STJ August 3-10, 2021 - Part 5


I asked a vender at Trunk Bay if she had been to Salt Pond or Lameshur lately, curious about the sargassum!! Told her if it wasn't stinky we wanted to hike to the Reef Bay ruins via Lameshur, she suggested we go via Fish Bay. We've never hiked in from that direction, thank you nice vender lady! We have an old handy Trail Bandit guide and it's called Parret Bay Trail.


We drove through Fish Bay, crossing a small bridge, made a wrong turn and really were in the middle of nowhere! We tried another unpaved road and eventually found the trail head with the clues the vender lady gave us, "drive until we see the red rock and power pole, there's a rope going down the hill" Once you see it....it makes perfect sense!! There was just enough room to squeeze 2 jeeps against the "red rock".


The rope is there for a reason, it's a little steep descending into the trees and onto the beach. If you have questionable knees I don't recommend this route. Very little sargassum on the beach, no smell whatsoever!













Walk the beach to a point where you do a little rock scrambling, then back to a beach on Genti Bay and up into the hillside before dropping down to the Sugar Mill area. Not sure of the distance, maybe 1.5 miles to this point? beautiful views!










At 45 minutes we reached the Reef Bay trail, decided to go left approximately 1/2 mile to the Petroglyph trail and another 1/4 mile to the waterfall/Petroglyphs, beautiful stone walls line parts of the trail. We saw a couple hikers along the way and one deer! we had the petroglyphs to ourselves for a while. We brought plenty of water which is a serious must have! But I'm always prepared, I snuck two cold beers in koozies in my dry bag to share, put a smile on everyone's face!!












We were getting hot, soaked in sweat, but we all agreed to climb up to the Reef Bay Great House to see what condition it's in..up, up, up!! Over many years I've seen this place in disrepair and being maintained and repaired by the NPS. Last time we were here our daughter was probably 11, the house had a front porch, had large entry columns and unfortunately little remains of those details. It was grand and should be maintained better, here's a link of old pics https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.vi0011.photos/?sp=1












Now back down the trail to the Sugar Mill ruins, we thought downhill would be easier huff huff!!














Always a great place to wander and wonder what it must have looked like in the 1800's. We had another 45 minutes to hike back to the Jeep deciding which beach to go to!!













After 3.5 hours hiking we decided to head back to the villa for a quick swim and to pack the cooler etc. The gang voted and our afternoon would be spent at Francis Bay! Francis might be our new favorite quiet spot!


A couple days prior I walked into Shaibu's Garden Oasis Restaurant and made a reservation with Shaibu himself for tomorrow's final dinner, the place is beautiful inside. During the hike we decided that instead of spending $500 on dinner we would put that towards a boat day!! We were able to reserve a boat online...I'm getting ahead of myself, back to Francis for a great afternoon!!













To be continued, CHEERS!!.........