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I want to thank to this forum, our group had a fabulous 10-day-vacation in VI. Here is my trip report. It is long…. And a link to our pictures.
http://community.webshots.com/user/dodolin100
05.20.07 – 05.22.07 Secret Harbor, St. Thomas
My husband, toddler and I spent the first 2 days at Secret Harbor in St. Thomas and stayed at a beachfront unit located on the 3nd floor. The unit was spacious, clean, pleasantly decorated and with adequate air conditioning. We did have a problem with the toilet right before we left, the handle and the whole flushing mechanism was falling apart.
Beach at Secret Harbor was nicely groomed and uncrowded. There was plenty of shade in the morning. The snorkeling was good.
Here is a view from the unit we stayed.
I just thought of the fact that we did have an unhappy incident with Secret Harbor when we checked out, due to the $125 safety deposit box charge. We returned the lock of safety deposit box after we checked out. However, there was some miscommunication due to the person who helped us check out was different from the person who received the lock. When we were picked up by the taxi driver, the taxi driver asked us to give the lock to him. We called Secret Harbor immediately, but no matter how hard my husband tried to explain, Secret Harbor just assumed that my husband was lying.
That was a very unpleasant experience. It is too bad that I remember this now. I have to say though, other than that incident, overall, the Secret Harbor was a good place to stay.
Grocery wise, we shopped at Food Center and Marina Market. The meat at Food Center was bad, a lot of it was way over its shelf life. However, the veggie and fruit selection was better at Food Center.
05.22.07 Sea Blossom Villa at Fish Bay, St. John
A view from Sea Blossom
We took the ferry from Red Hook to St. John around noon. Picked up our big 7-passenger Jeep Explorer from St. John car rental. It was a great car for our group. We spent the rest of afternoon back and froth between villa and Cruz Bay to pick up our arriving friends.
I wrote a review about Sea Blossom few days ago. This villa didn't have the best of everything, but it had a little bit of everything. We were happy with it.
05.23.07 Waterlemon Cay, Skinny Leg, and Westin Hotel (kids playground and watching parrots and iguanas)
This was a wonderful day and we had great fun snorkeling at Waterlemon. There is so much useful information in the forum about Waterlemon so I am not going to write a lengthy report about this day. But I learned a few things myself.
I wasn’t aware of one of our friends never snorkeled before. And I took everyone to the rocky beach right across from the Waterlemon Cay for our first snorkel. I should have asked and went to a different beach. The rocky beach was full of sharp shells and rocks, we should have proper footwear.
05.24.07 BVI with Capt. John Brandi – Palm Tree Charter
Many of you might see my post to look for people sharing charter Born to Rhumb with us. I didn’t succeed. But the captain of Born to Rhumb was so nice and referred me to Capt. John Brandi who has a power catamaran. ([email protected], 340-714-5641) I am very thankful for that information.
This day trip was the most wonderful and memorable day of our trip. I had a long list to visit and was very satisfied at the end of the day that we made most of them.
We went to Soper’s Hole in Tortola to clear custom. Then, visited the Bath. We swam to shore and started our own explore at the Baths. The beach at the Baths had the most beautiful aquamarine water. We spent about one hour to 90 minutes at the Baths and left around 11 am and headed to the Indians.
The Baths.
At the Indians, the sun was bright and the visibility at some spots was very good so we could see deep and the colors under the sea were vibrant. It was like swimming in a well lilted giant fish tank. There was abundant of fish and a lot of text-book-like corals. The current was very strong at the side where our boat was. It would be very helpful to wear flippers here. We spent extra time (almost 2 hours) at the Indians because the floating devise I brought with me failed twice and it was so hard to swim back to the boat. Plus, my husband and I had to take turns to take care our toddler. But this was the best snorkeling spot of the whole 10-day trip so extra-time was well-worth it.
Because we spent so much time at the Indians, when we finished, the capt suggested us to make a decision between having picnic at Sandy Spit or more snorkeling at the Caves. We voted the later. We headed to the Caves and snorkeled more, but we only spend around 40 minutes here. I didn’t go down at all. The Caves was special in its unique way. When heading back to the boat, my husband saw two spotted eagle ray, gracefully synchronizing swimming in the deep water.
We headed to Soggy Dollar after the Caves. We were there before 4 o’clock. I thought we were only grabbing a cup of painkiller and headed to Foxy’s. However, we loved the beach at Soggy Dollar and had so much fun and decided we would leave Foxy’s to our next visit. The painkiller was the most delicious mixed drink. Our friend figured out the trick to play the ring game. He could throw the ring to the hook almost every other try. We enjoyed sitting at the beach, chatting with our Capt and watching people. My kid played with sand. Our group played Frisbee. Here was Utopia. To be at Soggy Dollar bar was a perfect ending of that day. We left White bay around 5:15pm.
I was so happy that we truly maximized what we could and Capt John tried so hard to help us accomplish that. (We left Cruz Bay at 8:30am.) We spent $490 + tip for the Capt and his boat. Because we made a long trip, our gas was $175. I think it was more than 4 dollars a gallon. We were so exhausted but it was wonderful.
I will post more.....
Can't wait to hear more. Next trip you have to stop at Sandy Cay....that was the highlight of our trip with Captain Kevin of Born to Rhumb. Just gorgeous.
Your pictures are unbelievable. I especially like the first one at the Baths with just the legs sticking up. Really cool pictures.
Waiting for more :o)
same here! loved your pics and can't wait for more.
Great report and thanks for the photos - it makes it even better! Glad you had such a great time - it's truly hard to leave Soggy Dollar Bar area of White Bay - just beautiful and fun.
I love your underwater photo!
thanks for all the encouragement. My husband took the underwater photos. I didn't know how to switch camera to underwater mode so the photos I took were blue.
my son is turning two next week so I am busy preparing a train party for him. Will post more after my son is 2. 🙂
Want to finish up my trip report from long-time ago. I have some information to add.
We took a snorkeling trip with Wayward Sailor on the 26th. Personally, as far as snorkeling sites, my favorite was the Indians. I was hoping we could see octopus, but it wasn’t the season.
However, it was great fun to go snorkeling with Capt. Phil who was a very good story-teller. We learned a lot of snorkeling technique from him. My husband, especially, appreciated the Capt showed him the trick to free dive. Now he can dive deep without his ears bothering him and the snorkel mask never leak.
Wayward Sailor’s first mate, Tarn, was great with my kid. She was so considering and detail oriented. It made our trip on the tiny boat a lot easier.
May 27th was a Sunday. I had planned that we would go to Trunk Bay since there would be no cruise. It was fortunate that we visited Trunk Bay early. A lot of locals or tourists like us would visit Truck Bay on Sundays, too, to avoid cruise tourists. When we left, the parking lot was very crowded and at least three cars were trying to get our spot.
I also planed that we would visit Miss Lucy’s after Truck Bay. We wanted to try Miss Lucy’s famous local food. We were a little disappointed to figure out that Miss Lucy’s Sunday Brunch only served omelet and waffle kind of food. And the restaurant closed on Mondays. We were leaving on Tuesday. Well……
We drove to the East End, too. Thought we could have some luck with Vie’s. It was closed. Well ….
For dinner, we went to Maho Bay camp. They change menu every day and each night has a scene. I think Sunday was like Capt’s night. Monday was Caribbean night etc. And they would always have one vegetarian entrée. The food was decent and come with all-u-can-eat fresh salad. We sat at the dinner pavilion with a nice view overlooking the Maho Bay. There were a lot of kids so for me it was a less stressful eat-out dinner. My toddler could run around just like other kids did.
After dinner we visited Maho camp’s cabin to see if it could be our accommodation for the next trip. Though people at front desk said it was cool at night with the trade wind, we heard guests talk on the path about how hot it was and the fan was useless. So, probably only dinner for us, not bed.
May 28th was our last day of the trip. We visited Cinnamon Bay. The guys rented a kayak from the activity shack. My friends snorkeled. I stayed with my kid on the beach. Not sure if because it was the last day, everyone said this was their favorite beach.
We stumbled into this local restaurant called Sogo’s. This place was so far my favorite restaurant. I was so happy that at least we found this place. Actually, it is right next to the Fish Trap yet it never attracted my attention. Every time I passed by, I thought it was someone’s home. If we were not so determined to try some local food, we would have passed by this time, too. Reasonable priced, nice portion. Most importantly, I really like how things were tasted.
We tried king fish, curry goat, conch fritter, and conch stew in lemon butter. Everything was delicious!
I have one more input, for grocery shopping, I regret that I ignored some local’s suggestion and came to this grocery store called ‘Pine Peace Mini Mart’ first. I was fooled by its name ‘Mini Mart.’ Though the store is smaller than Starfish, it actually packed a lot of well-organized liquor and dry food and reasonable priced for St. John standard. We stopped by to get some liquor on the last day. I wish I had come earlier; it would be a great place to get any food that is not veggie or meat. Next time, I would come to this market first, then buy whatever I couldn’t get here at Starfish.
This is the end of my report. I hope my information is somewhat helpful and you will have a great time in St. John!
