St. John Trip Report Part 1

Date: June 5-16 2010

Accommodations: Maho Bay Camps, Site A-11

2 Adults (mid 30’s)

(both been to the island before)

Please keep in mind that this trip report is based on our personal feelings and opinions. Please feel free to correct us and/or voice your opinion on our trip report. There will be spelling errors..but no (s) on St. John! Comments welcome!

Camera used- Fuji finepix XP10 (purchased for trip, stopped working on Day 6 of trip)

Beaches Visited & Snorkeled:

Salomon Bay
Honeymoon Bay (Beautiful)
Caneel Bay (didn’t swim or snorkel)
Little Hawksnest Bay (Great snorkeling)
Hawksnest Bay (Great snorkeling)
Gibney Beach (Beautiful)
Denis Bay (Beautiful Beach, snorkel cay)
Jumbie Bay (didn’t swim or snorkel)
Trunk Bay (snorkeled around entire cay)
Little Cinnamon Bay
Cinnamon Bay
Maho Bay
Little Maho Bay (Great snorkeling from little to Big Maho)
Francis Bay
Leinster Bay (snorkel towards Mary’s Creek)
Waterlemon Cay (Great snorkeling)
Brown Bay (didn’t swim or snorkel)
Haulover Bay (North side) (Best snorkel)
Drunk Bay (didn’t swim or snorkel)
Salt Pond Bay (good snorkel)
Great Lameshur Bay (didn’t swim/snorkel)
Little Lameshur Bay (didn’t swim/snorkel)

Restaurants:

Aqua Bistro- Great Clam Chowder
The Beach Bar
Deli Grotto- Great sandwiches! Clean
G-Spot @ Larry’s Landing
High Side Bar & Seafood Grill- Great Conch Chowder
Island Blues
Maho Bay Pavilion
Skinny Legs
The Tourist Trap- Great Lobster Roll!
Woody’s Seafood Saloon- Bushwacker! J
Le Chateau de Bordeaux- not so good..
Miss Lucy’s (favorite on previous trip)
Shipwreck Landing
Spyglass- (Great variety of chicken wings)
Candi’s Barbecue- Great Ribs!
Uncle Joe’s Barbecue- Love the ribs!
Donkey Diner- Good Breakfast, Clean
C&D Bakery
Café Roma
Vie’s Snack Shack- Yum!

Columbo’s Café (pineapple coconut smoothie)

It was a little tough with the restaurant reviews- The heat was affecting our appetites, we are pretty much meat/potato/veggie people. Most restaurants had great appetizers, chowders, snacks..etc but we had a difficult time finding the right meal. I don’t think it was the restauants..I think it was us! Lol!

We started planning our trip approximately 6 months ago when we bought our airfare. At that time we purchased our airline tickets for a total of $647.40 (for two tickets including taxes). We departed from Boston with a stopover in Puerto Rico to St. Thomas via American Airlines. We left at 11:15am and supposed to arrive in STT at 6:12 pm. Through extensive research and travel forums we picked about 3 tents sites at Maho that were deemed “best views”. You are asked upon booking your site (we booked the site at the same time as our airfare) three site preferences. The cost of 12 days at Maho Bay Camps off season- $950.40. At that time we also purchased items we knew we would need at Maho Bay Camps (mosquito net, bug spray, flashlights, solar shower bags, underwater camera, etc) We picked up items weekly from a list that we formulated from reviews, trip lists and our own camping experiences.

We chose our airline seats when we booked and couldn’t believe that seats 10A and 10B were the only seats that didn’t have a window! I am sure that it was on the diagram somewhere but amidst our excitement of actually booking our airfare…we missed it! Funny part is we could have picked almost any seat. Oh well, we figured it was meant to be..better things awaited us! Minor error, lol!

My teenage daughter and her boyfriend drove us to the airport that morning. I live about 30min. North of Boston on the NH border. We figured the $5 worth of gas in her little Toyota was a much better bargain than $50-80 they wanted for shuttles from home and/or local hotels. We sat in the backseat wondering if we were going to make it. Teenagers seem to like to drive fast, switch lanes often, and drive with maybe a finger or two on the wheel. Eeeek! I reminded my daughter’s boyfriend that we had plenty of time to get there and that he had precious goods in the car. It was as delicate as I could put it. J

We arrived super early but didn’t care. Our vacation had already started and we were going to enjoy every minute of our two weeks off! We had breakfast at the airport, got a magazine, and pretty much walked around the rest of the time. Boston Logan International Airport has great rocking chairs with a view of the planes taking off.

Boston’s Logan International Airport

Our flights were all great and thankfully uneventful with the exception of having to have a short delay in San Juan. There was a plane change and we were informed the staff was on their lunch break.

San Juan

We landed in St. Thomas about an hour later than scheduled.

Ferry

At about 7:15pm we were traveling through the airport in STT to catch a taxi to Red Hook Ferry. We stopped for the rum punch! (you know you’re there when you get the rum punch) In the past I have traveled via the Charlotte Amalie ferry but due to time it was not possible. We enjoyed the lights traveling through STT at night and boarded the ferry and arrived in St. John at about 8:30pm. When we got off the ferry (Sat. night) there was definitely some partying going on. Dancing, drums, music..and no taxi (with a driver) in sight! Here we are with two big suitcases making our way through the crowd. I am sure I ran over more than a few toes, lol. We were starting to get nervous that we would not find a taxi to Maho Bay Camps. Lots of empty taxi’s with no drivers in sight. We knew the taxi schedule ahead of time but when you arrive in the crowd it’s hard to figure out what’s what, lol! We made our way down to Mongoose Junction when a taxi drove past us and asked us where we were headed. We told him and he brought us, phew..we were glad..the day was long with all the traveling and we couldn’t wait to get to Maho. The ride was dark through the winding roads and big hills of route 20. Most of you know just what I’m talking about!

Maho Bay Camps

We got out of the taxi at Maho and had our flashlights in hand. We picked up our camp map at registration and that’s when we learned our site was A-11. It was not one of our choices but none the less it was great. We found our way down the boardwalk to our site.

Our view

Here’s when the excitement begins! Upon entering the tent we switched on the light and in the first 5 min. this is what we saw. Something dark caught my eye initially next to the bed. I thought it was a mouse but upon further investigation it was a fairly large brown spider. He/she thankfully figured we were bigger and moved on. We are both used to camping..bugs..large animals (bears, moose) but I’m not a fan of spiders..especially big ones! I read quite a bit about the island before coming and knew spiders were a factor. That was the one and only spider we saw the whole 12 days…thank god! We began to unpack and assemble our mosquito net about the bed. It was at that time we noted a large black millipede above the bed on the wall. Seeming fairly harmless we removed it from the tent and placed it outside. Gecko’s were in the tent chasing moths and various other bugs..they were welcome and very helpful during our stay. They eat very well. One was attempting to devourer a grasshopper almost the same size as itself. We decided to go to the nearest water spicket to fill our jug to wash up a bit. There was a big frog at the spicket. Very cute!

Millipede

We slept through the night waking up quite a bit. It had rained during the night and being our first night we were trying to adjust to the sounds of nature in full force around us, a different mattress, and for me..the fear of the big spider and his friends coming back! We had a two fans (small one we brought) and found the temperatures at night were not a problem.

Useful friends

Day 2

Up at 5am, loving the mosquito net..not only to keep mosquito’s out but everything else that lived in the tent as well! J We were thankful we had purchased it. We had coffee on the porch and enjoyed the Bananaquits that visited us. We walked down to little Maho Beach to have a look and then had breakfast at the Pavilion. From our site the stairs never really were a problem. They were much easier than we anticipated! We also picked up a few snacks, drinks, and ice at the camp store. We walked to Big Maho via the Maho Bay Goat Trail and onward to Cinnamon Bay. We did not book a rental car for this trip. We had planned on hiking/walking to most of our destinations and to utilize taxi’s. The walk was nice..hills were a challenge. Although I think if you’re used to the heat, walking wouldn’t be that bad. Keep in mind we had seen snow weeks prior to our trip in the NH mountains. We did a rock scramble over to little Cinnamon and snorkeled the first part of the day. We never found the sunken Cessna! The snorkeling was good and the beach was beautiful!

Snorkel

We then walked back to camp and snorkeled from Little Maho Bay to Francis Bay. The water was a little cloudy at Francis and it was getting late so we saw very little. We also met our first iguana that liked the berries in the tree above us.

Iguana

We showered with our solar shower bags on the deck and had our first dinner at the Maho Pavilion. We had a chicken, spinach, feta, candied walnuts, and sun dried tomato salad. We took an evening swim at little Maho. It was about 8pm..the water was calm & cool. Our bodies were still adjusting to the heat, our appetites seemed diminished (probably due to the heat) and we were not getting enough fluids.