Travel Notes #3: Beaches and STJ

This is the last of our travel notes. As we leave, we again want to let everyone on this forum know how much we appreciated you all sharing so many good pieces of info and advice that helped us prepare and enjoy our trip.

One suggestion many of you made was to get a rental car, and we were glad we did. With regard to visiting the beaches it was handy having the car to go when and where we wanted and also allowed us to carry our own snorkeling gear - another good suggestion some of you gave to bring our own gear rather than renting it over there. We thought we would get to more beaches than we did, but guess we enjoyed ourselves too much at the ones we went to where we just didn’t make it as that many. At all the beaches we visited the water temperature was very nice and the sandy beaches were beautiful and relaxing laying out in the sun.

After visiting Coral World, we left the car in the same parking lot, changed into our bathing suits (used the CW facilities which are a bit nicer than those at the beach itself) and walked over to Coki Point beach. The two places adjoin each other. We rented lounge chairs, and the vendor gave us each a dog treats Milk Bone for feeding the fish. We went in the water where he suggested, near the rocks on the right side as you face the water, which separates the beach from Coral World. We saw a good number of small to medium size tropical fish – you crumble up the Milk Bone and they swarm all around you (they’ll bite you if you hold it near the surface and don’t release it quickly enough). We didn’t see any large fish ourselves, but a couple of snorkelers said they saw a barracuda. We saw a few scuba divers there as well. We also swam over to the rocks on the left side of the beach but didn’t see much there – it looked like if you swim further out along the rocks along that side you might see more fish there. But we swam back to the right side and enjoyed mixing it up with the many fish there. Here are a few photos:

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We took the car barge from Red Hook to STJ on a day the ships were not in port to avoid any crowd. There were no crowds at all. We bought the $30 one-way ticket, as someone on this forum had recommended it so you don’t have to worry about which company barge to use on your return trip. As it turned out, there was only one company running their two barges, so we wouldn’t have had any problem had we gotten the $50 roundtrip ticket. We didn’t have much of a wait for the car barge at either end. Interestingly, the barges are old-fashion models that require everyone to back their vehicle on, instead of the type where you drive on and off in the same direction (common on the coast around here). Theirs work out okay, but it takes them a bit longer time to load all the different size vehicles. Here are a few photos of our barge crossing (it’s was about a 15-20 minute ride across):

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The car barge dock area is separated from the passenger ferry docks by quite a few streets in Cruz Bay. You can pick up an excellent free map of the town at the tourist kiosk and most businesses near the passenger dock. We visited the Virgin Island National Park Visitors’ Center, located not too far from the passenger ferry dock. It is worth visiting and the ranger there was very friendly and helpful. Here’s a photo:

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We visited the Annaberg Plantation Ruins on STJ, which is worth a visit. It’s out Hwy 20 with a turnoff toward Francis and Leinster Bay. On the way, we saw a couple of donkeys roaming free range in the road near Maho Bay. We stopped and DW grabbed an apple and a pear to feed them. At first they wouldn’t let us get near them and one of them started heading away from us. But after DW started feeding the apple to the one who stayed around , the other one took notice and came back to get his just reward. DW could then do with them whatever she pleased (animals just love her!). Here are a couple of photos of the donkeys and then some at Annaberg:

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As we were exiting the Annaberg ruins, the local caretaker who lives there invited us on a tour of his garden. We took him up on it and were quite glad we did, as in his small fenced-in area he grows a good representation of tropical trees, plants and herbs which he points out on his tour (too many kinds to name here). We gave him a $3 tip and afterwards thought we should have given him more. Here’s a shot of the gentleman:

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On STJ, we enjoyed the beaches at Trunk Bay, Cinnamon Bay and Francis Bay. All the beaches there are free except Trunk which charges $6/adult (they gave us $1 off with our Golden Age Passport card). It might have been the time of year or weather, but snorkeling was not great at any of these beaches as we saw very few fish – and no turtles, which even the ranger said should be at Frances Bay. We still enjoyed the water and laying out sunning on the beaches. At Trunk we snorkeled following along the Underwater Trail they have laid out there, which is fairly interesting. Here are some related photos:

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All and all we had a real good time on our short visit of STT and STJ. It went way too fast. We would have loved to have had time to see and do more, but… that’s life, right? We said next time we’d like to check into places more on the south coast and east end of STT and explore other parts of STJ.

It’s been fun and real informative being a part of this forum. We’ll keep checking in and adding our 2 cents as far as should the little bit we picked up on during our travels might seem helpful to anyone.

Hook ‘em Horns. They are still #1 and looking good! 🙂