Cruise 2012 | Day 3 {St. Thomas}

After the first 2 days at sea, we were pretty excited to be docking in St. Thomas for our first port of call. We decided not to schedule a pre-paid excursion because we'd heard from many people that you pretty much walk off the boat onto a waiting taxi that will transport you anywhere on the island for much cheaper than an excursion through the cruise line. Since our friends had been to St. Thomas before we journeyed off to Megan's Bay. By getting our own taxi and making our own plans we were able to see the island on around $40.00 instead of $40 per person! And we could be at the beach as long as we wanted, as long as we made it back to the boat before the departure time, which I think was around 6pm.

One funny thing-- on our taxi drive over to the beach (on the other side of the small island) we happened to see a Wendy's with a drive thru. Haha!

When we arrived at Megan's Bay it was very overcast and rainy. There was another group on our taxi that was pretty whiny about the rain. The girls kept saying, "I don't want to get off, its raiiiinnnning." Yeah, duh. Um, and somehow swimming in the water is different!!??! Gahhh, you're going to get SOAKING wet in the ocean but somehow a little rain is just the end of the world. All I could think was, "A little rain never hurt anybody. Just shut up and get off the taxi!" The funny thing was that about the time we arrived at the beach, the rain stopped. The sun did come out and for a little while it was pretty muggy and humid. We decided to walk to the end of the bay to get away from the crowds of people that had come over from the ship and by the time we found a good spot, the sun had burned away the last of the humid rain. It was a very nice partly sunny day.  We spent most of the time in the water, snorkeling and using the underwater camera. There were a lot of fish in the water and they would swim up to you and nibble on your legs and feet. It was very strange but funny at the same time. Nathan kept giving me a hard time for stirring up the sand on the bottom because it was messing up his video. The more I stood still, the worse it got! I told him, "I'm not stirring up the bottom!" I realized after 2 or 3 rounds of this that the nibbling fish were flicking up the sand and making the water super "dirty". If I was a fish and knew that the pelicans were having a feeding frenzy, you'd better believe I'd be stirring up the bottom too. The pelicans got incredibly close to us as they were following the schools of fish that were touring the bay.
Despite our SPF 50 and multiple applications, Nathan got burned to a crisp. Neither of us realized how much sun we both got until we got back to the boat and saw that we looked like lobsters. I got a lot of sun too but nothing like Nathan. I felt so bad for him. He ended up wearing a shirt over his shoulders for the rest of the cruise because he got so burned. If I remember correctly, we got to the beach around 9 or 930 and stayed until 1-ish. After the taxi ride back to the ship, it was probably around 2. We opted for showers, some late lunch and slept until dinner. You really don't realize how draining the sun can be!

I was fascinated by this snail. There was another one too and I spent so much time watching them slug their way up and down the rocks, while the water lapped up against them.

If you look closely, this rocky wall looks like there are a bunch of skulls embedded in the surface. Kind of creepy...

The big red boat in the background was a "pirate" boat 

Our taxi driver told us that all of the houses on the island had to have a special road  built before the houses could be put in. It makes for some crazy driving, as you can imagine. 

There were these strange cacti and their flowers all over the island

As you can see it was cloudy for a good part of the day

At the back of the bay was a very dense thicket that provided good shade from the blistering sun

We were enamored with the many pelicans that studded the rocks and trees in Megan's Bay. I probably took more pictures of that stupid bird hoping to get him while he was diving in for some fish. I finally did catch him diving but the picture is horribly blurry. Oh well! I loathe blurry pictures and people posting blurry pictures so its not very big, but hopefully you get the idea. At least you can see what a pelican looks like as a bird torpedo. (Top Left picture of the collage)

The different faces of Nathan relaxing in the water

Jimmy, Chell & Nathan walking back to catch a taxi back to our ship

Nathan saw this little guy. His camo is pretty good! : )

On the way back to the boat, we had a different taxi driver and he stopped at an overlook near the port. I pushed (that sounds bad...haha) Nathan out of the taxi and he ran to the edge and got a picture of the bay from up high. 

This is what it looked like:

Megan's Bay | St. Thomas, USVI