We woke up on our first full day on STJ all excited to get to a beach and start snorkeling. We went to Chilly Billys for breakfast, and I must say we were both disappointed in the food. I ordered the 1-2-3 because I was craving a pancake and also wanted to try out the famous potatoes, but the pancake was flat and practically cold and the potatoes were almost tasteless. However, Chilly Billy's staff were awesome and tried really hard to take care of everyone. We walked away afterwards really disappointed though. Anyway, we picked up some cheap t-shirts near by at something or other City, and Pat was so nice in helping us pick out some shirts. We then took off and found Trunk Bay with no problem and just sat spell-bound at first at the scenery!! It was a dream come true!! The beach wasn't crowded when we arrived, but it did fill up somewhat later. Since I am allergic to the sun, we parked our stuff next to the shrub trees and found out that is where the mosquitoes lurk. Be prepared and bring some repellent or you will wish you had ! They were viscous! We both put on our white t-shirts, applied tons of sunblock, and then headed into the water with our snorkeling gear. I highly recommend a dry snorkel, by the way, if you like to dive while snorkeling. I also recommend buying a cloth snorkel strap for the ladies with a bunch of hair, sure beat the plastic one that tried to pull all of my hair out! We had already tried out the ice-chest floatie thingie, and the ice-chest we had was way too large for the tube, damn it! I know how much ya were wanting to hear how it worked, so sorry to disappoint! Aww! The water felt soo good! We took off for the snorkeling trail and spent more than an hour looking at all the beautiful fish and coral. We then decided it was getting crowded and headed to the rocks on the left after taking a breather on the beach. George stumbled a little over a rock in the water before putting his fins back on, but he didn't complain so I hardly noticed. Later, I wish I had. We snorkeled for at least an hour around the boulders, just totally enthralled by the coral and the fish. I repeat, totally enthralled. We finally became exhausted and decided to work our way back to the beach. It wasn't crowded on that end of the beach so I noticed a woman walking towards our end of it. When we finally came out of the water she came up to us and asked us if we had noticed the SHARK that was circling around us!!!!! I thought she was pulling my leg, so I sarcastically said, " Oh yeah, because I pet it as it swam by!" in a loud voice while snarling my lip at her! How dare her try to scare us like that? As I kept on walking I noticed she dropped her mouth open and then I overheard her tell George, " I am serious! I noticed a shark fin trailing around both of you! I believe by the size of the fin it was at least 4 ft. long! I thought, " Oh, brother! Why can't a psychiatric nurse get relief from the nut-cases at least while on vacation?" George finally sat down with me and said he believed she was telling the truth. I laughed at him, telling him it was probably a tarpon or something like it. What an idiot! He then looked down at his right foot and inspected a 5 inch gash on the bottom of his foot that he said happened when he slipped on the rock earlier!!!! It wasn't that deep luckily. Then, a slow awareness overtook my tired brain. Gash=blood=shark bait!! Arrgghh! I looked at George in shock as I gently reminded him(okay, not so gently) that a shark can detect a drop of blood in the water from a mile away! To be more specific, some shark species can detect one part per million of blood in seawater! The lady was right! I felt awful then about the way I had responded to her. What a jerk I was!! To make George feel better after the a*s-chewing, I told him that I had apparently saved his life once again. He looked at me puzzled until I explained that I was wearing a black swimsuit with a white t-shirt. The shark took one look at me and thought I was a killer whale and back-peddled the heck out of there! So, once again George owes me and of course I rubbed that in, lol!
I am sure it was just a nurse shark, right?? We decided almost immediately that we were done with snorkeling for the day, so we headed back to our condo and a much-needed shower. For some reason, we felt it was necessary to shower both before and after a snorkeling trip. Go figure! Luckily, this nurse came prepared for minor emergencies and had Bactroban cream ready to apply over his wound. I took a power nap after eating lunch while enjoying the view on our balcony. We woke up and decided to go to the FishTrap for dinner and after circling round and round for parking, discovered they were closed on Mondays. We then decided to go to Cafe Roma to try out their Italian food. It was nice and air-conditioned, and we picked a table at one of the windows so we could people watch. George ordered the chicken parmigian(sp?) and I ordered the Venetian Shrimp and Sea Scallops over a nice bed of angel hair pasta drizzled with quite a bit of fresh garlic and olive oil. The food was good, but I have had better at Macaroni Grill. Guess I am into more mainstream Italian food, sorry. I do judge an Italian restaurant by the bread they serve, and while I believe it was homemade, it was very dry and tasteless. Maybe we were just there on a so-so night. The portions were huge and the shrimp and scallops were very fresh-tasting though. We were so miserably full that all we could do was go back to our condo and relaxed while sipping on the bloodys and beer. Despite the shark incident, we were so happy to be in paradise! I crashed early, like the weakling I am!

Sharon