4/25
Planned eating breakfast out in Coral Bay this morning but soon learned that there are no restaurants open for breakfast there on Monday. So we stopped by the grocery store for some pastries and juice. Since we were heading out to the East End we decided that Vies would be a good place to eat our breakfast since it was shady and she wasn’t open. Had a good time visiting with the goats and chickens again.

After breakfast we headed down the road a short distance to Hansen’s Bay. We were the only ones there for the first hour. The reef there is spectacular and large. Not too many people seem to know about it. We snorkeled along the left side out to Pelican Rock (at least I think that is what it is called). We saw 2 large nurse sharks on the bottom with their heads hiding under the coral. We stayed there until after lunch taking turns snorkeling. Then we needed to find a sandy beach for Joseph to play on so we headed to Maho. While Steve and Joseph played on the white sand I snorkeled the right side out to the point. Lots of large fish here. I saw a school of 4 Tarpons that were about 4 feet long. I also saw a very large fish that was shaped kind of like a angel fish but much larger, maybe 3 feet in diameter. The park ranger told me what she thought it was but I have forgotten. I think it started with a P. Back to the house for a meal of leftovers. Clear skies tonight.

Note about bug bites. How can I be covered in bug bites when I don’t even recall being bitten?

4/26
Our last full day on STJ. It’s a little easier to take because I know we have 2 more on STT. Kind of like easing into things, it makes it a little easier. Started off the day with breakfast at the Inn at Tamarind Court. Nice courtyard setting and reasonable prices. Then we headed over to the Park Service headquarters to get Joseph his Junior Ranger badge that he had been working on for the last few days. Steve and I were both National Park Service rangers in our younger days so Joseph was pretty excited about this.

Joseph wanted to see some iguanas (OK, so did we). The managers of the house we were staying at directed us to go to Nautilus, which is another house they managed that happened to be empty that day. Its in the Great Cruz Bay area and has lots of iguanas. Sure enough we hung out for about an hour and saw half a dozen. Looks like a great house with a beautiful view. Might have to keep this in mind for the future.

On to Gibney for our last day on STJ beaches. There were literally clouds of finger sized fish along the rocks on the right side of the beach. It was eerie swimming among them. They would darken huge areas of the reef and often create huge balls of fish. They moved as if they were one huge fish. I guess they do this to try and intimidate someone who might want to eat them. It was a truly amazing site. The Pelicans were having a feast diving into the clouds of fish and scooping up mouth fulls. If you positioned yourself right you could watch them dive from under the water. Very cool. I tried to get a picture of them diving but our camera had just enough delay that I would always get the splash. There were also a lot of predator fish hanging around having a great time swooping through the clouds of smaller fish.

Headed back to the house mid-afternoon to start packing. After a few hours we headed into Coral Bay for dinner at Skinney Legs. Joseph had a great audience as he tried his hand at horse shoes from about 2 feet away. Got 2 ringers and much applause. Headed home to finish packing.