March 6th, Thursday

Looking East on Little Maho Beach again.

We lazed around in the morning. But hey, it’s vacation and we were in no particular rush. That was the official plan. We didn’t schedule anything to do on purpose. We get plenty of planning at home.

Rich explores the rocks.

In anticipation of his usual “sink like a rock” style of swimming, Rich rented a wetsuit. The extra buoyancy was exactly what he needed. Even then, he was still skeptical during his first time snorkeling.

The sand was amazing to watch.

Two hours later, I could hardly drag him out of the water! He has always enjoyed salt water fish and aquariums, For him, snorkeling was just like being inside the aquarium! We saw several different types of coral, including brain coral, purple sea fans, blue tangs, and hundreds others that I couldn’t even begin to identify.

Rich suits up for his first snorkeling adventure.

We even spotted a mean looking barracuda protecting his territory. I had been warned by a fellow snorkeler to stay away from them because they are very territorial. He must have seen how I liked to dive down to the bottom to get a closer look at the underwater life. I’m not entirely sure what a barracuda could do to a person, but I decided to take his advice and not find out.

I head down for a closer look.

After snorkeling, we headed back to the tent to get out of the sun. Two hours without a sunscreen refresher was definitely pushing it for my “fair to albino” skin. I was right. By dinner, the upper back of my thighs were an interesting shade of reddish purple.

A beautiful sea fan.

We spent the time before dinner discussing the “handbook” we found waiting for us in the tent. The handbook is an amazing “business plan” for eco-resorts. It lists what Maho Bay Camps does and why they do it. There were quite a few things that we didn’t think of. It made us think that rural Iowa needs something like this. Maybe an artist/outdoor enthusiast eco-retreat?? Hmm. . . You never know!

These fish were everywhere! They kind of reminded me of tetras.

I also got Rich started reading “Animal Vegetable Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver.

Brain Coral - not even close to the biggest one we saw!

As usual, check out the gallery page for full size versions of these photos. And stay tuned for more!!! We haven’t even gotten to the REALLY good stuff yet!!

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March 5th, Wednesday

The Windward Passage Holiday Inn was like a “Holi-dome” without the dome. It was a tad run down for $220 a night, but it had a bed and was walking distance to downtown Charlotte Amalie and the ferry.

Looking West from Charlotte Amalie

Surprise, surprise! We got a wake up call and we didn’t even schedule one. It came in the form of a rooster crow. What?!?!?!? I thought we left farm life behind in Iowa. The farm life didn’t exactly follow us, but the free range poultry certainly did!

Rich waiting for the ferry to St. John

We spent some time perusing the shopping district in Charlotte Amalie. We sat down at R & J’s Lattes and had some pretty decent iced Americanos (espresso and water). We also had a pretty good time playing “Spot the Cruiser.” It was a pretty easy game where we tried to see who could most accurately pick out which tourist was from one of the two cruise ships in port.

Leaving Charlotte Amalie on the ferry. Looking to the east. You can see a bit of the “market” downtown.

The rest of downtown was pretty disappointing. Aggressive salespeople made it feel like the main street in Tijuana, without the language barrier. The shops had all the same tourist crap and the street layout followed the same formula as any tourist trap. T-shirt shop. . . T-shirt shop. . . Real estate office. . . etc. . . etc. .. If this is what “cruisers” see at all of their different ports, you probably won’t see me on one any time soon.

Leaving Charlotte Amalie on the ferry looking to the Southeast. See the two cruise ships in port? See the one with the Mickey Mouse ears on the smoke stacks? After all the complaining Rich did before we left about how he would have rather have gone to Disney World, he actually got to see Mickey Mouse on this vacation.

We were also surprised by the weather. It was incredibly windy. It felt a lot like Iowa in the summer, only with more water and sand.

We got on the ferry to St John and despite the lame time we had on St Thomas, I was very glad we decided not to go over to St John in the dark last night. I had a hard enough time keeping my lunch down during the day, much less when I wouldn’t have had the horizon for reference for the 45 minute ride.

Coming in to Cruz Bay on St John on the ferry.

We arrived at Maho Bay Campground ( www.maho.org ) after an “interesting” ride on the roads of St John courtesy of Mr Fretts “open air” taxi. His taxi was definitely the most creative use of the bed of an F-Series pickup I have ever seen.

The Real color of the water in Cruz Bay! This wasn’t even the really bright colored water like you see in the shallower areas. Unbelievable!

The four wheel drive definitely came in handy on the steep roads. Except for the crazy amount of traffic, they would have made for some heinous bike training. one other tidbit. . . even though the steering wheels are like American ones (on the left side of the car), they drive on the left side of the road. So, every time we rounded a corner and I noticed another vehicle hurtling at us on the right side of the road, my heart leapt into my throat.

Overlooking Trunk Bay. We didn’t actually visit this bay as it is St John’s most famous (aka “busiest”). This photo was taken from “Mr. Frett’s Wild Ride”

Maho Bay Campground was such a welcome change to the last day and a half. It was peaceful, wooded, and completely relaxed. We had to climb a bazillion stairs with out luggage to reach tent #D-11. It was really interesting navigating the winding boardwalks. At first glance, the tents weren’t quite as substantial as I had imagined. However, it didn’t take long to warm up to our cozy 16′ x 16′ space with its treehouse feel and deck.

We used this time to drop our stuff, take a quick glance around, don our swimsuits, and head straight to the beach. 269 steps later, we made it to Little Maho Beach.

The sand was perfect! Rich likes to do this science project where you mix cornstarch and water. You add enough water to make a stiff consistency. The you can squish it into a ball, open your hand, and watch the ball “melt” through your fingers. The sand here is so fine, you can do the same thing with it. Perfect for building sand castles.

Looking East on Little Maho Beach toward Francis Bay. This was the closest beach to our tent/resort.

I was reserving my excitement for this moment. The moment when I could actually get IN the water. As I did, I was slightly surprised that it felt cool to my feet. As I waded in further, I could still see my feet! I’ve waited my entire life to be able to swim in water like this! I still couldn’t believe it was real. This place was too ideallic to be real. Too perfect. I was actually even taken aback when I tasted salt and not chlorine when I licked my lips. When the shock had worn off a tad, I got down to business. I put on my swim goggles and tried out the underwater view. There were fish! The didn’t even look like the evil, menacing fish that lurked in the murky depths waiting to pounce like I envisioned while I swam in lakes and oceans.

Back at the tent after dark, we set up “house” to our liking and enjoyed the quiet and solitude of our “treehouse.”

Take a look at our gallery to view full sized copies of these photos.

We have a ton more photos to upload and stories to tell, so, yes, we’ll keep you waiting. . .

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March 4th, Tuesday

3:15am - Way too early to be conscious! We were worried about it being too cold to leave out coats in the car. We were still under the impression that traveling at all airports involved massive treks through the cold like Denver International Airport. Not so! The Des Moines airport is teeny.

9pm - 4 flights and 4 xanax later we arrive on St Thomas, USVI. Five hours later than we had planned. Thanks to the idiots at Travelocity! They scheduled our flight to leave Minneapolis at 7:05am and our connecting flight to leave JFK in NYC at 7:10am. Not sure what they know about the mechanics of time and space that I don’t, but they insisted that it wasn’t their fault. I think I talked them into paying for our hotel on St. Thomas since we missed the ferry to St John, but we’ll see. . .
The American Airlines gals at JFK were amazing in getting everything sorted out. However, we were in Terminal 8 when we received a call from Terminal 4 baggage claim. They had our checked bags. What?!?!?! So, we get our flight booked, RUN to Terminal 4 via the AirTrain, RUN to baggage claim, get our bags, RUN back to Terminal 8 via the AirTrain, RUN to check our bags BACK in. By the time we got to the gate we were both feeling pretty good, despite the enormous amount of stress we had just been through. We both handled it incredibly well. The only shouting involved was at the Travelocity agent. “Robert” and “Steven” (obviously aliases for their out-sourced, non American names) never could get a handle on what I was saying. So, I busted out the “Railroad Voice” to get some results, however, I was still able to shoot smiles at Rich the entire time. Our theory. . . all that running acted as a natural stress reliever. Maybe we could survive The Amazing Race without getting divorced. CBS, here we come!

So, what did we learn from our traveling day from hell?

• #1: Take direct flights only!
  To this, I said to Rich, “There are none from Des Moines.”
  “Sure are,” he said, “Alegiant Air flies directly to Disney World!”
• #2: Watch where your bags are tagged to go. Make sure they are tagged to go all the way to your destination. Ours weren’t, but we didn’t know to check. . . which is why we had to re-check in our bags at JFK.

We decided to stay at a hotel on St. Thomas the first night because we were tired. We could also get to visit Charlotte Amalie a little before we caught the ferry to St. John the next day.

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March 3rd, Monday
We were leaving on our trip after Rich got off work on Monday evening.  I gave Rich this trip for Xmas and to celebrate our 10th Anniversary this year.

We left Jefferson in the evening to stay at the Hampton Inn across from the airport in Des Moines.  Rich and I had fun laughing about how we were doing exactly what his Mom and Dad would have done.

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Mason spent a little time riding his bike on the trainer last weekend to get ready for the cycling season. He joined Rich for the first 20 minutes of a Spinervals workout called “Have Mercy” if I remember right.

Reagan will ride for Velo Bella again this year. Rich has signed up to ride for Team 53×11 Coffee. We have a full race calendar planned for this year.

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