Boo. Hoo. Vacay is Over.

It's amazing how fast 8 days goes by when you're having fun.  We got back last night from 8 nights in the Caribbean. While I am a teensy bit glad to be back home, to have a nice hot bath in my tub and to sleep in my own bed, I still really miss the islands.  We split our time a little differently this year as we needed to keep the trip to one work week only.  So, we left early Saturday morning (5:45 am flight), flew into St. Thomas, USVI and took a private ferry to the Caneel Bay Resort on the neighboring island of St. John for a 3 night stay. I hate the early morning flight but being able to be on the beach by 1:00 pm Dallas time with a rum punch in hand, makes it worth it.   I have to say, Caneel Bay was heaven.  They greet you in the airport, take your bags and then drive you straight to their own private ferry, where you are offered water and rum punch for the  20 minute ride to their private resort dock. Bags are sitting in the room when you walk in with a chilled bottle of Moet & Chandon (which we sadly never drank and I ended up giving to the hotel maid on Jost Van Dyke, Blossom, who was absolutely thrilled to have it).

Steve on the private Caneel Bay ferry with rum punch

Cruz Bay, St. John

View from Caneel Bay Beach on our first day

Most of the island of St. John is a protected national park and the resort of Caneel Bay is actually 100% located within the park.  It was formerly the private residence of Laurence Rockefeller who used to vacation there in the 1950's and 60's.  It now consists of a main house, several beachfront rooms and cottages as well as several garden view rooms.  Caneel Bay is a Rosewood property so it is a little high on the price point scale (rates start around $500 per night) so we opted for the cheaper garden view rooms, which were still great.  We had a nice view of the expansive grounds and watched deer and donkeys roaming the property.  We also started calling these the "skinny rooms" b/c they were located way back on the property so you definitely got your exercise in walking to and from the main restaurant/bar and the beaches but it made it nice and quiet in the evening and we love to walk anyway.  As my husband said in island voice "Ya see where de jungle starts and ya cahn't go na further?  Ya room just a leetle pass 'dat."

Trunk Bay on St. John

Scott Beach at Caneel Bay Resort

Hawksnest Beach at Caneel Bay Resort

The best part of St. John was definitely the beaches.  Caneel Bay itself has 7, yes 7, beaches on the property and pretty much everyone of them was devoid of people.  You might see 3 or 4 other couples on each beach but that was about it.  Plenty of space and privacy and the water was incredible at every beach - think Bombay Sapphire Gin and you get the idea.  We also rented a car and drove over the entire island, which was great fun.  It's steep and hilly so coming around each curve you would be greeted by yet another gorgeous, picture perfect beach.  Too many to choose from since we only had 3 days here.  Unfortunately, it rained a lot the day we had the rental car so we only got to enjoy an off-property beach for about 30 minutes but we did manage to get to Coral Bay to visit the famous restaurant/bar called Skinny Legs where I officially turned my diet off by eating the below.

Skinny Legs Cheeseburger - AH-Mazing.

Steve acting silly at Skinny Legs

Me acting silly at Skinny Legs.
Don't know what the drink was but you can bet it had rum in it

About 5 minutes from Caneel Bay is the main town on St. John called Cruz Bay.  We did quite a bit of shopping (I scored a beautiful handmade necklace at Bamboo Studio) and we ate dinner there 3 nights in a row (sorry, but Caneel Bay is your typical resort where it's $28 for a club sandwich and I hate paying those inflated prices!).  Our favorites were the Waterfront Bistro and a great Italian place called Zozo's, where we sat at the upstairs bar and enjoyed the lights of St. Thomas in the background. We were also treated to an incredible sunset on our last night in St. John.

Sunset on Cruz Bay

Sunset from Cruz Bay...Ahhhhh

After 3 days on St. John, we took an afternoon ferry to Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands.  Well, after we had more drinks at the waterfront bistro while waiting for our ferry...I may have been slightly tipsy...and see the giant margarita at Margarita Phil's below that I had at lunch...I did not share that margarita but, to be fair, I couldn't come close to finishing that bastard either.

Margarita Phil's in Cruz Bay.  Good margarita but terrible food

This is our 9th year in a row to stay on Jost.  We always stay at The Sandcastle Hotel.  It's no Caneel Bay as in it is not a resort and the rooms are pretty spare but it's unique, intimate and sits on the most amazing beach and has the most amazing staff.  We always let ourselves into our own room (no locks on the doors), unpack and then head to the bar to chat with the staff and get a Painkiller cocktail.  Our next door neighbor back in Texas also flew down that same day and met us for dinner.  He stays in the room next door and was there for the same 5 nights.

Sunset on Jost Van Dyke

This is what you do on Jost - hang out with the other hotel guests and make the hotel bar
you're own private bar (it's all on the honor system after they close at 9pm)

Steve with Tina, the hotel manager.  Gary photo bombing in the background

There's not much to say about Jost b/c there's not much to do.  It's my "non-active, get-away-from-it-all" vacation.  I'm all for trips that involve hiking, boating, white water rafting and climbing cathedral after cathedral in Europe but this is my one trip to truly relax and turn my phone and email off.  I actually read books on this trip - I finished two books in 5 days and I loved both of them.  Highly recommend Wild by Cheryl Strayed and I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass.  To be fair, you can do activities on Jost and after 9 years we have done them all - some many times over.  You can hike to the top of the island, you can hike to a natural pool, you can charter a boat to go out to snorkeling or diving spots, etc....  We pretty much just ate, drank, slept, swam and read/napped on the beach this year. We did rent a car as we like to drive ourselves to various restaurants on the island and it's cheaper than using their cabs, which charge per person and are outrageous (i.e., a cab ride to the other side of the island is $20 p/p making it $60 ONE-WAY for 3 people or $120 round trip and you can rent a car for $75 a day...so, rent the car and remember to drive on the left).

We drove up to the ridge road for views of the islands.
Looking towards Tortola

Just to give you an idea of how steep the roads can be.

View of Little Harbour, JVD and Tortola in the background

View of Diamond Cay from the East side of JVD

Our next door neighbor (who shall remain nameless...not really) did get a little wheels-off this trip.  Let's just say that he got "rum dumb" and managed to get himself into an argument and then a full blown fight with some other "rum dumb" boaters late one night on the beach.  Fortunately, I missed the entire exchange as I went to bed early that night but he had the evidence in the form of facial bruises and a black eye to show for it the next morning.  Quite unlike him so I was rather surprised to hear about the whole event.  I managed to do nothing too stupid the whole trip but did have one pretty nasty hangover on the 5th day of the trip that  wiped me out for most of the day.  I had one too many rum punches at Foxy's Bar the night before. Other than that, I kept it in check but let myself enjoy the moments.

Last morning on Jost before the long trip home

Leaving is always a pain.  We really needed to be back to work today so we had to do all our travel in one day from Jost to Dallas, which isn't easy.  It involves two ferry rides, an hour long cab ride on St. Thomas and then two plane trips.  Makes for a long travel day but we finally got home at 9:00 pm last night, exhausted and not smelling so great.  Too make it even better for me, Aunt Flo visited that morning (thanks for being 5 days early, Flo) and I had to borrow feminine products from the hotel manager just to get through the day...and the cramps in coach class on the plane were great too.

Now I just have to wait until the next trip -- a short weekend to New Orleans for our wedding anniversary next month.  Sigh....


http://i1285.photobucket.com/albums/a595/helenesula/travelbutton_zps48be2244.jpg