Dec 30th – A Day on St. John

We decided to head over to St. John today by ferry and so were off the boat early and on our way to Red Hook to catch the 9am boat. The bus/common taxi system here is pretty convenient so long as you follow the locals. The $1 taxis are open air safari busses with rows of seats that, according to the signage, take 22 passengers. We had heard from other people here that we needed to be careful, that the locals weren’t always friendly and the drivers will overcharge you, etc…but we have found nothing but kind, friendly people, willing to help us. Like the lady who we met at the busstop and asked if this was the bus to catch to RedHook, “yes”..she told us, “right here…but it is $2..” and then the lady we asked when we got to Red Hook, if this was the stop for the Ferry…”yes, follow me I goin to the ferry” and she showed us where to get our tickets, where the bus would board, etc.

We had made a few phone calls to see about a car rental before coming, but due to the holiday weekend everything seemed booked up. Whatever, we thought…we’ll take a taxi or a tour, instead… however, when we got to St. John we found the usual array of drivers and hawkers and had no trouble securing a jeep to rent for the day. Shortly into our drive however, we found that perhaps a tour might have been preferable…One way streets, (OK, yeah – she did tell me to turn right, Not left off this street), STEEP… very STEEP hills, sharp switchbacks and close, sheer drop-offs proved very intimidating at first. However, we continued and enjoyed checking the southern bays we could see, then driving across the island to Coral Bay, which we had tried to hike to last week. The town was unremarkable, and the bay utilitarian, so personally I was glad we stopped where we did last week!

After leaving the southern bays, we found the roads slightly more manageable, and were able to find the access to northern bays we had been in and past. There are beautiful beaches and good hiking on this side, and far more preferable anchorages. We can see now, why most boaters come to this side of the island. Cinnamon Bay was especially lovely and we look forward to stopping by there, however, the sea conditions need to be right, as the bay is fairly exposed to the north. After driving and stopping for about 3 hours, (and a whopping total of 36 miles!) We dropped the car back off and explored Cruz Bay on foot…Found some lunch, stopped at customs for some information and visited the National Park visitors center we headed back to the ferry terminal to catch the return ferry. We discovered that there was a ferry going to downtown Charlotte Amalie in 5 minutes, so we exchanged our tickets and took this one right to downtown instead. A good day of land exploration!