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Day 4

I figured this would happen......I'm up alone at 6 a.m.

Quiet time for me. Up the stairs to the kitchen and see it's really hazy this morning, no worries though.

Time to turn on the coffee watch the island come alive. This really never gets tiring. During one of the cups of coffee, it was decided that Maho would be our base for the day. In our previous trips, we’ve never stopped at Maho. Usually no parking, but reading Beerman’s Day 6 told me I had nothing to dread about parking this year. As the day came alive, I was startled by a new little friend. Reminded me of Trixie who was at Soggy Dollar for so long.



Breakfast completed and Jeep packed, off to Maho Bay. We hadn’t been down Centerline Road yet, so I decided we would take that route instead. As we came down North Shore Road, we could see the sun shining brightly ahead on Maho Bay. We reached the parking and found a nice spot in the shade. The 3rd Jeep in. Really like the new parking arrangement. Short walk to beach with gear and we were ready to relax.

The beach to the left and right.





Someone had also brought our yacht in for the day. Too bad they forgot to leave our dingy at the beach. Don’t think we’ll be able to make the swim out.



The grass flats in front of our encampment were loaded with onehorn butt fish. This must be a really good place to snorkel. After a few minutes of arranging coolers, chairs and all other necessary beach gear, Parker and I were off in the search of this elusive fish. I quickly spot one and so does Parker.



On to bigger and better things. We hear and see a big commotion out by the channel markers. Through the splashing and duck-like fins that keep appearing in the air, we decide to go that way to check it out. En route, we are cut off by these fellas just cruising along.





We decided to tail them for a bit and ran into a couple really small turtles and then the cu de gra. This turtle had a large remora as a traveling companion.

Would hate to see their kids.



We followed these for a while, then went in and told of our adventures with the others. Soon we were back looking for more. We found a couple more and followed them over some starfish like the ones we’ve seen at Waterlemon Bay. Also encountered a small nurse shark and a couple of really big rays. Really like seeing these turtles in their element, nibbling on grasses etc. We snorkeled with some in Barbados in June that were looking for handouts. These, although they see visitors on a daily basis, shied away when approached.

After a couple long snorkels it was time for lunch and a Carib or two for relaxation purposes.

During lunch a group of Stand Up Paddlers entered the bay from Maho camps side. We had talked about SUPs before we left for the islands. I’ve wanted to try for a while and watching these people do it with “relative” ease had us itching to try. Now where to go get a board? That’s a question for tomorrow because we have turtles today.

Apps and Summer Ale at beach bar while girls shopped, more Summer Ale at Tap Room. Home brew lemonade very good also.

Saw the best sunset of the trip so far on the walk back to downtown.



Back down the sidewalk to Woodys for dinner and Quiet Mon for a Guinness and a deep conversation with Kenny the bartender about politics and Cuba. I mostly listened. He did give a “Free Drink” good on my next visit, no better reason than that to start planning the return trip for next August! Met this trucker chick at Woodys <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />



After dinner, no one was ready to go home yet, so we took a late night car ride to Hawksnest to check out the view of JVD at night. That is the one thing I do miss by being up on the hill....late night walks or visits to the beach.