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Hopefully this will all work on the first try - pictures / links and all. If not, bare with me, I will try to repair 🙂
April 23rd Arrival:
Wheels down in St Thomas about 2:30pm. Pouring down rain, got soaked getting off airplane. Got car rented, baggage claimed and on our way, no problem. 1st item on to do list was to find court house and get paper work for wedding for the next morning. Drove right to court house, parking was easy since it was raining, and there was a shopping parking lot right next door that was all but empty. No one in line at court house, paper work completed and on our way to Sapphire Beach by 3:30. (traffic REALLY blows due to the rain and the time of day) Stopped at Cost U less in TuTu to get supplies for the week. Decent selection, got rum, breakfast stuff, munchies, sandwich stuff and off to Sapphire.
Found our room, unloaded car, unpacked. Room was VERY sufficient, full kitchen, nice balcony, could not imagine a better view. 1st problem (other than the rain), the safe in the room did not work. Went to front desk and was told someone would come by to look at it. 15 minutes someone came by and looked at it, said they could not fix it.
Our view when we arrived:
Will not bore you with the details, other than we rented from an individual, but evidentially his unit was undergoing some repairs, so it was not available, no worries, room we were put in was great (except for the safe not working). Discussed going to Red Hook for dinner, too tired after the trip, made sandwiches and made some rum punch, best darn sandwich I ever had, meaning I was very hungry and tired.
April 24th - WEDDING DAY !
Woke up around 6:00am - Wedding was scheduled for 10:00am, it was still pouring down rain, and no end in sight. Proceeded to get ready for our wedding - 8:00am, still raining (not looking good since we are to get married at the point outside - @ Sapphire) 9:00am - still raining - 9:30, it lets up a little. I go out and pick a bouquet for my lovely bride, and we are all ready at 10:00am. Minister calls us saying she¡¦d be late, they had to close the road she was traveling to us on due to high water. She arrived about 10:20, and the sun broke out ! Ceremony could not have gone any better, spent about 30 - 45 minutes with the photographer after the ceremony for some pictures.
These are what we had the witness take with our camera, not the professional pictures:
Changed clothes and hit the beach for a few hours.
Took a nap
Decided to go to Red Hook for dinner, ¡¥Off The Hook¡¦ was recommended. Hit Duffy¡¦s for a quick drink before dinner.
Showed up at the restaurant at 6:00 (we had reservations) and we were promptly seated. Beautiful view, great service, excellent drinks. Food was OK, but not great, could have been just what we ordered, I have the seafood skewer and she had blackened mahi mahi. Back to Duffy's for another round ! Loved Duffy's, great atmosphere, unique drinks, all around fun place !
April 25th
This was the "Cultural food & crafts fair" day for the carnival downtown. We decided to drive to Iggie's, park, and take an open air taxi to Emancipation Park. That worked out well. The food fair was ¡K.. Interesting, we tried some local food, and we are still not to sure what it was we had 🙁 We would pass on it (personal preference) next time. I never had my butt patted so many times, and I don't think it was because they wanted to feel my back side ! Put my new brides hand on my butt (wallet side) and asked her to keep it there (remember, our safe in the room did not work).
Left downtown, went to Havensight. We enjoyed Havensight, nice place, lots to see. Bought some souvenirs for the kids. Walked across the street, and headed up to Paradise Point ($20.00 a person for the round trip on tram). Had a few drinks, took some pictures, did some more shopping.
Headed back to Iggie's for dinner. We get there about the time they are setting up the Buffet for Carnival Night. We decide against the buffet and order off the limited menu offered on Wednesdays. We had burgers and fries, very good !
We are a little run down from all of the walking around. Decide to head back to Sapphire, take a nap, and come back to Iggie's for the show. We did as planned, but the nap was longer than expected, arrived back at Iggie's at 9:30 to find out show had just ended - Oh well - island time - so we head back to our place at Sapphire for the night.
Thursday - April 26th
On our schedule for today was renting a boat (with Captain) and heading to the BVI. We showed up at dock @ 8:00am as scheduled, it's raining, and does not look like a good boating day. Owner (Dan) told us we could do it another day. He wanted us to have a memorable time, and did not think today was going to provide enough sunshine for that. So we took him up on his offer, rescheduled for Friday, and headed to ferry - STJ. Uneventful ferry ride, but we did see a bunch of poor people stuck on charters that evidentially headed out for a day at sea rain or shine, glad we were not one of them - arrived at STJ and the bottom dropped out of the clouds. Our first purchase was two poncho's ! Got these on, and headed to Mongoose and decided to have lunch @ Ocean Grill. Great food ! Only one waitress, but still received good service.
Rain stopped, walked around a few hours, neat art gallery's, nice souvenir shops. Stopped by Woody's - No place to sit (it's not very big). Sun was out now, hot and very muggy. Headed back to STT.
Put on our swim suits, and went for some snorkeling at Sapphire. Awesome, we met up with a sea turtle on our first snorkeling adventure !
Decided to drive to the North West side of the island for a sunset and dinner. My new bride was a GREAT navigator, we made the trip in about 25 - 30 minutes. Ended up at Hull bay to watch the sun set.
Headed back east (no plan) and found Udderly Delight - decided to have desert before dinner had some GREAT milkshakes (with alcohol in them). We were very close to Indigo's, so we stopped there for dinner. Beautiful place, excellent food / service, lots of friendly cats. (sorry, no pictures from Indigo's)
Friday - April 27th
Met Dan (owner) and Captain Eric (Dan's son) at the Sapphire Marina @ 8:00. Loaded up boat, and headed to Jost Van Dyke. Eric stopped along the way to explain all of the history of the islands / Cays (pronounced Keys).
1st stop was Jost to clear customs.
Visited Foxy's, roamed a round a while and off to the bubbly pool on Jost. Neat place, had a good time.
Off to the Indians near Norman Island. Great snorkeling there, deep - 50 to 60 feet just a short ways from the rocks (called the Indians), I enjoyed diving in the deep spots to look around. Lots of fish, Eric brought along fish food (cat food) to feed the fish. NOTE TO SELF - Do not feed the fish while swimming with them ! Me and my wife (I can say wife now, we are married) both got scratches from the fish all trying to get to the food. Off to Willy T's for lunch. What a unique place, we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch there, and had a few drinks at the bar (back of the boat) there. The entertainment at Willy T's is the girls earning T-Shirts (we have pictures of this event but it would not be appropriate to post .
Off to STJ, stopped at all of the beaches along the North shore.
Dove overboard at Waterlemon Cay for some snorkeling - Great snorkeling there, even saw an octopus ! Swam back to the boat, stopped at Kenny Chesney's place for a few drinks (not really, but we did see his house)
Off to Cruz Bay - went through customs - Back to STT to fill up. $108.00 in gas - Back to Sapphire Beach Marina to end the trip, back by 5:00. BEST day of our vacation ! I would highly recommend Pocket Yachts ! Next time I will feel comfortable bare boating it, but very glad Eric was there to do all the customs for us. It's not all that difficult, just knowing how / where. We tipped Eric $100.00, and he earned every bit of it !
Saturday - April 28th
Drove to Havensight to do some shopping - Back to Sapphire for some more snorkeling - What a day ! I saw some huge fish, not sure what it was, must have weighed 100 lbs. It looked like a big angel fish, all silver, distinct lips, and VERY aware of my presence ... Turn around, what's that ?? To COOL, a nurse shark, not huge, about 4 feet long, but so beautiful, chocolate brown, swimming along the bottom, I was not too concerned, because nurse sharks are kind of like a big cat fish, bottom feeders, not to say my heart rate did not go up a tad. Swam west from the reef @ sapphire to the grassy area, WOW, sea turtles everywhere, and Sting Rays, 2 to 3 foot wide, these also are very aware of your presence, sea turtles don¡¦t seem to be concerned with your presence, but the Sting Rays stop and look at you. Ate lunch at the grill there @ Sapphire, very good, chased lunch down with a BBC (Banana Baileys Colada) and enjoyed a little bit of Island time - lying on the beach. Lost my wet wallet (remember - Safe in room not working - ALL our cash, both ID's and credit cards are in this wet wallet) Snorkeled for about 30 minutes backtracking to find my wallet, wife walking up and down beach - had strangers helping us look - Someone walked up to wife, ask her if she was looking for something, she said YES, and they asked her what her name was, she told them and they handed her the wallet - What a relief, they would not take a reward, the day was saved by good people, they found it washed up on the beach. Dinner at Molly Malone¡¦s (Upstairs) - Very good food, great service, highly recommended ! Carnival Fireworks starting at 9:00 - Head out to find a spot to watch. Just past Mafolie Hotel/Restaurant we took the next right, ended up on some steep road to Villa's, ended up being a great spot to stop and watch the fireworks. It was an excellent show, the echo of the fireworks were as awesome as the fireworks themselves. Back to Sapphire for the night.
Sunday ¡V April 29th
I cooked breakfast every morning up until now, so we decided to go out. Molly Malone's (downstairs) for breakfast / brunch - I had Eggs Benedict wife had the French Toast - again, excellent food, great service, very reasonably priced. Decided to hang out at the beach again @ Sapphire, we discussed going to another beach, but our unit was right there on the beach, the snorkeling was so good, and also had great areas for just swimming. We will have to do the other beaches on our next trip. No lunch since we had such a late breakfast - Off to Agave Terrace for dinner. I had the combo - scallops (Island seasoning) and a New York Strip - Mine was very good. Wife had pan seared shrimp. Hers was not as good, shrimp did not taste fresh, I do not recommend the pan sear option, even though it was recommended by the waiter. Shared my steak with the wife, something warm chocolate brownie like with ice cream on top for desert, yummy ! I would not consider it over priced, our dinner was under $100.00 with drinks and tip. I would expect to pay that back home for that setting / service / food quality. Back to Sapphire to do a little pre packing and try and finish the bottle of rum we bought the week before.
Monday - April 30th
Last day, we ALMOST finished the rum .. No hangover though, quick trip to the beach for a last snorkeling run, a little time on the beach, showered, finished packing, off to the airport. Stopped at Cost U Less in TuTu for some cheap smokes, 9 cartons - Then stopped @ Havensight and got underwater film developed (1 hour) - did some last minute shopping while waiting for the film. Got 5 bottles of rum, packed in an airline approved box. Darn, we have toooooo much stuff (has this ever happened to you ??). Made it to the airport, dropped wife off curbside with all the stuff, I took rental car back. Very smooth (Hertz - very nice Camery). Airport was a mad house, very busy, boarded plane, off to Atlanta. 2 hour layover in Atlanta turned into 4. Finally left Atlanta @ 11:30pm, got home @ 1:15am. Bag one came through, bag two, bag three .. Waited - Where¡¦s our RUM ! Bummer, it did not seem to make the trip - Check in @ lost luggage, they gave me a tracking number. They delivered my box of rum the next day to my house, all intact, no broken bottles !
Cannot WAIT to go back ! Maybe stay on STJ next year.
Driving on the left is really no big deal. Navigating intersections and pulling into traffic is what takes a little while to get use to.
Here are just a few random pictures of Sapphire and pictures we took while there:
View from our room (Fleetwood Mac house across bay):
Looking toward STJ and Tortolla (on horizon):
Sapphire Resort (red roofed buildings) from hwy 38 - main road:
Me in Red Hook one evening:
From the point @ Sapphire Beach:
The point @ Sapphire (where we were married):
This is Joey !
And I will leave you with some Sapphire Beach photo's !
And a few panoramic shots - really good if you can get them full size !
I do not recall anyone being rude to us the entire 8 days we were there - The rain never stopped us from doing anything, except for rescheduling our day trip on the boat, but we still did that, so the rain did not actually wash it out 🙂
Yes, we'll definately be going back, SOON I hope !
Fantastic report, and pictures. Congrads on your wedding on that beautiful point at Sapphire. I've stood there many times, it's mesmerizing. Thank you for sharing your happiness.
Carla
Thanks so much for the great report and pics. I really enjoyed them.
Thank goodness about your wallet!!
Great report & pics/ congrats on the wedding. glad the sun came out
Thanks so much for taking time and posting a great trip report. The pictures were great and i'm happy you had a great time. Congratulations on your wedding. That point at Sapphire is truly a beautiful place to get married.
Thanks so much for your report and for the great detail. Looked at all your pics - great ones! I'm glad your rum made it intact, half of ours didn't. We feel like you - we want to go back and soon. There are so many things we didn't get to do. Glad the rain didn't spoil any thing for you either - I mean how could it? you're in the Virgin Islands!
It was the LEAST we could do, esspecially after 8 months of getting info from this forum. Heck we felt like we knew the place before we even got there ! Of course nothing compares to actually being there, and you are right, it's the VI, how can you not have a good time ! Thanks for all the feedback, makes it all worth while ! We'll definately have a GOOD digital underwater camera next time we go. We had a store bought one, and did get some good underwater prints (well, decent anyway), but we had used them all by the time I saw the shark, big fish (still don't know what it was) and the stingrays.
Thanks again all.
Cat, I was wondering....when you're on Sapphire beach and you're looking out on the water, which side did you see the turtles and the stingrays? We usually went in around the center, but we never saw either of them there. We're you on the left side?
There is a spot in the middle of Sapphire that is all sand (baby blue in the pictures - you can see this area behind the picture of Chris when he was acting like a goof on the beach above), if you are looking at the ocean from the beach, you enter the sandy part, and the reef is on the right, it's best to swim along the outter part of the reef around the point (on right). There is a lot of marine life to see, this is where I saw the nurse shark and whatever the BIG fish was, about half way to the point at the edge of the reef on the ocean side. We saw a small sea-turttle 3 days in a row out from the point, it's rocky reef. The reef is deeper out by the point, and has little canyons in it, it's really good snorkeling !
If you want to see sea turttles and sting rays, swim straight out, to the other side of the sandy bottom to the grassy area (flat, about 10 - 20 feet deep), this is where we saw the sting rays and an abunance of sea turttles. Directly to the left in the grassy area, I did not see much, perhaps you did not go far enough out, or they were just not around the time of the year you were there, not to sure.
/rant on
We were enjoy the beach life one day, taking it easy, and we saw this older rather large guy walking across the top of the reef toward the shore, we were thinking .... What an idiot ? Does he not realize he is destroying the reef ? Not to mention the sea urchines ! He was barefooted, falling all over the pace. Fell once and cut his hand, but just kept on his trek to the shore. Why there is not someone there to just shoot someone this stupid is beyond me . It is obvious when you are snorkeling the reef, that half of it is dead from all of the people that probably just do not know any better. IMHO - They should rope it off, and just allow snorkeling around the edges of the reef. There is a sign that explains this, but I guess it does not get read by all.
After this guy made it to shore, he would walk 4 or five steps very slowly, then stop and look at his bleeding hand, he probably feel on a sea urchine, and could not figure out why the cut on his hand hurt so badly. How he avoided stepping on one is beyond me, it seems like they are every few inches on the reef.
Sorry to babble, but it was just sooooooo frustrating to see someone soooooo ignorant to something so beautiful, that takes so long to grow, and only one second of stupidity to destroy.
/rant off
Excellent report. Loved the details. I am so glad you found your wallet. Great pictures.
cat - when you said you dined "upstairs' and "downstairs" at Molly Malones, is that restaurant actually 2 stories, or did you eat a "Whale of a Tale" which is up above Molly Malones? We ate at both places, both good food, but if you ate at Whale of a Tale, I wondered what you thought of it. The food was excellent, but pricey, service - not so good. Molly's was a great meal, great price, great service.
Mountaineer,
I was unaware the name was "Whale of a Tale". I thought it was just another part of Molly's, upscaled a little. I guess it was "Whale of a Tale" that we ate at then 🙂
Here is the receipt - You are correct, the receipt says "Molly Molones and Whale of a Tale" - This is from our upstairs dinner. I had the crab stuffed Mahi Mahi (very large serving, lots of crab meat stuffing), and it was probably the best seafood I had while on the island. S had the fried seafood combo, I believe it had scallops, lobster tail (yes - fried), Mahi Mahi and crab cakes, with a side of Angel hair pasta with Alfredo sauce. She barely ate half of it with my help. It was very good as well. I remember the scallops (one of my favoities) being vey juicy and large, the crab cakes were awesome, and the Alfredo was rich and creamy ! Drinks and dinner $83.00 - $17.00 tip made it an even $100.00 - not bad at all looking back on it, it was a LOT of food and we were teated very well.
Hope this helps.
cat - sounds like you had a great meal there. Our food was great as well, but I was literally sick afterward because I had ordered 2 rich dishes (the cream of crab soup which was awesome and fettucinni (sp) alfredo with grilled shrimp on top . that was just my stupidity. Service was slow becuase the bartender and a waiter too I think had called in sick. 2 people were working the whole restaurant and mixing the drinks too. Our bill was like $110 with tip but hubby had water to drink, I had one glass of wine. We did each get the soup tho. All in all, a great place and as you said - alot of food for the money. worst part about the evening - when it started pouring the rain, the roof leaked, and water was dripping (actually drizzling) on us.
Great trip report and ditto on the Congratulations!
As for the patting on the but, I highly doubt that anyone was trying to pick pocket you! I have never heard of anyone doing this here! Food Fair is a hot spot for sure and LOTS and LOTS of people, mostly locals! Tight fit to get by the next person for sure!
One time I was doing a wedding at Magen's Bay (I am a coordinator) and the Brides purse disappeared. We looked and looked to no availe (by the picnic table) and I assumed it had been stolen. Reported it to the police at the ticket booth and of course I felt extremely bad! A couple of weeks later, I got a call from the wedding company I work for and they reported that the wedding couple had gotten the purse back in the mail, complete with all of her money!!! 🙂 Yeah!
I believe what had happened is she had carried her purse out on the beach and set it down for some pics and proceeded to forget to pick it back up! My purse was on the picnic table right were I had left it! Not sure who had found it and returned it, but how wonderful!!!!
Glad all went well with your wallet and such a positive out look on the weather you were faced with!
