Day 1 of our cruise was the beautiful St. Thomas. Porting there for the first time was magical for me. I am not sure why. Looking off the balcony at all the boats sitting down there in the calm water… the tall mountains spotted with little houses … it is just calm and beautiful. Waking up to this sight for the second time in my life was no different. It was just as I had remembered. It matched the picture in my mind perfectly. I stepped out on the balcony and just stared turning every direction I could to further ingrain the images in my mind.
Since we had been here before we wanted to try something new. I decided we would take the ferry over to St. John and go to Cinnamon Bay. I am a huge Kenny Chesney fan and rumor has it, he has a house there that overlooks Cinnamon Bay. I was certain I could find him.
Mark thinks I would drop him in a heartbeat and run away with Kenny if I was ever given the chance… but I don’t really think that is so. It’s not so much that I would entertain a romantic relationship with him. It’s just Mark and I are some really fun people… and Kenny Chesney seems like a pretty hot... I mean fun guy… and I am certain Kenny would invite us to stay so he could hang out with us more :)
Well, that's my story anyway and I am sticking to it.
So that was the plan. Bad news was our room on this trip was hot. H.O.T. Hot. Not Kenny Chesney not. Hot to the tune of 78 degrees and that was after I unplugged the refrigerator and the maintenance man had been there twice. It took until 1 am, multiple calls and trips to guest services, and 1 mild security incident to get a fan delivered to our room before we could attempt to go to sleep. We had a group of people from our facebook group that was meeting at 8am to head to the ferry… and we missed them.
It was around 10 am when we got off the boat. We walked out and found a taxi driver. The price was $10 per person to go to Red Hook Ferry. We had a wonderful taxi driver. The ride was about 20 minutes or so and he talked away telling us everything we wanted to know. He was very funny and entertaining… then suddenly we passed a Texas BBQ sign. (He was going WAY too fast for me to get a picture.) So... I found this one on the internet for ya.
I said… “Texas BBQ huh?” He says “Oh, yes! We love BBQ too.” I said “Really? So is it authentic Texas BBQ?” He says “Oh yes. Chicken … Ribs. All very good.” I said “Oh. So can you get ranch style beans and potato salad on the side?” He almost had a hernia. Laughing, wheezing. When he finally got his breath “Oh no! No beans! (Insert laughing so hard I thought he might wreck the van). We have rice with peas on the side.”
Ummm… I don’t want to burst your bubble there buddy, but rice and peas with chicken is just Caribbean food with a different sauce. If you ever make it to Texas, just give me a call. We’ll get ya fixed up with some REAL Texas BBQ. … I didn’t even mention a piece of sweet corn bread. That might have really done him in.
Shortly after, we arrived at the Red Hook Ferry location. Our driver… once he caught his breath made sure to give us good instructions on what time to be off St. John and headed back to St. Thomas to make sure we had enough time to get back to the boat. He also suggested we purchase round trip tickets to save time from having to stand in line to purchase tickets in St. John.
We took a pretty large water taxi over. It was double decker boat. The bottom level was enclosed in glass and the top was open air. The scenery was beautiful and the water looked as magical as ever!
Once we arrived at St. John finding a “taxi” was easy. They are parked there waiting. The taxis are open air/half truck looking things. Prices were $6 to Trunk Bay per person and $8 to Cinnamon Bay per person. From what I gather, Trunk Bay is much more popular and the snorkeling is better and has a guided trail. Cinnamon Bay is a little less crowded and the best snorkeling is out by the big rock, but the water current is stronger there so you need to be a good swimmer as it is out quite a bit.
The roads are small with lots of sharp curves. I was sitting on the end and Trenton kept hanging on to me because he was afraid I would fall out :) The whole bus unloaded at Trunk Bay and just the 3 of us continued on to Cinnamon Bay. When we got there it was a lunch time so we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading down to the water. There is a little outside café there with lots of seating. Mark and I ordered conch fritters and a jerk chicken sandwich. The conch fritters were amazing… I don’t think the chicken had been jerked. Seemed like a piece of BBQ chicken on a bun…. We fed most of it to the cats and birds. We then headed down the path to the water.
Cinnamon Bay was exactly as it was in pictures. The beach part is narrow and long. There was some seating, but it seemed you had to have gotten there early to grab one. Probably the people who were lucky enough to sleep with an air conditioner snatched those. Most people just had their stuff in the sand. We threw ours down and headed for the water. It was wonderful.
I did not spot Kenny Chesney … or his house. I was most disappointed, but hey… life goes on. Trenton didn’t really care to snorkel much. He was just happy being in the water. We stayed there as long as we could then headed up to the showers to rinse off and get dressed. There was a taxi bus waiting to take us back. It was us and 1 other couple. They were from Puerto Rico. It didn’t take us long to figure out they were having a “tiff”. Trenton taps me on the arm and leaned over and loudly whispered ~AWKWARD~ . Ha! No kidding.
The taxi bus dropped us off at the ferry and we had a few moments to do some shopping. Once we boarded the ferry we noticed the girl from the “awkward couple” was there and looking around for the guy. Mark had spotted him earlier drinking in a bar while we were shopping and told her where we last saw him. The girl got off the ferry and attempted to go find him, but had no luck… so she sat with us on the ferry back to the boat and shared a cab back to the ship.
Apparently he did make it back to the boat because we left on time and I saw them in the Lido the next day as if all was well. I am not sure I would leave Mark on an island and go back without him… no matter how much of an ass he was being :) … but every marriage works its own way.
I really enjoyed St. John even though Kenny Chesney did not invite me to hang out at his pool… I mean really… at this point it’s his loss right?
