US VIRGINS
20 May 2016
After a week in Saint Maarten we set sail to the US Virgins to pick up our son and his girlfriend that were flying in for 8 days. We anchored in Brewers Bay next to the airport so we wouldn’t have to spend a lot of money for a taxi to pick them up. We hailed a bus that took us to the airport and when we got there the plane had already landed. It was great to give our son a big hug and to meet his girlfriend Kalyn, who by the way was super excited as this was her first ever vacation out of Canada.
We got them back to the beach and she just wanted to put her toes in the sand and warm water, we spent that evening catching up, having some beverages and swimming with the turtles. The next day we hauled anchor and headed for Christmas Cove, Kalyn had never sailed before and she took to it like an old salty dog. We had a lovely day with the sun and the breeze the kids were over the moon, picked up a mooring in the cove then Blair took his girl for her first ever snorkel. The cap’n and I just sat back and enjoyed the moment. They spent over an hour of snorkeling around the reef and little island. The evening after everyone was relaxing the cap’n told the kids he had a surprise for them, so they hopped into the dingy where he drove them over to Pizza Pie to pick up dinner. They thought this was a real hoot where in the world does one go to a drive through pizza boat, and it was mighty delicious.
Left the next morning for Mahou Bay, this is one of our favorites in the islands. It has a lovely beach along with a large number of turtles. Off we go and we see a nurse shark, stingray along with a remora that tried his best to stick to our sons private parts, it was quite hilarious. Next morning Blair decided it was time Kalyn learned how to scuba dive, again she took to this like bees to honey, they were gone so long we started to get a little worried. We knew how much air was in the tanks but it seemed they were both were very easy on it, she got to see a ton of sea life, corals, touched a turtle, recorded a lot of video with the GoPro.
The following morning we sailed around the cove and anchored into Watermelon Bay and hiked up to the Plantation Ruins, had a lot of fun up there even though it rained the whole time. We had a lot to fit into 8 days as they wanted to see as much as possible, so we left for Megan’s Bay which was on the north side of the island, it was quite the sail over there we got big gusts of 25 knots the seas were a few meters, and the cap’n decided to take a shortcut through a couple of the islands, there was huge reef, but he felt he could make it though, I think he was trying to impress the kids. Megan’s Bay is supposed to be one of the top 10 beaches in the world. We did have some problem anchoring, dragged a little the wind was just howling. The beach was very crowded as it is a cruise ship excursion for the tourists, but they did have a bar and restaurant where we were able to get some snacks, wine and beer.
The next day the kids headed of too Coral Bay to swim with the sharks, Capt’n and I left for Cost U Less to provision. Headed off in the afternoon to go for a walk and watched older couples get married on the beach.
The following day was Thursday so we had to head back to Brewers as the kids flight back to Canada was s on Friday afternoon. We got back in time to do some shopping at the markets for trinkets and then decided that we had time to go Ziplinning. We got a taxi and off we headed only to find out that they were closing the track for some painting, they told us we should have called and made a reservation, damn just paid the taxi driver 32bucks now we had to pay to get back, so not to be too disappointed we got him to drop us off at the Gondola station and ended up at the top of the mountain overlooking St. Thomas. It is a lovely view, got a lot of really nice photos from there.
Friday came too quickly so we decided to head to the beach and get some last minute sun in, after a few hours we had to get them packed and headed off to the airport. It was sad to see them go, but I know that they had a blast with us and I’m sure they will be visiting again, maybe Roaten next Christmas.