St. John by Land and Sea

Dec 10, 2007 355 0 0

While the boat bottom was being painted in Tortola, we took a ferry over to St. John in the US Virgin Islands to see the island from the land. We had visited St. John more than 10 years ago and wanted to see some of our favorite spots from that trip. The Hyatt Grand at Great Cruz Bay is now a Westin, but the grounds and views were just as fantastic.

We rented a jeep to tour the island and set out to find the villa where we had stayed before, as well as a small beach bar where we spent an fun afternoon in 90’s. With just our memories (which were weak and cloudy from the original visit) we set out to find the place. Luckily, St. John is a very small island with just a few roads, so after a couple of hours we found it. It had changed names (at least four times since we were there), but the atmosphere and beautiful view were the same.

We continued our island tour, stopping at Trunk Bay for an afternoon on the beach. While lying on the sand, we had a very familiar feeling which turned out to be an earthquake. The 7.2 magnitude tremor was centered in the Leeward Islands, but felt very close to home.

Once we got the boat back, we headed from Jost Van Dyke, BVI back to St. John to see the island from the water. We spent the next few days on the North side of the island kayaking and snorkeling. One of our new boat toys are two inflatable kayaks that fold up into a small bag for storage. We stopped at Canel Bay (a great resort here), Hawksnest Bay and Francis Bay, before heading to the South side of the Island to Great Lameshur Bay and Salt Pond Bay, two of the nicest anchorages and some of the best snorkeling we’ve seen.

Overall, whether by and or by sea, St. John is a very special, beautiful place to visit. One of our favorites and we highly recommend it.