Scott Piner Photography: April 2007

St. John: Day 7

We are now in our home state of North Carolina!! It is hard to believe that just twelve hours ago we were tooling around in the Jeep, savoring our last few hours in the Caribbean. On the ferry from St. John to St. Thomas, we sat on the top deck, relishing the hot sunshine and the beautiful clear waters. The taxi from Red Hook to the airport was pleasant. We were able to see some more of St. Thomas. After being in remote St. John, it was kind of surreal to all of a sudden see a Wendy’s and a Pay Less. Once at the airport, we were expecting chaos due to what we witnessed last Saturday when we arrived in the Virgin Islands. However, everything happened quickly and smoothly, except for one little incident with Scott’s shoes that really isn’t worth mentioning.

Some things we will miss from St. John:

Roosters crowing outside our condo in the morning…and in the afternoon…and at night. Instead of being annoyed, we were extremely amused. Go figure.
Wild donkeys and goats randomly appearing on the road.
Numerous hiking trails waiting to be explored. We told ourselves that if Wilmington offered such out door adventures, we would regularly take advantage of them. I picture us, then, as an outdoorsy, toned couple complete with Tevas, North Face bookbags, and a wide assortment of Nalgenes in a variety of colors.
Serendip condo
And of course, the beaches and the amazing scenery of God’s creation.

Some things we won’t miss…

Driving on the left side of the road.
Taxi-drivers in their Ford F150s rigged with awnings and benches.
Their idea of island time: there did not seem to be any method to the madness…at all.
Windowless Jeep Wranglers (really cool in hot weather…not so much in rain and thunderstorms).
$6 for a loaf of bread.

Here's a time-lapse photo of St. Thomas from our balcony.

Shot of Peter Bay luxury villas overlooking Maho Bay. By the way, these villas start out at $20K per week. Yikes!

Shot from Annaberg Ruins. On the other side of the near mountain is the dividing line between US waters & British waters.

St. John: Day 6

We're packing up for our return on Friday so this one will be short. We had some beach time but the intermittent showers kept us from staying too long. We actually got soaked in a huge downpour around 11am. So...we decided to go hiking the Reef Bay Trail which is a 937-foot decent. Just over half-way are the Taino Indian petroglyphs and a pretty cool waterfall. When we were climbing back up the trail, we got hit with another rainstorm which was very refreshing. On our way back to the condo to get cleaned up for dinner, we took our last swim at Mayo Bay. Later, we had dinner at Morgan's Mango which was awesome. We're packing up now and will be flying into Raleigh via Charlotte on and spending Friday night in Raleigh. On Saturday, we'll be meeting up with Donna's sister to watch Disney's "High School Musical" in downtown Raleigh!

Sailboat on Maho Bay.

Reef Bay Trail.

A stream we had to cross on Reef Bay Trail.

Taino Indian petroglyphs.

Reef Bay Trail waterfall.

Shot of us at the waterfall.

We came across a deer at Josie Gut on the Reef Bay Trail.

Another shot of us at Peter Bay overlooking Maho Bay.

Final shot of Trunk Bay.

St. John: Day 5

This has been the most beautiful day yet! After starting off the day with another breakfast on the balcony, we headed to a more secluded beach called Jumbie Bay and were able to secure a spot by 8:15am. For the next two hours, we were the only ones there. During that time, it was like watching the Discovery Channel. Little crabs were popping up out of the sand and pelicans were dive-bombing for fish just a few feet off the shore. I went snorkeling and there were a ton of fish around the coral which explained the pelican frenzy. Pretty cool stuff! We hung out and ate lunch there before coming back to take showers. Our dinner stop was Shipwreck Landing on Hwy 107 at Coral Bay. After dinner, we headed out to Lind Point near Cruz Bay to hike the trail to Honeymoon Bay, Salomon Bay and Caneel Bay. This was a pretty good workout as the trail was a half-mile, 250-foot decent down an extremely rocky trail. After some photos, we headed back up the trail to pick up the Jeep and head on back to the condo. Another awesome day!

At Salomon Bay.

Sailboat at Salomon Bay.

More at Salomon Bay.

I think this was Honeymoon Bay.

The very rocky path!

This looks like an aloe plant but I've never seen a red one before.

Cool cactus tree at Jumbie Bay.

Crab at Jumbie Bay.

Overlooking Maho Bay.

Maho Bay.

The Others?

This is a shot of Caneel Bay which looks eerily like the camp of the Others.

And this island looks like the one where Sawyer, Kate & Jack were being held captive.

If you watch Lost, then you'll understand this post. If not, then you're probably, well, lost right about now.

No Kenny Chesney Sightings (updated)

We haven't come across Kenny yet but St. John is supposed to be his favorite hang out spot. The picture below is at Cinnamon Bay where he and Uncle Kracker shot a video for "When the Sun Goes Down". I'm not a big country music fan and I only know this piece of trivia because Donna told me so.

Here's the video on AOL.com (updated with the correct video)

St. John: Day 4

So the day started off pretty nasty dropping over three inches of rain in the overnight hours and continuing on in the morning. We were not sure if the rain had set in for the day or if we were going to see any blue skies. It had not rained in the past 30-40 days here prior to Saturday. The average rainfall for April is 2.39 inches. So far, the monthly rainfall total for April is 4.89 inches. The total rainfall since we arrived on Saturday has been...4.89 inches. Are you kidding me?

However, around 9am, the rain stopped so we decided to bolt out to Hawksnest Bay. Sun, or no sun, we were not going to stay inside. It turned out to be a glorious day so we lounged, snorkeled and ate lunch at the beach until 2:30pm or so.

Better late than never...

After our time at Hawksnest, we headed east to Coral Bay (pictured below) and ate an early dinner at Aqua Bistro.

The outdoor seating is nice and quiet which is completely opposite from Cruz Bay. We may be having dinner on the East side from here on out. Afterwards, we came back to the condo, cleaned up, and headed out to Trunk Bay & Cinnamon Bay. These beaches are probably the two busiest beaches during the day...obnoxiously so. For instance, earlier in the day, as we were heading east for our trademark early dinner, there were actually four vehicles parked on the highway...ON THE HIGHWAY...because the parking lot was full. We came down the hill and hit the brakes hard as there were cars just sitting there...empty! Anyway, those beaches require entrance fees but also have showers and snack carts and are, in general, better maintained than the other beaches. But trying to get there is like attempting to go to Wrightsville Beach at noon on a Saturday! If you're not there by 9am, it's not pretty.

Since these two beaches officially close at 4:30pm, we hit them up around 6pm after our dinner to miss the crowds and to see what the hype was about. They pretty much seemed like the rest of the beaches except for the showers and vending services which are most likely the selling points. Trunk Bay also has a self-guided underwater snorkeling tour. After the sun set on us at Cinnamon Bay, we headed back to the condo for the evening. Good times!

Sailboat at Hawksnest.

Palm tree at Hawksnest. That brown rope-looking thingy going up and down the tree is supposedly a termite tunnel. They travel in this tunnel to keep them safe from predators.

More of Hawksnest.

I'm pretty sure this was Maho Bay.

Palm tree with the moon at Maho Bay.

Taken a hour or so before sundown at our condo.

A wedding had just finished up at Trunk Bay. We actually saw the bride and groom leaving.

St. John: Day 3

OK...so it hasn't rained here in about a month and it dumped over an inch last night and into the morning. We had planned on starting off the day at the beach, having lunch and then doing some hiking. With the rain and overcast skies early in the morning, we decided to reverse the order and head out around 8am after the rain started to subside to do the hiking while bringing our beach gear just in case the clouds broke. There were a few good trails in the morning and we finally hit Mayo Beach around noon where we ate lunch, lounged on the beach and did some snorkeling. The rain cut things short around 2:30pm and we came back to take showers. We went to Cruz Bay for an early dinner and found some Mexican dining at Margarita Phil's across from the USVI Visitor's Center. We were about to do some more exploring as the sun was setting but some heavy rains chased us back to the condo. Looking forward to another early morning...

Jumbie Bay.

Some ruins on Peace Hill.

More of the Peace Hill Ruins.

Crazy tree on Jumbie Bay.

Entrance to Jumbie Bay.

Here are the Blackened Chicken Nachos which may come back to haunt me.

St. John: Day 2

Wow! Today was a pretty cool day. We started it off by having breakfast on our balcony enjoying the great views. Out first stop was at Hawksnest beach where we hung out on the beach and went snorkeling for about 4 hours. I took some pics with an underwater camera but it's film so I'll be able to post those images in about a week or so. After the beach, we headed out exploring the island and actually made it all the way to the East End. On our way, we came across a little hike called Francis Bay Trail where we ate our picnic lunch. After a couple hours of 4-wheel driving, we came back for showers and to get ready for dinner. We decided to head back to a place called Skinny Legs which is back near the East End. Very good eats! We had planned on taking in a couple more trails before coming home but we got caught in some evening rain storms which were pretty heavy and decided to come back to the condo. It's been a really fun day and I can't wait to see what's on tap for tomorrow.

Sporting the Jeep Wrangler