Virgin Islands National Park
Feb. 23-24, 2024
Day 1: It was an adventure just getting to the island. I had to fly into St Thomas on the smallest commercial airplane I have ever been on. Even my backpack had to go into the nose of the plane. From the airport it was an expensive taxi ride across the island to the ferry terminal. The taxi drivers only take cash. The ferry is quick and easy and is mostly filled with day trip people. St John is slightly busy down by the ferry terminal, but it was a 40 minute taxi ride to where I was staying. There were two wild donkeys in the road on the way through the park as it takes up most of the island. Concordia Eco-resort is the only place to stay inside the national park. Most of the villas are expensive glorified huts with no air conditioning except the breeze from the ocean. You have to do your own cleaning such as dishes, sweep and strip the beds or be charged even more money. The shower was amusing as there is a barrel on the roof that uses the sun to heat the water. A garden hose nozzle is the shower head. At least somebody before me left a partial bottle of gin in the refrigerator. The nice thing is they are private so you can hang out naked on the balcony and nobody will see you. It was a great view from my balcony. I could see Rams Head (knob of land to the south) with ocean breakers on the left and a calm bay on the right. I got there in the afternoon and walked the trail to Salt Pond and Salt Pond Bay for snorkeling. There were so many different types of fish and many were so colorful. I was swimming back to shore and swam right over a barracuda. That thing startled me and I tried to take his picture. I took quite a few underwater pictures, but they mostly look like murky rocks and coral.
Day 2
I was planning on snorkeling in Hurricane Hole today which is part of the Virgin Island Coral Reef National Monument. My timing was off. There was a running event that closed the main road (the only road across the island) for most of the day and there was no way I could get to the bays as the tour boats were also not operating. A good enough reason to come back in a few years. I got up early to see the sunrise and headed down the trail to go around Salt Pond to Drunk Bay. On the way I disturbed several deer and a bunch of hermit crabs. Drunk Bay is the windy direct ocean side and very rocky. Salt pond is interesting in that it is a salt lake that is separated from the bay by a narrow strip of land. The water will go over the land during storms. I continued to Rams Head although not a super exciting walk. Back to Salt Pond Bay for a couple hours of snorkeling. Two guys were cast net fishing but did not catch any fish. I caught all the creatures at breakfast including a pelican, fish eating coral, a huge stingray nestled on the bottom and two sea turtles munching on sea grass. I spent about 20 minutes just hanging out with one of the turtles. There were way more fish out this morning including two groups of squid. The pictures I took today were better, but I left the camera on the beach when I was with the turtle. I had to look at pictures online for identification but the variety of fish that I saw included: Bar Jack, Banded Butterflyfish, Blue Tang, Yellowtail Snapper, Queen Angel, Coney, Gray Angel, Spotlight Parrotfish, Squirrelfish, Red Hind, Spotted Goatfish, Bicolor Damselfish, Princess Parrotfish, Blue Head Wrasse, Trumpetfish, Beaugregory, Tiger Grouper, Black Hamlet, Spotted Trunkfish, Four-eyed Butterflyfish, Scrawled Filefish, Palmiers, Blue Chromis, Gray Snapper, Blue Parrotfish, Caribbean Reef Squid, Barracuda and Sting Ray.
