St. John Day 10: Caneel Bay - Best Snorkeling Yet!!

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Wow... what a day! We got up and went to Donkey Diner (finally) and had a DELICIOUS breakfast. We decided that we enjoy eating breakfast out a couple times a week and cooking in. After tanking up (I had my first ever breakfast burrito, the kids had French toast and Jeff had an omelette), we headed out for a hike to Honeymoon Beach and Caneel Bay. The hike was hot and sweaty but not too terribly long... and that just made the water all the more inviting. Both kids along the way at one point or another said, "Hiking is FUN!". :-) After cooling off in the water, we decided to don our snorkeling gear and hit the reef. It was absolutely amazing - by far the best snorkeling yet. We saw a ray (FINALLY with the camera in tow), tons of beautiful and new fish, the largest parrot fish we'd seen yet and MORE SEA TURTLES! Matthew and Jeff got to touch them! After our long swim, we stopped on the way to shore at their floating dock (Caneel Bay is a nice resort with all sorts of amenities; luckily anyone can use the beaches if you hike in, boat in or pay the daily parking fee). Maddie and Jeff did a few flips and dives and then we headed back to shore. We hiked back out to our car, even more in awe of God's amazing creation and the privilege it is to experience a piece of it like this. We went grocery shopping at the StarFish Market in Cruz Bay... we got more steaks, chicken, potatoes and even a pork tenderloin. Tonight will be the tenderloin. When we got back to the house, we plugged in our iPod and sand along to AM 76 Gold while we played Farkle and then swam in the pool. Some of the best memories are the simple ones. Last time we were here and used the Kincer's car, the two cassette tapes we found in the car were AM 76 Gold with such great hits as Happy Days, Shake Shake Shake, Muskrat Love and many, many more. We ALL learned all the words to all the songs and sang them all across the island, so Jeff hunted down the CD before we came and even added to the collection with AM 73 and AM 75, so now we have such hits as Delta Dawn, Rhinestone Cowboy, Ballroom Blitz and more. We also through in a little James Taylor and John Denver - it's a Plunk family sing along. LOL. We finished off the night with watching "The Wild". Matthew had originally chosen Ice Age (it was hit turn to choose the movie), but we accidentally packed the Blu-Ray disc. Oops. It was really quite remarkable and uneventful... he just chose another movie without saying a word. Wow.