CruisingGuest's Post & Comments

Helpful hints from Jamie

By January 22, 2012 No Comments

This week’s blog has a guest writer. Jamie here, writing about my trip the past week on Guiding Light with Captain Shane. Hopefully his devoted readers don’t mind the change!

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this trip as I had never been to the Caribbean, Virgin Islands OR stayed on a sailboat before. Most of our time was spent in St John, with each night being spent in a new place. We started in Christmas Cove, then to Trunk Bay where we snorkeled the underwater trail (not all its hyped up to be in my opinion), then spent the night in Francis Bay and relaxed on the beach there. The next day we went to Waterlemon (NOT watermelon, as I kept calling it) Bay where we hiked the Sugar Mill Ruins and snorkeled around the Cay. This was by far my favorite place of the whole trip. With such easy access to the ruins, great views, and the reef we snorkeled was phenomenal! I could have stayed longer but wanted to keep moving. From there we went to Coral Bay, where we stayed overnight and walked around town – a nice place to grab a drink if you’re interested. Next was Lameshur Bay where we hiked to the petroglyphs and waterfall.  Although the waterfall was not very big (I might have been expecting something huge) this was so cool to see(see 2nd photo)!  The hike has some steep elevation (coming from a girl who’s used to the elevation of Colorado) but it’s worth it. I got to spend my last day shopping in St Thomas (be warned – everything closes at 1pm on Sundays).

I’m not a person who takes long vacations; usually it’s just an extended weekend, so this trip was overdue in my book. Everyone loves a good vacation where they can escape their day-to-day routine, but staying on a sailboat and sailing around has been such a different experience. For me, although I may be biased, my captain made all the difference in the world. Shane did such a great job teaching me about sailing and the terms I don’t know; answering all my stupid questions (there were plenty) or things I wouldn’t think about (I would NOT have known that you shouldn’t leave the shower running the entire time); educating me on the history of all the places we went; to even cooking delicious meals for me every night! That part I’m kind of ashamed of….I’m pretty sure he’s a better cook than me, I think I’ve asked for every recipe so far that he has made.

If you’re thinking of joining him, do some research on where you’d like to go, but be open to the unknowns! One thing I learned was that just because you read or heard about a particular place a lot, doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that great. My top three favorites of the trip were snorkeling at Waterlemon Cay, the two sugar mill ruins (see 4th photo of me and the other ruins) and the petroglyphs. Out of those three, I had only read ahead of time about the ruins. I’m glad I did some research on what was down here before I came, but some of my favorite spots were the ones you rarely hear about, but Shane did a great job of helping me discover the island!

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