We started the day early, with Matthew coming to wake us up before 6am. He wakes up with this early rising sun and can’t wait to “root us out of bed” as he puts it. So, we had an early breakfast and early swim and we did two loads of laundry while relaxing at the house.
After lunch, we drove to the East end of the island and went to Miss Vie’s beach. She has a snack hut called “Miss Vie’s Snack Shack” and the beach access is on her property. You pay $2.50 a person use the beach, and we’ve heard it’s a must-do. So, we trekked across the East end of the island to find it. The drive was absolutely incredible. The roads on St. John are like nothing we’ve experienced before – 4 wheeling at it’s finest. The grades are steep and the turns are sharp… even riding in the car becomes a workout! We found Miss Vie’s and even snagged a few chairs in the shade. The beach was beautiful and not too crowded. The snorkeling was incredible! I bet we saw 10 or 15 different species of fish, and of course a huge assortment of coral, complete with the spiny black sea urchins nearby. Our favorite coral is the paper-thin purple fan-like coral. It looks so delicate! Some of the fish we saw were very colorful, too. We didn’t see anything as big as two of the fish we saw at Maho Bay the other day (we saw a fish as big as the grouper at the GA Aquarium – it was huge!)
Matthew wanted so badly to explore in the shallow water around the rocks near our spot on the beach, but we explained the dangers of that to him. Well, he ventured too far and experienced one of the dangers first hand. He saw a piece of coral he wanted to touch, and beside it was a sea urchin. He came up to us, ever so calmly, and explained what happened. I can’t believe he didn’t let out one of his blood-curdling screams, because sure enough his finger had a tiny hole where he’d accidently touched the urchin while reaching for the coral.
The scream and meltdown came when we took a break from swimming and walked up to the snack shack for some dinner. She is known for her pate (meat inside a turnover type crust). She had garlic chicken on the menu, but was out of that… and in turn, she out of any alternative we mentioned. We decided to walk back to the beach and regroup. Matthew was furious! He recovered, and we were all starving so we decided to change plans and leave the beach early so we could drive somewhere else for dinner. Child number 2 has minor meltdown. Really?! All’s well that ends well… we ended up at Skinny Legs and had AWESOME burgers (they are known for having the best burgers on the island). That followed by ice cream and a movie, and you’ve got a great day all wrapped up.
