This is a good closeup of the bananaquit which is pronounced banana-keet, by the way. It dropped by after breakfast to see if we left any sweets for it.
...Hawksnest Bay! Melissa made Galen carry everything! Chairs were courtesy Fish Bone.
Again, Melissa hangs out beachside while she watches Galen flipper around, but after a little while she started snorkeling, too.
This time we took the underwater Kodak disposable camera. We saw some coral.
These were fierce looking sea urchins and they were everywhere. Fortunately, we never stepped on any. The reef at Hawksnest was shallow enough though that waves break over it. Galen accidentally got into this area when we went out first and was quite alarmed to be moving up and down 2 feet over sharp coral and sharper looking sea urchins with their phalanxes of quills. This led to his quick exit from that area to the safer, deeper, calmer water around the reef edge.
A different kind of coral. Sea urchins with all-black spines and one with shorter, white spines.
These fishes were each about the size of my hand and had iridescent blue color that was quite flashy as they moved. While they were common at most of the sites we snorkeled, this was the only one where they schooled so densely and so numerously. There is also some fan coral - which is a rich lavender and brown. It waves in the currents.
Driving back to Fish Bone, we saw these plants on the side of the road. "Who spray painted those plants?" Was what we thought when we first noticed them, but that is truly their natural color. They are false pineapple plants. Real pineapple plants, of course, have pineapples in the center.
That evening we got dressed for our fancy dinner night - destination Asolare.
There is an "estate" next door to Asolare for sale for $2.5 million.
Asolare sits on a hill between Cruz Bay and the national park overlooking the town and bay.
Dinner was great! I had lamb, but Melissa had pork tenderloin. It was the best pork we'd ever had. It had a sweet sauce flavored with some tropical fruit, star anise, and soy. Dessert was a molten chocolate pyramid. Inside the pyramid was a smooth, creamy filling of white chocolate. Asolare gets our recommendation for St. John dining.
So ends the night, and our third full day on St. John.