St John, USVI

We stayed in Christmas Cove for a couple of days and it was one of my favorite anchoring spots.  Turtles Everywhere, but this little devils were hard to get a picture of.

                              Larry and I  snorkeled side by side with these guys!  Awesome!

We got the news that Larry's brother and sister in law decided to come visit and would be flying into St Thomas.  We had 2 weeks until they would get there, so we decided to visit St Croix, one of the USVI's that are off the beaten path and not traveled by cruisers much.  It was 35nm south of St John.  The winds kicked up, so we stayed for 8 days.  We did some provisioning and walked around the town a bit.  It has the largest barrier reef in the Caribbean.  If the winds weren't so strong, I would have went diving.  We did go snorkeling off of Buck Island; which is also a National Park.  They had an underwater trail in the reef system there, but it was recuperating from the storms that have destroyed it.  Its nice to see the islands are starting to take measures to protect the reef. 

                                                          Buck Island, off of St Croix

                                                          Sailing Charter boat in St Croix

                                       
                                           Iguanas and chickens running around in St Croix

We sailed back to Christmas Cove, then St Thomas to pick up our guests.  In between and on days we weren't sailing, we worked on the boat and cleaned the bottom.

                                           Wow, Larry is amazing...cleaning upside down!