After the Cheerleading Worlds, Felix and I boarded a flight to the US Virgin Islands to continue my national parks quest. We flew into Saint Thomas, and interestingly the plane did the thing where it almost touched down on the runway but then took off again. The pilot said he decided not to land because there was a thunderstorm right above the runway. It was spooky but we ended up ok. We got a rental car and stopped for lunch where I saw this cat. 

If there are any new readers to my blog: I try to document every cat I see while on vacation. Many of my readers are cat lovers, and you have to cater to your audience. People drive on the left side of the road in the Virgin Islands (how unamerican), but the drivers side of the car is still on the left so it was less difficult than the UK but still a challenge for Felix, who did all the driving. We had to get on a car barge to take us to Saint John, which is where the national park is, and there was absolutely no instruction about how this barge worked. We just showed up an no one told us how to line up or how to pay. We figured it out but it did make me miss the clear signage and order of Disney World. 

It was about a half hour voyage to Saint John. Our BnB was right next to the visitor center so we dropped off our stuff and went for a little hike to a vista point that overlooked Cruz Bay. We were pretty tired from traveling so this was our only activity for the day. We got dinner in town and Felix said it sounded like a Disney attraction where they were very loudly playing jungle sounds to create ambiance, but that’s just how it actually sounds. 

The next morning we got up early to go to Trunk Bay because it’s a popular beach that fills up quickly. It was beautiful and pretty empty when we got there. It was also nice that the sun was out because the weather report said it would be cloudy and rainy all day. 

Got in our classic hand-to-hand photoI really wanted to go to Trunk Bay because it has a snorkeling trail with underwater plaques about the reef. We were worried the water wouldn’t be clear because it had been raining a lot recently but it was perfect. The snorkeling trail actually was not very long, or particularly informative (they can’t fit a lot of information on an underwater plaque) but I had a great time snorkeling. I put my phone in a waterproof case so I can take photos. I always take a ton of photos and only like 5% are clear. 

Next we did a short hike to get to Leinster Bay, which was a beach I heard had sea turtles. This beach was a lot less picturesque that Trunk Bay and was much less crowded. 

The beach did not disappoint and within minutes of beginning snorkeling I found two sea turtles. They were munching on the sea grass and did not seem at all alarmed by us humans. We got to watch them for a while as they ate and occasionally came up for air. 

Having accomplished our goal for this beach surprisingly quickly, we just swam around more to see if there was anything else interesting to see. I encountered another turtle in shallower water so I was able to get some great photos of it. 

Felix liked this log.

While on the beach, we heard some bleating from the woods. We looked and it was goats! Turns out there are a lot of non-native species hanging out in the Virgin Islands: goats, donkeys, deer. I also saw some things that looked like squirrels but clearly were not squirrels. Turns out they were Indian mongoose.

From the beach, we did a short hike up to a hillcrest where there were planation ruins. There are a lot of these ruins around the Virgin Islands. I thought it was beautiful how the jungle had reclaimed them. There were flowers growing all over it and so many lizards. It also had a nice view of the bay. 

After our hike, we headed back to the BnB to shower and rest. It started raining at that point so we just chilled for the rest of the day. I saw some cats in town and around our BnB. 

The next day we drove across the island to Salt Pond Bay to hike Ram’s Head Trail. The roads all around Saint John were very steep and winding. We met some wild donkeys at the beginning of the trail, and then ran into them a few more times throughout the day. They seemed to be doing the same trail as us.

The hike took us by a salt pond (not really exciting), a cobblestone beach, and up some seaside cliffs that would’ve freaked out my mom. The weather report said it would be cloudy in the morning with some rain in the afternoon but it started pouring on us during the hike. We learned that the weather reports for the Virgin Islands mean nothing. 

By the time we got to the top, we were soaked through. My photos aren’t great because I had to put my phone in its water proof case. The rain was bad enough that we saw a rock slide occur on a ridge across from us. It was so loud, a bunch of other hikers asked us if we had seen what it was, and if there was a trail to go back to. 

We hiked back down to the beach at the start of the trail, which I had heard had great snorkeling. It was still lightly raining on and off and we could hear thunder rumbling pretty constantly but it sounded far away. Other people were in the water, so we went in. The snorkeling at this beach was amazing! There were so many fish–way more than at Trunk bay. There were also sea urchins dotted around the corals. We saw a stingray! it was so cool.

The rocky edges of the bay were reefs and the center of the bay was sandy seagrass. We saw three more sea turtles and even attempted to get pictures with them. I had intended to go to another beach this day but I was very satisfied with my snorkeling experience (and very uncomfortable from all my clothes being wet) so we headed back to the BnB.

We showered, had some lunch, and then headed back into the park because I refuse to sit around and relax for one second of my vacation!!! We went to the Annaberg planation which was a really well-preserved sugar planation building with great informational signs about how they processed sugar. Some places gloss over the horrors of slavery, but this exhibit really emphasized it.

Next we went to the Francis Bay Trail because it had a short boardwalk along another salt pond. The pond had a ton of birds in it. We noticed the jungle ground was completely covered in holes containing teeny tiny crabs. I thought they were beetles at first and they were like an inch long. Ever step we took we could see a wave of movement on the forest ground as the crabs retreated into their holes. They were very hard to photograph since they hid as soon as we approached. 

Finally, we just walked along the beach and enjoyed the sunset. It was a nice white sand beach and we were completely alone. A lovely end to our last day in Saint John. 

The following day, we woke up early and boarded the car ferry back to Saint Thomas. We found a place to rent a jet ski and did that for an hour. Felix rode jet skis in his childhood so he was very comfortable going fast and jumping over waves. I was more cautious. Felix said we had nothing to worry about because if we fell off, we’d fall into the water, but we were going up to 50 mph at points, and I was not convinced we’d be ok falling off of something going that fast. Felix reigned it in for me, and we had a lot of fun. Also, the area we were jet skiing in was weirdly empty of any other boats. 

The marina had some big iguanas just hanging out in the grass. Also cats.

Next we headed to a place to go ziplining, but we got detoured because some roads were closed for this big carnival event. We ended up going down a bunch of weird back streets, many of which were super narrow and ridiculously, terrifyingly steep. Google maps really has no idea what is going on in Saint Thomas because it kept trying to send us the wrong way down one-way streets. This was so scary and stressful and probably the worst part of the trip. Kudos to Felix for getting us home in one piece. 

Then we went ziplining. The place we went had some great views of the bay, but we didn’t get to enjoy them for long because a storm rolled in. We did the whole course but got a bit wet, once again.

I’ve done a high ropes course and I’ve been on zip lines but I’ve never done a zipline-focused course. Felix warned me that it would be lame but I thought it was a classic tropical thing to do. It was ok. Ziplining was moderately fun but the ziplines were not super long and we spent most of the time waiting for everyone in the tour group to go on each line. You live and you learn. 

After ziplining, we went to our hotel which turned out to be a cat sanctuary! The hotel takes care of a bunch of strays and provides them with veterinary care. This was great. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant and sat outside watching the cats wander around. They were quite friendly. The hotel itself was not great–it had an elevated plank walkway leading to the rooms and some of the planks were falling apart–but Felix said he’d happily stay there again for the cats. 

We (unintentionally) woke up early the next morning and had some time before our flight so we had one last outing to a botanical garden. It was early and rainy so we were the only people there, which was nice. There was a very friendly lady there who told us about the plants and birds. Felix liked that they had tortoises, included some tiny baby ones. Also two cats (but I only got a picture of one).

One thing I noticed throughout USVI is that there were a lot of plants that I have as houseplants growing outside there (apparently native). There were tons of pothos plants growing on trees but their leaves were HUGE compared to house plants. My pothos’ leaves are about two inches long. These ones were more than twice the size of my face. 

The primary attraction of the botanical garden was the orchids. They had some really nice ones growing with their roots wrapped around tree trunks (how they grow in the wild). I really liked this botanical garden; it was peaceful and beautiful.

That’s all for USVI! We headed to the airport to fly back to Boston (with a layover in Fort Lauderdale). I had a lot of fun on this trip but it was not without its discomforts. We had to use reef safe sunscreen, which doesn’t stay on well in water, so Felix and I got pretty sunburned on our first day. It was also very buggy and we came back with a lot of itchy bites. Driving everywhere was stressful (as mentioned earlier), and food and accommodations in Saint John were quite expensive and mediocre.  The snorkeling with sea turtles was definitely the highlight of the trip. I would not go back but it was a cool experience. At least I got a new sticker to put on my National Parks water bottle! That’s what’s really important.