Last weekend we did a nice 7 mile loop with a few friends on St. John. We started on the L’Esperance trailhead off the island’s center line road. The hike took us by multiple sets of ruins of old sugar mills and plantations. The center point was the reef bay beach about 3 miles and 1000 ft below where we started. Snorkeled a bit and found a real cool conch (you’ll see it in the video). The hike out up the reef bay trail took us by a few more sets of ruins as well as some petroglyphs on the walls of a seasonal waterfall. These dated back thousands of years to pre-colombian times when the island was inhabited by West Indian tribes. The hike up was back to the centerline road so finishing the day with a 1000 ft vertical climb was a little exhausting. But we made it!
PS. Video is a bit longer than the others on this site but has some cool timelapses in it…
We took a trip with a fellow Karate student over to his beach bar on Jost Van Dike. Big thank you to Hendo for playing taxi service so we could spend our day on this absolutely gorgeous beach.
We took a day charter to the British Virgin Islands yesterday which was totally awesome! Big shout out to our crew on Calypso tours. Went to the Baths on Virgin Gorda and then snorkeling at the caves over on Norman Island. We got some cool footage the we posted on Youtube.
Also made a stop on Jost Van Dike after snorkeling but we were in no condition to operate a camera at that point. 🙂
We finally got to meet Becca and Tim who had been very helpful in helping us get setup on the island before we came. Thank You Guys! Its awesome to be making new friends on the island!
We spent a full day out at Magens Bay playing with our new snorkeling gear. The boys are really starting to get the hang of this new sport.
Karate has begun. We found a dojo on island that is of a very similar style to what we have all been studying in Wyoming for the past few years.
We moved to Bolongo Bay. This is where we will stay for the remainder of our visit through April.
We bought a JEEP! It is a lot of fun and very interesting when we have to go do a lot of shopping or if it is raining.
I had a birthday, Harley had a birthday and AJ had a birthday this month.
I spent my birthday waking up to a beautiful sunrise and a wonderful dinner at Mims Seaside Bistro.
We took Harley on a deep sea fishing trip for his birthday present. We lucked out and caught six decent sized mahi-mahi. We of course had to practice by catching a couple barracudas first. We followed up our fishing trip with an afternoon at Sapphire Beach for some cocktail and music.
Aj’s birthday began with breakfast at Iggies, which is the restaurant at Bolongo Bay Beach Resort and is walking distance from our condo. Then ended the day with a full moon, night kayaking tour off Frenchmans Bay. We saw sting ray, sea turtles and other night fish.
Xander has also taken his first lesson in scuba diving. He dove 40 feet off Coki Point Beach on his first day and seems to really like it.
We ventured back to St. John to check off the next beach on our list. Hawksnest Beach. It was fabulous. Lots of wonderful families. Boys made friends and enjoyed the bit larger waves coming in that day.
Here are a couple of other random photos worth sharing. My favorite is the WY22 License plate we spotted at Island Time Pizza & Pub. We also got a kick out of spotting a funny license plate on a drive. And the Top photo is the view from Mountain Top.
Getting school work done while we wait for flight.
Thursday, September 13, 2018 First Leg – Jackson, WY to Los Angeles, CA
Well, we finally made it to St. Thomas. We have been here for just a little over a week, and a lot has already happened.
Our adventure begins with our departure. We took a flight from Jackson to Los Angeles and stayed in a hotel near the airport. Got in SUPER late. It was about 1 am by the time our heads hit the pillows . We slept in till about 9am. Ate breakfast, spent the first half of the day in sunny CA by the hotel pool. Then back to room to finish school & work. Took an awesome UBER ride to a great dinner at The Cheesecake Factory with an incredible harbor view. Had no idea CCF had so many food options. YES, we had cheesecake too.
Our view from Lima’s Villa
Around 2pm on Saturday, September 15th we made it to Lima’s Villa, our Airbnb that we had reserved for our first month of our stay. Our flight from Miami to St. Thomas was filled with a group of rambunctious ladies ready for their vacation to start. We were welcomed into the St. Thomas airport with festivities of steel drums and Cruzan rum tastings.
After securing our car rental, getting settled in, grabbing a few groceries (which BTW are extremely limited), etc… We were definitely due for some beach action. Enjoyed an afternoon at Magens Bay Beach on the northside of the island. The water is absolutely gorgeous and we had a fun time relaxing and searching for seashells. Our day of course concluded with a lesson in bugs. No See Ums are no joke ums this time of year.
We spent the next week mostly working and school. Sorry we don’t have pictures of us sitting around the table all together while working. It is definitely a new way of doing things for us and boy are we starting to feel closer together than we have before. Swim breaks between classes is awesome and helps from getting dragged down by our responsibilities. Xander and Harley had remote MAP testing for school that week so we made sure to stay focused and on task. The plans for the weekend were well worth the wait and hard work.
St. John’s here we come!
We made sure to get out of the villa early on Saturday morning so that we could enjoy a full day of exploring. Most of St. John is national park and there are plenty of trails. We plan to wait until the somewhat cooler months begin before any long day hikes. After we ferried from St. Thomas to St. John we walked the Lind Point Trail to Honeymoon Beach. Along the way we discovered several hermit crabs. We were greeted to Honeymoon by a wonderful staff. We were one of the first ones there for the day so it was a really nice, cool, quiet start to the day. At Honeymoon you can get an all day inclusive rental for snorkeling gear, SUPs and kyaks plus chairs. We started with snorkeling and ended staying with snorkeling. The boys loved it! We found turtles, angel fish, brain coral and more. We really didn’t get any photos while snorkeling, but we will be sure to next time. Here are some photos from our ferry ride and the fruits of all our labor at the end of the day…Dinner at Longboard.
Aj’s birthday began with breakfast at Iggies, which is the restaurant at Bolongo Bay Beach Resort and is walking distance from our condo. Then ended the day with a full moon, 
