St. Thomas - July 5th

Friday we spent the day in St. John. I had set my alarm to get up so we could get ready and catch one of the first car ferries over to St. John. Well I did set my alarm for the right time. However, my phone was still on our time zone so it was an hour behind and I didn't realize it! We went ahead and got up  and packed our lunches and an ice chest to head out for the day. We were still able to catch the 8 am ferry, and we ended up having plenty of time over there so it wasn't a big deal. 

When we got off the ferry in St. John, we weren't sure how much time we would need for the day so we skipped Trunk Bay and some of the other little spots and headed straight up the side of the island to snorkel at Waterlemon Cay.

A pic from St. John of where we were staying in St. Thomas

A few pics from the ride up the island

To snorkel Waterlemon Cay, we took the Leinster Bay Trail about 3/4 mile and then snorkeled out about 1/5 mile and snorkeled all the way around a little island. The coral there was beautiful and there were a ton of pretty fish. We also saw a big starfish on the way out there.

The island we snorkeled around

We stopped at Skinny Legs in Coral Bay for a second but didn't eat. We had peanut butter and jelly to keep us going and headed on to the next place I had on our must snorkel list for the day, Blue Cobblestone Beach.  

Blue Cobblestone Beach was near Salt Pond Bay. We had to hike about 3/4 mile out to Salt Pond Bay and then straight across the beach to start another hike called Ram Head Trail. That was an even further hike. I was ready to turn around before we got there because it seemed like we were going nowhere. We definitely shoud've been wearing tennis shoes not flip flops for hiking. I just didn't realize the second part was going to be so far and so rough. Colt was in flip flops too and he managed to cut both his big toe and his little toe... not to mention his legs getting chaffed from his swimsuit. When we finally made it to Blue Cobblestone Beach, we were the only ones there. If something had happened to us... noone would know we were there! The water there was deep and a little eary. Not too long after we got in the water we saw a sea turtle.

Salt Pond Bay

Walking Ram Head Trail 

Colt was playing with the settings on the camera and it got left that way for a while... hence the weird lighting in all the pics at Blue Cobblestone Beach

Blue Cobblestone Beach was much prettier in person.

On our way back up to the beach when we were finishing snorkeling, Colt found a perfect seashell and picked it up. After he picked it up, he realized there was a crab in it. He took it up to the shore and kept trying to get the crab to come out but it wouldn't leave. We even went snorkeling a little more because he thought it would eventually come out of the shell on its own but when we got back it was still there. The poor thing ended up dying :( Colt said it was the crab's fault because it should've been smart enough to come out. Jump ahead until we got home and Colt cleaned out the shell... a ton of little dead babies came out. No wonder the mom wouldn't come out! He killed a whole little crab family just for a shell. I think he felt bad once he realized that. I know I felt bad enough for him at least! 

After Blue Cobblestone Beach, we went back to Coral Bay and ate at Skinny Legs. They had really good burgers and drinks. After our late lunch/dinner, we decided to make Trunk Bay our last stop. We took a little rough and windy back road from Coral Bay to Trunk Bay and we made a pit stop at some ruins on the way. If you got to Trunk Bay after 4 you didn't have to pay so it worked out for us perfectly! They had a little underwater tour that we snorkeled. More than anything it was a really pretty beach though. 

By that time we were tired and Colt's feet were destroyed from hiking in flip flops and from his fins rubbing his feet raw so we got in the car to head back to the ferry. 

Enjoying the jeep

We caught the 6:15 ferry back to St. Thomas. We were exhausted, so after we cleaned up, we ate in the room and called it a night early. It was a good day with a lot of snorkeling but it was definitely a tiring day.