Our friends arrived in the afternoon.  It is nice to see familiar faces.  We met up with them on the beach and took a short walk along the side of the bay to the ruins of Annaberg Plantation.  It was great to chat with friends. 

The plantation itself was small but interesting to see.  They first used horses to process the sugar cane. 

Then, they built a windmill.  (You don’t need to feed the windmill.) 

The views from the planation were stunningly beautiful!

While there, a volunteer stopped by and chatted about the history of the island.  All in all, it was a pleasant walk with good company.

On 4.3.23 we took the dinghy over towards Leinster Bay and walked along a beautifully paved road to Francis Bay.  This bay was very pretty and had a beautiful, white-sand beach. 

There were two trails there, but we didn’t walk on either of them.

Today we rested up a little bit.  I decided to work out in the morning to Figure 8 Fitness.  Following that exercise program really helps to loosen up my back, which has been hurting quite a bit over the past few days. 

This morning we were treated to a school of Tarpon swimming under our boat.  They are larger fish and they frequently like to stay under boats.  This is the first school of them that we have seen in the Caribbean.

After doing some consulting work, Steve and I went snorkeling.  The fish in this area were much bigger than in other bays and they were beautiful to see. 

We saw many Sargent Majors, Rainbow fish, Rock fish, Grunts, and others.  Of course we saw a big Barracuda, which always finds me.  I am getting more comfortable seeing them in the water and don’t panic anymore. 

There was a variety of coral, from fire, elk horn, and fans, in the area. 

We got to swim in schools of fish.  One curious white fish came right up to my snorkel mask and startled me.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my camera pointed in the right direction in time to capture him. 

I think that my favorite site today was seeing a large Hawksbill Turtle on the sea floor.  It had coral growing on top of its head (poor guy) and a large green fish attached to its shell.  Another large green fish was laying beside it, looking up at us curiously as we swam over top.  Just as I was moving on, a big ray swam past.  It was actually the third ray that we saw snorkeling today.  This area is supposed to be the best snorkeling on St. John, and it lived up to its reputation. 

We still have other hikes to do in this area, so we will remain on the mooring ball for another day or two.  Some friends that we met last year, Bill and Sally Horton, are meeting us in Waterlemon Bay tomorrow.  We met them in Carriacou last year and saw them several times during the season.  It will be nice to connect with them again.

Just after lunch we looked up towards the BVIs and saw several performance catamarans racing past.  The BVIs were hosting a regatta with several different types of boat classes.  Seeing the 60 or so foot performance cats race past us at approximately 25 knots was thrilling.  Their large, beautiful sails were filled with wind and they even took one pontoon out of the water.  (We don’t want to raise a hull out of the water on our boat for fear of tipping over.)

Today, Saturday, we decided to go hiking. 

A trailhead is found right in the bay.  So, we took the dinghy to shore, beached it, and began our walk. 

We first stumbled upon the sugar cane plantation ruins of Leinster Manor.  In this area we could clearly see several building walls. 

We also saw these odd-looking goats with horns.  We decided to be cautious around them, even though they were not paying attention to us while they ate.  We watched them a little bit and they would stand up on their hind legs to reach the tastiest leaves.

We continued walking around and finally found the trailhead called Johnny Horn Trail. 

The incline was not that bad and there was a fairly long flat area along the ridge of the bay.  Then, we went up to the top of the mountain, as we wanted to see Coral Harbor.  Our knees were hurting a little, so we decided not to go down the steep, dirt road to see the little town.  Several local boats were moored in the bay, but it wasn’t as crowded as we had anticipated, compared to other bays we have been in. 

On our way back, we stopped at the Murphy House. 

It afforded us a really nice view of the bay. 

Well, snorkeling wasn’t that great in Hawksbill Bay on St. John.  We were able to see a few fish, but not as many as we had hoped.  The water was gorgeous and clear, however.  So, we thoroughly enjoyed swimming in the water as well as the calm anchorage itself.

On Friday, March 31 we decided to motor to Waterlemon Bay.  It is supposed to be very protected and a good place to tuck in when there is bad weather.  (Strong winds and a big swell were supposed to come in Friday night, so we wanted to move somewhere where it was better protected than Hawksnest Bay.)  The park service volunteer that we spoke with in Lameshur Bay said that it was his favorite bay.  On our way there, we passed Maho and Cinnamon Bays.  They had beautiful sand beaches.  There were a lot of boats at Maho Bay, probably because it has more commotion going on.  (Apparently there are food trucks there because there are private hotels near the beach.)  As we were heading towards Waterlemon Bay, we had to be careful not to go into the British Virgin Island’s territorial waters.  In this area the line between the USVIs and the BVIs is not far off of shore from St. John or some of the BVI islands.  We entered the bay and picked up a mooring ball close to the snorkeling area.  Unfortunately it was in deep water and we couldn’t see the bottom.  It was also a little rough, but not so bad that we were going to have difficulty staying there. 

Note: We were able to pick up a more-protected mooring ball the next morning. It was in less-deep water and we could see the bottom, which I prefer. It was still in close proximity to the best snorkeling on the island and we could jump overboard to enjoy it.

This morning we put the jib out and sailed to the northwest corner of St. John.  We had originally planned to go to a bay right next to the main town, called Cruz Bay, but that didn’t work out well.  It was very congested.  We tied up to a ball and were getting bounced all around because of boat wakes.  So, we decided to move a little further north to Hawksnest Bay.  At first we tied up to a mooring ball a little further out in the bay.  Again we were getting boat wakes and some swells coming around the side of the bay.  A mooring ball opened up closer to shore and we quickly maneuvered to pick it up.  It didn’t have a painter on it, which is an extended piece of rope off of the ball that we loop our ropes through.  Steve originally took the dinghy to the ball and added a piece of rope to make our own painter.  However, after we got tied up, he was able to adjust the ropes to holes in the mooring ball’s rope.  So, it will be much easier for us to pull the ropes off of the ball when it is time to leave.

This new ball is in a much nicer location in the bay.  It is approximately 30 or 40 feet from shore, so we can easily snorkel off of the boat.  In fact, as we were tying up, we saw a ray scurrying across the bottom of the bay, right beside our boat.  The water here is more of a pale emerald color than turquoise, though a lot of turquoise is also shining through.  While on the boat, we have seen brown fish with blue stripes swim right under the boat.  We also saw what we thought was a small shark skimming across the water’s edge, luckily swimming out to sea.  I’m hopeful that there are not too many of those around!  (In retrospect, we think it might have been a Tarpon.)  I’m anxious to go snorkeling here since we have seen so many fish already and the water is so clear.  Where we are, the water is also very calm, which will make snorkeling that much nicer.  Luckily we provisioned the boat fairly well before leaving St. Croix.  We had originally planned to go to the grocery store in Cruz Bay, however, since we were not able to stay in that area, our plans have changed.  That is the sailing life.  We have to be flexible.

On the way back, we took a different fork down towards Reef Bay.  It was along this trail that we came upon some petroglyphs. 

They were getting worn away, we believe, because in the rainy season the area becomes a waterfall. 

The petroglyphs dated to sometime in the 900s AD. 

This part of the trail was getting busy and we met several people along the way. 

By this time it was getting towards noon and we were ready to head back.  So, we opted not to follow the trail to the sugar cane factory ruins.  Our legs were definitely tired, as our knees were giving out on the downward slopes. 

I was able to take several interesting pictures and am hopeful that they turned out. 

Along the way, we saw what looked to be goats with curved horns as well as some deer. 

It felt good to get some exercise and the hike was a great length. 

After lunch, Steve went snorkeling along the far side of the bay while I opted to sit in a float behind the boat.  The water in Lameshur Bay was such a glorious turquois color that I wanted to soak it up while I could.  We were planning to leave today, 3.29.23, because the wind was getting ready to shift to the southeast.  That meant that we wouldn’t have as much protection as we were enjoying in the bay.

Today was really good day on St. John.  Around 7:30a we tied the dinghy up on the dock and went for a hike on Lameshur Bay and Reef Bay trails.  It was supposed to be 1.8 miles along fairly cleared trails to see some petroglyphs, which we thought was doable.  While we didn’t go up to the top of the mountain, there was still a little bit of elevation. 

Even this early, the walk was already hot and humid.  Unfortunately, the signage was not super great.  We got to a couple of forks in the trail and were not 100% sure which path to take. 

The first one that we took erroneously went down a hill to what looked like housing ruins. 

We retraced our steps and continued on the main path, up the hill, to see the ruins of the sugar cane plantation house and what looked like slave quarters. 

Vegetation had overgrown on a lot of the buildings, but we were able to get the idea of what they looked like.  We were the only ones at both locations, so it was nice to explore the ruins by ourselves. 

After our excursion, we put on our bathing suits, jumped overboard, and swam to the snorkeling.  While we didn’t see large schools of fish, we did see an interesting variety.  On our way over to the snorkeling area, we were greeted by a ray skating along the sandy bottom, seemingly playing with a white fish. 

We saw several squid looking up at us, mostly curious. 

Of course, we saw a large barracuda, which was curious about us.  However, it grew tired of me filming it and started to back away.  I saw it chomp its jaws and decided it was time for me to move away. 

We saw so many other types of fish, as well as a variety of coral, and I’m hopeful that the video came out well. 

Thanks for looking at all of the underwater pictures. I’m really enjoying our GoPro!