St John
Beautiful Island! Suddenly much more people on the beaches ... a lot more boats....and a lot more bays! Water pristine and most of the island belongs to National Parks (where there is only an honesty box to drop off your payments for the mooring!).. . National Parks has very strict rules and regulations - all to protect their beautiful nature.... which is great!...like no anchoring... no open sewerage tanks and no bright lights to disturb fish and turtle life ... as long as you are aware of it ...as the penalties are pretty heavy if you don't oblige! So it took us a while to study them all to be on the safe side... That has at least reserved the beauty of nature at least to a point where we can still enjoy it!

As we are not allowed to enter a marina without clearing customs, we had to anchor just outside the customs office ... as we were ready to leave ... I felt the anchor winch struggling to lift the anchor ... just to see that we have accidently picked up an old but huge anchor that some unlucky guy must have lost right there. After a struggle to get it off we pulled in our anchor ... and there it was again!!! The same old anchor stuck to the chain again!!! Captain J almost lost his arm in the process to get it off and flicked away from the chain!
As we were leaving the channel I heard Johann uttering a few big words.... we almost left Scolli behind!!! Dangling with her toes in the water ... thankfully one of the two hoisting lines was attached to the dingy ... otherwise we would have had an interesting salvaging waiting for us!

In the process of finding the perfect bay ...and a misunderstanding between the Captain, me and Philemon (the Autopilot) ... we had a very close shave with a big rock (or a small island!!) but managed to dodge it just in time!

Francis bay will be it for the night - just beautiful and peaceful... great little beach - and apparently lovely trails to walk - alias the Captain - I stayed on board to attempt the special request (without a recipe!) for Stroganoff Chicken!
A quick snorkel/ swim when Johann came back revealed that we have a third guest underneath the hull... attached to the keel is a huge (over a meter long) sucker-fish! Biggest we have ever seen!! Either missed his ride with a whale or the last super yacht? HaHa!
We were fortunate to visit one of the old sugar mills that has amazing ruins still left ... walls built with coral! just wonderful to see some history left on the island!
The view from these places is normally pretty spectacular and worth the effort!

The water also has these small little organisms floating everywhere ...making the water look like a suspension!... what we thought was coral- spawn... but with very little coral here ..it just did not make sense? (almost like minute little jellyfish?... still need to Google it and see what the explanation for it is... Sarita! I wish I have read that book by now... it is a struggle to get a hold on it! ... Gift of Unknown Things?).... Only when night falls did we realise that it is "bio-luminescent flagellates " ?! The light display in the water is just magic! It looks like fire flies under water! Lights at all different depths flickering on and off everywhere!!! That to us was a first ... and I had difficulty dragging myself away to bed!
The next day we stayed in beautiful Caneel Bay - with a huge resort owned and run by The Rockefellers!
One of the biggest donators to Nature Reserves in the US! His house is also on the island (well ... I guess one of many!) Great snorkelling and very quiet waters!