Day 1 – We arrived at the airport at 6:00 for our 7:45 flight…I am sure everyone is going, “I can’t believe you still made your flight!”…and I say, keep this in mind…there are 2 terminals (A and B), each with a grand total of about 10 gates…Rochester does not have a big airport. Needless to say, we were sitting at the gate by roughly 6:30 with roughly 45 minutes to kill. After some of the worst coffe i’ve ever had in my life (and some of the most expensive) we got on the plane and Justin went back to bed. lol. Got to Philly…basically fell off the plane in my half-asleep state. Eventually we got to St. Thomas after a few screaming little kids decided to make the flight interesting.

We took the fast ferry from Charlotte Amalie directly to Red Hook instead of making the typical 5 stops…This doesn’t sound like much, but it was so much better than past experiences. Got to the Sunsail base, got settled into our boat, and went to dinner. We went to Fat Hog Bob’s for dinner. This was such a nice restaurant, it’s hard to explain without having seen it. Image a totally open restaurant, no front windows, the floor is wood boards with the beach, rocks, and the water splashing under your feet. The restaurant is gently lit by small lamps on each table. The chairs were large, comfy, squishy wicker chairs. The food was great, shrimp wrapped in proscuitto with garlic mashed potatoes garnished with an elegant baked plantain. Rocky 2 also happend to be on in the background on the large screen tv, another bonus. Eventually we crawled back to the boat after eating far too much food and quickly fell asleep.

Day 2 – We headed to the Indians which are basically a group of house-sized rocks that are surrounded by beautiful coral. It was at this first snorkeling experience that I realized that I would spend the entire vacation chased by these silver and neon yellow Tang fish. It turns out they thought my fins (which were also neon yellow) was another Tang or something, it was cute and nice to have such a docile fish follow me everywhere. We eventually wandered off to Soldier Bay to spend the evening. Lucky for us, we had the entire bay to ourselves. More snorkeling followed and the first of many Baracuda’s appeared roughly 2 feet behind me. Always fun when your brother and father motion for you to come up to the surface and then calmly mention that a Baracuda is directly behind you. lol. Also, the first of several Sea Turtles paid us a visit off the bow of the boat.

Day 3 – We headed off to White Beach to check out Soggy Dollar (the bar my parents have been dreaming of buying) only to find that the bar was actually for sale. Keep in mind, this is a 1 room bar, maybe the size of a 1 room double at Vassar and yet the price tag was close to $1 Million…yeah, so um no. We layed in the hammocks on the beach, had a beer (Red Stripe, again, one of very many), swam some more and then headed back to the boat. We spent the evening in Soper’s Hole (aka West End). This has become a tradition for us, whenever we come down here we always have to stop at Soper’s Hole for $0.25 chicken wings. 4 dozen wings later I realized I had discovered a new favorite beer, New Castle. Again, too much eating lead to a very early bed time.

Day 4 – Was at Hawknest Bay, to keep this short and hopefully slightly more entertaining I’ll just say it was a beach, and we swam/snorkeled some more that day.

Day 5 – My mother and I headed into Cruz Bay (one of the larger cities on St. John) to hopefully catch the 4th of July parade. Little did we know that it also was there 50th anniversary of Independence (or something, we never really got a straight answer) and therefore the parade would be on the 5th. Ah well, Some shopping ensued and then a delicious lunch at a little street cafe. My mother and I then headed back to the boat which was moved (by my brother and father) to Cinnamon Bay.

Day 6 – We spent most of the day taking our time sailing to Cooper Island. Gotta love a consistent “breeze” of 30-35 knots of wind (roughly 15-18 mph for all you non-nautical people). We got to Cooper Island, had some lunch and immediately before jumping in the water for some more snorkeling my father announced that several people had mentioned on a Boater’s information site for the Virgin Islands that a 4 foot shark had been seen in around the rocks we were just about to go see. Regardless, we we’re all still quite interested in going. Honestly, I was kinda hoping to see this shark from a distance (obviously not up close). Alas, no luck, but we saw another large Sea Turtle before he ran away from us. We had dinner on the island at another great restuarant. Midway through dinner I spotted the cutest kitten which was limping. I know, it was very sad, it turns out he/she was missing a paw…all I could do was feel bad and try to feed him some of my fish dinner.  This also was by the far the most typsy I got all vacation. 1 beer before dinner, 2 more at dinner, and a Bushwaker (Kahulua, Bailey’s, Coconut Rum, Amaretto, Vodka, Grand Marnier, Nutmeg and ice blended)…it was nice. lol.

Day 7 – We stopped at George Dog (another large rock with snorkeling) on our way to Saba Rock. Saba Rock was absolutely beautiful, I wish I had taken more pictures. The mouring that was picked up was directly behind this massive coral reef and surrounded by white sands beaches. When we weren’t swimming, we spent a lot of the time watching these people kite surf (think small surf board attached to your feet and your hands holding onto a large kite as it pulls you through the water at probably close to 40 mph). Dinner was great again, afterwards we all layed in the hammocks behind the restuarant that overlooked the coral reef again. On our way back to the boat we came across a cute and friendly (and quite healthy, aka chubby) cat with the name Ganja…I had to laugh when my parents didn’t know what that meant.

Day 8 – We zipped across North Sound and went over to Leverick Bay (another traditional spot for our family). We rented a car and headed across Jost Van Dyke to Spanish Town. We spent the majority of the afternoon at the Baths which is a portion of the coast that is sprinkled with boulders ranging from the size of cars to the size of huge homes. It was fun crawling through the maze of boulders trying to find one of the beaches. While snorkeling I came across a massive Octopus, but was unable to get a picture of it. I thought it would be a good idea to collect the tiny sand dollars I was seeing. Little was I aware that they are more fragile than egg shells. Needless to say, by the time I got back to the beach I had a pocket full of powdered sand dollars. On the way back to Leverick Bay we ventured around the island a bit passing several cute goats and sheep.

Day 9 – Again, we spent the majority of the day taking our sweet time sailing over to Buttonwood Bay (off of Great Bay).  We had our own gorgeous white sand beach, and I managed to spend a solid 2 hours floating near the shore in about 10 inches of water while I searched for interesting shells/rocks. Another low key day of swimming and snorkeling ensued.

Day 10 – This was our last full day on the boat. We headed off to Trellis Bay to find some lunch before an afternoon filled with swimming and sailing. It tasted so good to have a juicy cheese burger after having seafood (primarily) for the past several days. We sailed over to Monkey Point for some snorkeling (seeing a pattern here?). It was here that we saw something I am guessing very few people have ever saw, a baby seagull. I had never previously seen one of these cute little balls of grey and white feathers. We also came across a group of 3 squid and we managed to get a few pictures of these. We then packed up and sailed back to the Sunsail base to pack up and eat at Fat Hog Bob’s again.

Ok, considering I am likely the person who will find this the most interesting, and I am in fact, bored, I am going to finish this with the short version.

Day 11 – Left the boat, ferry to Charlotte Amalie, lots of shopping while my parents checked into the hotel, the hotel was HUGE and beautiful, right on the beach. 

Day 12 – Layed on the beach, read, swam, water volleyball in one of 3 pools (2 had waterfalls), beach volleyball, football in the water, nap in the A/C of the hotel room, dinner.

Day 13 – Last day, More water volleyball, more reading, swam more, lunch at the hotel, airport, fly out of St. Thomas and hour late, get into Philly at 11:45, flight from Philly to Rochester is cancelled due to a lack of flight staff (not like it’s there job or anything?), had to sleep in a crappy hotel in downtown Philly (airline paid for it), fly back to Rochester and that’s it.