We were rather startled to look out after breakfast and see the silhouette of St. Croix, 40 miles away, on the horizon. If you look at the large version of the picture, you can make out the gray shadows of the Cruzan peaks that almost blend completely between water and sky. I added a second picture that pops over the big picture and shows the outline of St. Croix. If you move your mouse off the picture, say to the scroll bar to the side or up to the menu area of your browser, the guide silhouette will disappear.
This is a movie of Fish Bay from Fish Bone. If you turn up your volume, WAY up, you can hear the birds chirping. But don't forget to turn your volume back down.
Went went out to Leinster Bay and Waterlemon Cay to snorkel. This entailed a 0.8 mile hike from the road to the sand beach. After walking about 0.2miles we discovered that you could park and that first 0.2 miles was a Jeep trail! Everytime I see "Waterlemon," I read "Watermelon." The Cay is the small island that pops out between the slope to the bay of the shore and the cay in the distance.
You had to go out pretty far that day to see the cool stuff. Except we did see starfish right away.
Leinster Bay, Barracuda, enlarged, b/w
In the middle of the original,
halfway to the top edge from the center.
Uh-oh, barracuda!
Can't see him?
Put your mouse pointer on the picture for some help.
Melissa and Galen were swimming together when Melissa noticed this mean fish. And all the other little fishies were swimming away from it. So she decided we would, too, and we headed back to shore.
We didn't know what this was when we saw it, but a friend in Atlanta told us it was a sea biscuit.
After putting Melissa back (safely) on shore, Galen swam back out to explore more towards Waterlemon Cay.
You can begin to get an idea of the color of the fan coral here.
This is some brain coral, which has corrugations and foldings on its surface like a brain. How's that for imagery? Most easily seen in the large version.
The sun was getting high up, so I started splashing back to shore. Soon, I began to notice "things" floating by and odd "ghosts" in my mask. After a few passed, I realized they were jellyfish. This one is inthe upper right quadrant, but still toward the center, of the photo.
Galen also passed a starfish cluster (constellation?) on the way back. There are four in the picture, and two more were nearby the the group. Galen's question, what was so tasty right there?
When Galen got back to shore, Melissa had talked to a few other people and learned there were sea turtles in the area. They decided they didn't want to miss those, so they headed out to hunt!
Not long after we started our hunt for turtles, a sting ray flew by. Melissa didn't get to see it until the film got developed, but Galen was glad the camera was cocked and loaded.
Brown pelicans were a common sight gliding, eating, and floating, but Melissa caught one perched in a tree.
It was getting too sunny for Mr. Redhead-white-boy, so we returned to our abode. By the time we left, our erstwhile "undiscovered" bay was swarming with people and we passed many on the trail leading to the beach.
Our shopping center where we bought groceries.
Desert Rose does well, here. (Well, we think that is what it is. Genus Adenium, and relative of oldeander and plumeria)
Joan has managed to keep several beautiful orchids alive for several months despite well-intentioned guests' attempts to care for them by watering.
Yes, hummingbirds do visit the hummingbird feeders and not just bananaquits. They were about twice the size of the hummingbirds Galen remembers from Texas, but they do hum! This one was kept busy defending its feeder from two other hummingbirds and a bananaquit. It had an iridescent, dark-green body.
St. John should be called Lizard Island. They were everywhere, and Galen saw them leap from rock to rock to tree more than once. This one paused on the banana tree trunk. It has quite a dinosaur-like ridge running along its back.
Another. St. John also has iquanas that grow quite large. We saw one at Cinnamon Bay on the driving day that was in a tree 15 feet off the ground. It was about 4 feet long. Then, in town another day, a 3-foot one run in front of our Jeep until finally convinced to move out of the way. Driving home one evening there were three that scampered down the road and then ran up the steep slope into the underbrush.
That afternoon, Galen and Melissa saw two cruise ships departing from St. Thomas. They slowly cruised along the horizon and at night were lit up quite brightly. One had already disappeared by the time of this photo caught the second still faintly visible beyond Ditleff Point, though.