US Virgin Islands - St. John and St. Thomas

December 16, 2021

Five days goes quickly and our time in the US Virgin Islands is drawing to a close. While many of the natural features of the islands here are similar to other places we have visited, it is quite interesting how different each island's culture is. The feel of the USVI is quite American and most of the people we ran across were American tourists like us which, for me, was disappointing since the thing I enjoyed most about our time in Grenada - and in St. Lucia to some extent - was getting to know the locals and understanding their country's culture a bit.

We spent our first days moored in Cruz Bay in St. John, where most of the island and surrounding water is a National Park. We had expected that St. John would be the quieter of the two islands we were visiting, but that was not the case. It's definitely a hard-partying place!

While we did visit the beaches there, our favorite parts of St. John were the hiking and snorkeling.

Surprisingly, we found a hermit crab on

our hike and not at the beach!

Great Lameshur Bay

We left Cruz Bay and sailed to Great Lameshur Bay for snorkeling. It was more secluded and a beautiful spot. One can hardly beat the Florida Keys for snorkeling, but I was excited to find some different creatures here in St. Thomas than I have seen in Florida. There were huge black sea urchins, aptly named Long Spine Black Urchins, which I learned keep the reef ecosystem healthy by feeding on coral-killing algae. There was also some coral that looked like it was covered in caramel frosting and some things that look like Christmas tree-shaped brushes. These are also suitably named "Christmas tree worms". (I didn't take the photo below, and the worms I saw were white).

We left Great Lameshur Bay on Wednesday morning and sailed to St. Thomas and anchored in St. Thomas Harbor overlooking the town of Charlotte Amalie, which is named after a Danish queen. St. Thomas is historically a major seaport as well as a pirate haven. The harbor is currently used by the cruise lines - we've seen as many as five cruise ships here at a time! We were also surprised to have a seaplane landing in our backyard every hour or so!