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DAY 3

We woke up early to another beautiful morning on Gifft Hill. It rained heavy again during the night and my wet walk to the great room felt nice and warm to my bare feet. The large terracotta tiles and dark mahogany stairs are beautiful, but caution is the word when walking half awake. French press and coffee grinder delivered yet another fine cup of joe!



Everyone was awake by 8am once again! In the past we have traveled with folks who liked to sleep in late, say 10am or so, and were very slow to have breakfast and get ready for the beach. That is no big deal, but on one trip we shared a vehicle with friends and it cramped my style a bit. But this villa crew would prove to be on the same early schedule through the week, which was ideal for all of us. The folks at Starstruck would tire of our early routine quickly, which is fine, they had their own vehicles and would meet us at the pre-planned beach of the day.

We prepared breakfast in the villa, consisting of eggs and left over enchiladas Lord Help Us! We packed up for the day and decided to leave the cold beverages in our fridge and stopped at Dolphin Market to fill our coolers. We would use my large soft Polar Bear cooler to take to the beach because it has 2 sturdy hand straps that allowed me and John to share the weight. He kept a second hard cooler well stocked in his Jeep as a “just in case” supply.

If you are on a boat and require provisions Dolphin Market is well stocked and a very short walk from the National Park dock up past the Lumber Yard.





We decided that the platoon would invade Leinster Bay this morning. Leinster is probably our favorite St John spot for snorkeling. We have seen everything from dolphin, turtles, reef sharks, spotted eagle rays etc. You will often find a large population of star fish here, I swear the tourism board places these beautiful creatures here to keep us coming back!

This photo is a couple years old because I haven’t replaced my dang underwater camera yet! But dozens of starfish were in the mooring field this time too.



We parked our 4 vehicles at the head of the trail next to the flats at Mary Creek just past the Annaberg parking lot. I would really like to try fly fishing in this spot sometime.



The hike in is on an easy flat trail probably just over a mile? John and I tag teamed a cooler of drinks for all 16 people. Have to keep the kiddies happy right? YES, there were plenty of Presidente’s as well <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Cheers.gif" alt="" />



We commandeered a large chunk of warm volcanic rock to call home for a couple of hours.



Everyone was excited to snorkel Waterlemon Cay. I would volunteer to stay back to watch our belongings….riiiight, I did enjoy the peace and quiet and of course a Caribbean coffee! One by one the gang would return with amazing tales describing the cool things that they had seen. One boy actually was fortunate to see a dolphin playing in the bay, lucky young man! I would of course take my turn snorkeling with a few of the gang. The coral, parrot fish and purple fans looked amazing as usual. I would have fun showing the kids how to make the sea anemones retract into their base with a light touch of the finger. I can still hear their deep snorkel laughter and the amazed look inside their masks, PRICELESS!

To lighten our load I had everyone take a bottle of ice cold water from the cooler. We then began our hike back to the vehicles. There were few boats here this morning, however I couldn’t help but think, how nice it would be to be on a ball in this bay.





It was early afternoon and we decided to spend the rest of the day at Francis Bay. Uh oh! the Starstruck families forgot to buy ice and the lunches they had made stayed in the villa. No biggie, they would stop at the Maho Camps to provision, it’s just up the hill from Francis.

There were probably 15 vehicles parked at Francis, however the beach seemed relatively empty. There were many individual couples on the beach enjoying the peaceful afternoon sun. I could only imagine their horror when they saw or heard 16 knuckle heads break the tree line kicking off flip flops, carrying coolers, floats and noodles. The kids would pick our perfect spot. They looked like 8 puppies zig zagging trying to find a suitable place to do their business.



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The afternoon was fun here. The kids brought a small ball and we skipped it to one another for hours. It’s amazing how something so simple can occupy a persons time. Mama always says simple is as simple does! Some folks snorkeled the far right side of the beach, but surprisingly nobody saw a turtle? Maho and Francis are usually sure things when it comes to turtles. We crumbled up some bread and had swarms of small fish swimming between everybody, another kid pleaser! I harvested ripe genips from a tree on the edge of the beach, everyone loved these melon ball type fruits. As we walked to the Jeep my daughter says we should gather more genips for the villa, so I checked a tree in the parking lot, but unfortunately others before us had snatched all of the low accessible ones. Then I hear a voice from high above say “hello”, could this be the one Universal Supreme Being Cosmos is in search of ? Nah, just a local guy waaay up in the tree who was nice enough to throw my daughter a branch of ripe genips! The local residents of the islands never cease to amaze me with their generosity!

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After a full day at the beach it was time to head back to the villas to clean up for dinner. Tonight was the other family’s night to host a spaghetti dinner at Starstruck Villa. But since our villa crew didn’t have to cook we took advantage of the time and let the ladies shop at Mongoose Junction and the guys bellied up to the Gecko Gazebo.

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After shopping the gang said they would like to try the Tap Rooms homemade root beer, which is very very good! Their beers are very good as well and the bartenders are always friendly! Check out their website www.stjohnbrewers.com

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After returning to Skyway to freshen up, we shuffled down the lane to Starstruck Villa.

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This 4 bedroom villa is very nice with the same big views as Skyway. The kids gathered in front of the TV and the adults dined outside under a pergola next to an inviting pool surrounded by beautiful stonework. After a great meal we would end the night sipping red wine and trading stories from the day.

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To be continued…..cheers: