serving them to a table right outside the kitchen door. I ascertain that maybe they have a Staff shortage that evening and at 8:30 the four of us have a pow-wow and decide to leave and walk across the street and go to Island Blues. We hated to leave without telling him, but he would never come back out. And we are starving and didn’t want to miss Island Blues restaurant being closed. So better luck for us the next time, their menu looked great and we hated to miss it.

Island Blues and Debbie does Karaoke!

So we saunter over to Island Blues and sit out by the water. We order drinks and look at the menu a while. We chat up with our server, who we had actually met on Friday night; she works in Cruz Bay as well. I order the blackened ribeye sandwich, D orders a loaded grilled cheese on rye, R orders a grilled cheese on rye with jalapeno’s and onions and a Mediterranean salad. Which I was supposed to share with him, but was too full from my own food, but he ate most of it anyway. And L had a philly steak sandwich again since this is what he had on his 1st night on the island.
So, while we are eating, Debbie is doing Karaoke, and a couple of the patrons are getting up and singing. They have a couple of binders floating around with song titles and artists’ name in them. You pick out which one you want, write your name and song title on a slip of paper and give it to Debbie. She calls you name and you go up and do your thang!

Well, our very own L sings a total of three songs: When I’m 64, Rocky Raccoon and XXX. Well, L is great and everyone loves him. He is quite the Showman and it takes a lot of nerve to get up there and sing in front of people. Especially when not fueled with Alcohol. Ha! L seemed so relaxed up there, although I know he was nervous. But he is a very outgoing person in general so he is perfect for Karaoke.

So we sit there for quite a while, digging the scene, and finally pay up and walk home. We finish our personal packing and I head off to bed.

Thurs Dec 28th

Day 10 – Last Day

Our flight out from STT wasn’t until 6:45 PM, because the silly airline changed it, so we asked our Rental Agency if we could stay at the house until 12 Noon – Thankfully they said Yes. And we asked Bougainvillea if we could keep the car until 1 PM – Thankfully they said Yes. In both cases we were allowed to do this because the house was not going to be occupied again until Sunday and the car until the next day. So we lucked out there.

This gave us the morning to finish packing the snorkel gear up, and to haul the suitcases up from the bedrooms and packed in the car. We then took out the trash, wiped everything down and swept all of the floors. It looked good enough for anyone to come in and occupy. I wish it was still us!

We sat around, looking at the awesome view for the last time, and finally left around 11:30. We said our goodbyes to the house and to Coral Bay and Island Blues as we drove through, vowing to return as soon as possible, of course. We drove our favorite route out, passing Maho and the awesome views. Next thing you know it, we are back in Cruz Bay. We drop R & L off at the ferry with all of our bags, and head on to Bougainvillea to drop off the car.

D & I walk back and meet up with the guys, they one by one go grab a last beer while I watch our bags and wait to buy our ferry tickets. We are taking the 1:15 Charlotte Amalie ferry so we can kill more time and so we can be out on the water for a longer period of time.

While we are waiting for the ticket office to open up it is raining – quite hard at times, too – I think it is a lovely end to our vacation, and seeing the rain just makes everything feel so fresh. I hope that it stopped soon though for the newcomers.

We get our tickets, the rain has stopped for a bit and we start the Walk of Woe…Yes, it is a hard Walk for sure, and one that we all must make…but we will be back, is what we are saying as we walk the walk, we will be back!!

Pia suggested that once we get to Charlotte Amalie that we just give our bags to a taxi driver and that he would hold them for us and come pick us back up when it was time to go to the airport. Which is what we did and it worked out perfectly. Thank you, Pia as that sure made our last few hours so much easier to deal with.

We get in line and get on the ferry and ferry over, it is raining again, but still a nice ride, very choppy, but I Love choppy, so it was great. By the time we get to CA the rain has quit – thank goodness!! Immediately after getting off and getting our bags a taxi driver asks us if we need a taxi. We explain our situation, he verifies our flight out time and says that he will store our luggage and to meet him back at this same spot at 4:30.

So off we go, looking for lunch. We go to a restaurant called Cuzzins. I have the chicken curry, D has the shrimp curry, R has a vegetarian plate, and L has a seafood platter. This is now his favorite restaurant. Every restaurant that we went to, that meal, at that time, was his favorite. I’m glad he enjoyed each meal so much.

After eating, we still have about 30 mins to kill and D needs another book. So we head off and tell the guys to meet us back at our spot. We go into a Mall (forgot the name) and I stop in a Belgium chocolate shop and buy us a box of chocolates for the plane ride home, while D goes and finds a book.

We then meet up with the guys and I share a piece of chocolate with everyone and then R packs the rest in his backpack for our ride from San Juan to Fort Lauderdale.

Our taxi driver shows up and it is finally time to end this story as everything must come to an end. Oh, but wait, one last thing…we didn’t know that we were going to have to go through Customs at the airport, or that we had to fill out a customs form. When the Customs agents asked where our “form” was, we said “what form?” and he said your customs form. I told him we didn’t know that we had to fill one out and where were they? And that we were Americans and hadn’t left American soil, so did we still have to fill them out? He said yes, and I finally pulled it out of him where the forms were. So we went over to the little desk on the wall, D filled one out for the 3 of us and L filled his out, we went back through, he checked it all out and sent us on our way. Let me tell you that The man has the Personality of a Wet Dish Rag…I hate to be so negative about someone that I don’t even know but this guy was Comatose and I am sure, that had he Tried to smile, that his face would have Cracked because I’m sure that it has been a long, long time since he has!
Just some odds and ends: Love the donkeys and the goats. The largest herd of donkeys that we saw was about 5. The largest herd of goats was about 40. The little babies are so cute. We had a big iguana that lived in a tree right below our upper porch; it was cool to see him on a daily basis.

The next time that we come we will arrange our flights so we only use the Charlotte Amalie ferry. It is so much easier than the drive through STT, which wore me out and if one plans better one should not have to go through that. And isn’t better to be on the Water versus in a taxi? I say yes!

We fell in love with Coral Bay and I am glad that we got to see it like it is now, before the Marina and Customs office go in. After that happens, I see a huge growth happening in this area.

I would like to Thank everyone for all of your help. From our On Island Gems - Pia and Ruth, to every member of this board who helped me get ready for our first trip to STJ and who answered my never ending questions. Because of all of you, our trip went off without a hitch. We ate well, slept well, and had all of the necessary equipment with us. We had regular snorkel masks and prescription snorkel masks. We had fins and booties for our fins, which I now cannot image not having. We had Slap-Straps, which I am the only one who liked so I have a life time supply of 3. Ha! And we had R’s Awesome underwater case for his camera. It is too cool!! We went to the Best restaurants and swam the Best beaches and saw the Best views to be had. And all because of You!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

May our paths meet some day, but until then, may all of your days, be happy days!!