Continuing my trip report (begun in a separate post), our first full day on the island was Father’s Day. How nice for the hubbies! We’d celebrated at home with the kids (we have one, Lori and Joe have three) before leaving but for today, we wanted to make it special. Last trip to STJ, we never made it to Miss Lucy’s so we thought how perfect it’d be for brunch there on Father’s Day. Had heard so much about it on the forum.

The day started off overcast with off and on showers, mostly light with occasional bursts of steadier stuff. But true to form, it didn’t last and we weren’t the least discouraged or worried that the day would be lost. And besides, a rainy day in paradise is better than a sunny day at work. 🙂

Along the way to the east end of the island, we had more animal sightings: a pack of goats, a group of cows and once in Coral Bay, we saw a donkey as well. At Miss Lucy’s we took a table outside under the huge trees. It was awesome. Me and Lori had Crabcakes Benedict, the special of the day. My hub had steak and eggs, and Joe had French toast. The waitress was surly, but the food was pretty good and the atmosphere and location couldn’t be beat; we enjoyed ourselves.

After Miss Lucy’s we headed straight to Trunk Bay. We were already dressed and packed up for the beach and couldn’t wait to hit the white sand. We choose Trunk first b/c it’s a must-stop and today was the only day that it wouldn’t be flooded with cruise folks as there were no cruise ships in STT. Trunk did not disappoint.

The clouds continued to move across here and there but no rain fell, and the shade was actually a nice respite from the sun. We read a little, chatted a little, floated a little. Glorious. The hubs snorkeled (we gals are sun soakers, not snorkelers) and enjoyed themselves. We did have a stingray swim by us where we were hanging out. That was close enough for me! LOL

Returned to the villa—dubbed Jungle Villa--about 4:30 and relaxed poolside, each of us calling children and parents alike for Father’s Day wishes. After showers, it was time to head to town for dinner. One unfortunate note here, apparently me sifting my feet in the sand while laying on my stomach and reading a book was JUST the thing to get the No See 'Ums swarming. I--who suffered not the first bug bite on the last trip down--was positively eaten alive, as discovered this evening. I counted them (b/c I thought my nine year old would get a kick out of this) and I had 35 bites on my legs just from the knees down, particularly bad around my ankles and on top of my feet. And they itched like crazy. I scratched until they bled, and still they itched. And oh so attractive too! LOL I tried alcohol, raw onion (Lori's suggestion which, strangely enough, did help some) and finally found "After Bite" and bought that and tried it, which also helped. Anyone planning a trip, bring some type of bug wipes! Even if you haven't been susceptible to these buggers before, let this be a lesson. I spent the rest of the trip completely paranoid of mosquitoes and other flying, biting insects. No one else had this problem tho and I never had more bites so I can only presume that this occurred at Trunk.

Moving on...for dinner, we had decided to try Morgan’s Mango, a place we heard good things about but had been unable to get around to last visit. We lucked out with a great parking space and strolled into Morgan’s where we were told there were two big wedding parties and the wait was over an hour. Shoot! Normally we’d just walk around and kill the hour browsing shops but it was Sunday night and we questioned how many stores would be open. Sure enough, not many. But in walking around, we came up to Rhumb Lines which had been the other option we were considering for tonight. We walked in and tho they also had a wedding reception going on, they were able to seat us immediately and our growling stomachs convinced us that was the way to go. Our apologies to Morgan’s. We hoped to get by there later.

We enjoyed a great dinner at Rhumb Lines, accompanied by the music of the reception performed by a couple of gals whose style was reminiscent of the Indigo Girls. Interspersed with the music was a variety of family members getting up and giving toasts to the couple. By the end of it, we felt like we knew the bride and groom so well, we should’ve brought them a gift! LOL But you cannot beat the atmosphere at Rhumb Lines—the lighted umbrellas, the rope swings in place of bar seats, even the menus are unique, utilizing natural paper with the cotton fibers pronounced and soft to touch. The food was outstanding: I had Banana Glazed mahi mahi, John had the teriaki steak and friends had the salmon. Afterwards, we headed back for some relaxation at the Jungle Villa.

The next day we’d planned to hit Cinnamon, our favorite. We’d headed for North Shore Rd, stopping to snap the obligatory spectacular shots along the way. As we got to Cinnamon, the Hub was thinking this was a park-on-the-road-beach and went right by the entrance. We figured we’d go up and turn around but that’s easier said than done so we just decided since Maho was just ahead, we’d change plans and take it in instead. Great decision. Maho was fairly empty and we parked ourselves with cooler and chairs in a spot that had plenty of sunshine but also some shade if anyone needed a sunshine break.

About 2:30, we all heard Skinny Legs calling our names so we packed up and headed there for a couple Blue Cheese burgers, and a couple Cheddar burgers. While delicious, the burgers were a touch overdone so didn’t strike me as quite so heavenly as I recall them being. But we were prepared to go back and give it another go! We did some shopping there (love the Jolly Dog store), and then cruised back to Jungle Villa for pool time. Later, we munched on light snacks at the villa and played some cards before heading in for a respectably early night. Tomorrow was to be a big day—a day sail on the catamaran No Shooz.