The next morning it was light enough for us to see where we were staying! Fish Bay lay down beneath Fish Bone, and the Caribbean trade winds came up the slopes to keep the cottage cool. According to our hostess, Joan, Fish Bone has the unique position on the mountain to catch this wind.
The upper level had a wrap around porch with a table and chairs where we could enjoy our Lucky Charms for breakfast. The door leads in the kitchen with a nice screen so that when in the kitchen we can catch the breeze.
After breakfast we quickly got sunscreened up and headed out to your tropical yellow Jeep Wrangler to take a driving tour of the island. The side windows on the Jeep zip down and the rear window rolls up so that we can get a nice breeze while we drive. (But we're not allowed to take the top off!)
Not a very long drive away, we were overlooking the Virgin Islands National Park. On this over look from route 10 (Centerline Road), you can see the Atlantic ocean across the green forests of the north side of the island. The national park land was purchased by Laurence Rockefeller in the 1950's and donated to the U.S. government. It includes a lot of coast line, too.
Leaving route 10, we took route 20 down toward the coast. Our first real stop of the day took us to Leinster Bay on the northwest side of the island. This was our first good "up close" look at the super blue water. Where it is white, the water is only a few inches deep. We would later come back to Leinster Bay to snorkel.
Up on the hillside above Leinster Bay is the ruins of the Annaberg sugar plantation. The sugar plantations used to cover a lot of the northern hillsides since the north side of the island got the most rain. The Danes used slave labor to staff the plantations. You can see the hillside, now completely regrown with forest vegetation, behind the windmill tower ruins. The slaves would bring down the sugar cane and feed it into crushing rollers. When there was no wind, there was another area where draft animals could power the crushers. The hillside was probably a couple of hundred feet high, and very steep.
After crushing, the sugar cane extract was taken to a boiling house where a series of three refining boiling steps produced sugar, molasses, and rum feedstock .
Back in the car, route 20 took us along a winding up and down coast drive. We'd heard of the campgrounds at Maho Bay where up the hills above the bay canvas and concrete houses sit on stilts amongst the trees. We parked off the side of the road and ate lunch on the edge of Maho Bay.
Our last stop of the day took us right down the road to Cinnamon Bay. This is where we finally got in the water! To Melissa it was just like having a huge swimming pool to play in. The water was super clear - you could easily see your feet no matter where you were. The water was also astonishingly calm. The waves just gently massaged the shore rather than crashing loudly. This also contributes to the clarity as it stirs up far less sand.
Melissa on Fish Bone's front porch
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Melissa is standing on the lower level next to the entrance to our bedroom. On the lower level there is a bathroom with an open-air shower that overlooks Fish Bay. The shutters on the lower level are over our bedroom windows so that when you wake up and look out the window - there's the ocean!
