Virgin Islands, February 4 - 10, 2011

The U.S. Virgin Islands are made up of three main islands and a whole bunch of little ones. St. Thomas is about 10 miles east of Puerto Rico and has the main airport in Charlotte Amalie, which is also the capital and the largest city of the U.S. Virgin Islands. St. John is 3 miles east of St. Thomas and is where we spent most of our vacation. Then there is St. Croix, the largest of the three and located about 35 miles south of St. Thomas.

We rented a car at the airport, drove (they drive on the left side of the road here, since it was briefly a British colony... reportedly they tried to switch over to driving on the right a few years back but it was chaos...) to the east end of the island and took a ferry to St. John. Nine miles long and at only 20 square miles, it’s the smallest of the 3 main U.S. Virgin Islands and also closest to the British V.I. We arrived at the St. John Inn just after sundown on Friday, Feb 4.
It’s a small B&B about two blocks walk from the main drag in Cruz Bay, which is the only real town on St. John. They served a complimentary continental breakfast every morning and hosted a Rum Punch Happy Hour every evening on the deck to watch the sundown. We had dinner that night at the High Tide Bar and Seafood Grill in the "downtown" of Cruz Bay.


Saturday was spent hiking the Reef Bay Trail. Normal people do the tour where the Park Service drives you to the top of the trail, then you walk down hill 2.6 miles to the sea where they pick you up in a boat to bring you back to Cruz Bay. Of course Gary and I are not normal people, so we did the whole trail – 800 feet down and then up again -- on foot. A mile from the end there was a side trail that led about .3 miles to a spot where there is a waterfall and ancient petroglyphs carved by the original inhabitants (Taino Indians who migrated to the islands from South America).



At the end of the trail near the beach are the ruins of the Reef Bay Sugar Factory, which are still in very good condition. Also at the end of the trail are some old pit toilets, which Gary and I called the Ladybird Johnson Toilets. Apparently, the First Lady was taken on the Reef Bay hike in the early 1960s by the former island administrator and park ranger, Nobel Samuels. At the end of the hike, she asked where the bathrooms were. He admitted there were none and suggested she use the bushes. (We were hoping they would have a sign or marker by the bush she used, but we didn’t see one.) Later on, Ladybird donated money for the construction of the bathrooms, which are still there today for your convenience. Another great example of your tax dollars at work!

After we were done hiking, we stopped at the Le Chateau de Bordeaux restaurant. It’s located just a short drive from the Reef Bay trail head, and we discovered it after the climb when we were looking for a cold drink. Their specialty drink is the Dirty Monkey. They refused to tell us the ingredients (only the owner, Lorelei, knows and she makes a big secret out of it) but it tasted like bananas, coconut, malted milk and of course, rum. Oddly enough people looked at us funny when we told them we had just tasted a dirty monkey. Go figure! We had dinner later on that night at Morgan's Mango back in Cruz Bay (decent food, bad female lounge singer).

Sunday, we had breakfast at JJ's Texas Cafe, which has been run for 20+ years by a lady from Dallas. Then we lounged on Cinnamon Bay beach all day.

We also discovered St. John Brewers, located in the Mongoose Junction shopping center of Cruz Bay. Two guys started it about 8 years ago just after college. They make 4 different brews plus root beer and an energy drink. They sell their beers stateside but not in Illinois. What’s up with that? We had dinner later on at the Spy Glass Restaurant. After dinner, we watched the Super Bowl at JJ's for a while, but they closed early so we went back to the room to catch the end.

Monday, we hiked the Caneel Hill trail. The trail starts at the National Parks Visitor Center in Cruz Bay. The top of Caneel Mountain was a challenging hike (but not as steep or long as the Reef Bay trail). They built an elevated platform on top and you could see forever. Amazing views!

Lunched at Margarita Phil's. Had dinner that night at the Ocean Grill, where we sat at the bar for dinner due to a wedding party that had taken over the whole restaurant. They had an older gent playing classic guitar who was excellent, though.

Tuesday, we did a boat tour of the British Virgin Isles on a boat called The Bad Kitty. This tour included the Baths (gigantic granite rock formations) on Virgin Gorda Island, snorkeling (first time ever for Gary, who said it was phenomenal) off Norman Island, and a visit to (our new favorite) the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke Island.

















There is no pier at the Soggy Dollar, so you swim in, drink, and then swim back to your boat. Hence: Soggy Dollars. The best / worst part was getting me in and out, since I don’t swim. I made it with a flotation device and a lot of help from Gary.

Back on St. John that night, we dined at an Irish/Caribbean bar called "The Quiet Mon Pub" (I think every country in the world, no matter how remote, has an Irish bar.) Dinner was take-out from Woody's Seafood restaurant next door. Woody's is a tiny place, but the food was awesome.







Wednesday, we visited the sugar plantation ruins at Annaberg. This plantation was one of the largest ones on the island with about 600 slaves, who later on rebelled and took over the island for six months.






We then hiked the Leinster Bay trail around Watermelon Bay in the morning, then hiked the Salt Pond trail in the afternoon. We also hiked over to Drunk Bay, which was a very rocky beach with a strong westerly wind off the ocean and many rock sculptures left by previous visitors. We then stopped off at Skinny Legs Bar & Grill in Coral Bay on the east side of the island.







For dinner that night, we went back to Le Chateau de Bordeaux at the top of Bordeaux Mountain. What an amazing view of Coral Bay from about 1150 feet up!! The dinner was excellent. They also had an old guy dressed in West Indian garb playing live calypso music on a steel drum.



After dinner, we had one hell of a fun sing-along at the Castaways Bar in Cruz Bay. There was a barefoot guy with an acoustic guitar taking requests from the crowd. The guy had an amazing memory, so we kept trying to stump him. We were hooked when he did a whole song by Little Feat from memory. He knew every word to Dixie Chicken!!! The guy was married to Kelly, our boat captain from the boat tour the previous day. She was there cheering him on. Steve Sloan is his name but he goes by the moniker "the Barefoot White Boy." It was great fun.

Thursday was our travel day. We left St. John early and spent most of the day in St. Thomas shopping and checked out Blackbeard's Castle (kind of a tourist trap).

Sweet home Chicago was a mere 6 degrees when we landed. I think it was around 88 at the airport on St. Thomas when we took off.

I think we may try to do this trip every winter. What a great break!