St Thomas USVI

After touring the Bahamas I had been thinking "I wonder what American cities look like to tourists. Are we as dirty and crumbling as I had thought Nassau looked?" 

I remembered a half a dozen apartments that Travis and I had lived in and another hundred at least that we had looked at early in our marriage.  How when they are empty and new to your eyes you see every little flaw, but that when you filled them up with the things from your home and lived in them for a bit, the things that had bothered you, you hardly even registered anymore except for when you had guests over and the niggling doubt crept back in.

But after a day at sea we arrived early morning in the Virgin Islands and from first sight it was magnificent and reminded me why the USA is awesome.  The towns were beautiful, well kept and the cities had the normal energy and enthusiasm of the entrepreneurial spirit of America.  It was the land of sailboats, yachts and luxury vacation homes.

Travis and I had scheduled a two dive snorkeling excursion.  The first was off the one side of Buck Island in Turtle Bay.  We saw tons of fish, turtles, coral and Travis saw and retrieved an earring that had dropped from a previous diver, we assume.  Then we went around to the other side of the island and snorkeled a sunken boat and the coral reefs.  We fed the fish honey dew and the hours flew by.  The tour was amazing.

Then we discussed taking a water taxi over to St. John's to go to the famous Honeymoon Beach visiting more castles (Bluebeard and Blackbeard) or sticking to the beaches of St. Thomas.  Practicality and the need for relaxing won out.  By 1pm we were laying on the beach soaking up the sun and sleeping away the mid-day hours.  Around sunset we made our way back to the boat.

I wish I would have had more time to explore and visit.  This is a place I would like to return to for a week to rent a beach house and see both the history and more of the amazing beaches.