Back in January my daughter Melissa showed me pictures of the place she had rented in St. Johns in the US Virgin Isles. She had been here several times and couldn’t say enough about how wonderful it was. She asked me to help her find airline tickets for everyone in her group and the more I worked at helping her find the air flights, the more I wanted to go too. So her group of five quickly became a group of seven when William and I decided to tag along.

All we had to do was submit our negative covid test to the USVI tourism department five days prior to our arrival date to get pre-approved to enter the island. So Easter morning we all headed out to the airport for our 3 1/2 hour direct flight to St. Thomas.

We were greeted at the St. Thomas airport by the Moko Jumbie Stilt Dancers. They always frequent festivals and celebrations in the islands. We especially liked seeing the Jumbies when we went to the Full Moon Party at Trellis Bay several years ago.

After getting our luggage we went outside to get a taxi to Red Hook where we would take the ferry to Cruz Bay on St. Johns. It felt really good to be seated on the top deck of the ferry watching all the Catamarans and Sailboats coming into and leaving the port. When we first started dating back in 2009 William came to St. Thomas and took a sailing course in the BVI. After he finished his course and passed all his exams for his Bare Boat Charter license I joined him here in the islands. Then when we got married in 2010 we came back here on our honeymoon and chartered our first sailing adventure. Since then we’ve chartered sailing vessels here in the BVI and also in the Greek Islands. We both just feel at home when we are around sailboats.

While Melissa and William went to get our rental jeeps the rest of our group found a place to get lunch. The food was amazing. I think the hit of the entrees were the fish tacos but I of course had to have my first island Bushwacker. The Bushwacker is basically an adult milkshake. On one of our sailing adventures in the BVI all of the ladies dubbed this as our drink of choice while vacationing in the islands

After lunch we drove about a 30 minutes over to the other side of the island where we would be staying at Coral Bay . Driving on the left side of the road was really weird and the roads were narrow and steep but we finally made it here.

It had been a long day of travel and we all were ready to call it a day. However, the next morning most of us were up for the beautiful sunrise over the bay.

William and I went down to the Calabash Market to get something for breakfast. Beware of the prices. A dozen eggs, a quart of milk, pancake mix and some syrup cost us nearly $30.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy breakfast from the deck of our awesome cottage.

After breakfast we decided on Cinnamon Bay for our first beach outing. Sara had done some research and felt this was the prettiest beach on the island. Actually all the beaches are equal in beauty on St. John but that was where we would start our day. Wesley and Sara wasted no time in checking out the waves.

But then again all of us were anxious to get our feet into the beautiful crystal clear blue waters and just relax at Cinnamon Beach.

After enjoying both Cinnamon Beach and Hawks Nest we started our drive back to Coral Bay area stopping for some amazing views.

Once back at our “Moon Cottage” some of us jumped in for a quick swim.

And others reached for the binoculars to check out that lime green boat in the bay. There was always lots of boats coming in to anchor out next to this green boat and even people were swimming up and hanging out around this boat. Melissa told us it was “Lime Out” a very popular floating taco bar. I’ll tell you more about that place in my next post because we would have to go check it out for sure.

The girls volunteered to make a pasta and salad for us for dinner. They did an amazing job and to be honest both Sylvia and I remarked at how nice it was to have everyone catering to us for a change.