10 more days in paradise, part three

[liamsaunt]

Turns out I am going to have to do this in four installments instead of three...

Part one: http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... hp?t=22529

Part two: http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... hp?t=22538

Day seven

Today we planned to snorkel Waterlemon Cay if the conditions looked good. However, upon arrival, we decided not to based on two reasons 1. The current looked like it was running strong and 2. There were a TON of cars there! We decided to save that snorkel for this summer, when we know the island will be a lot less crowded. Instead we hiked out to the Leinster shore snorkel:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911075561/" title="leinster bay by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7054/6911 ... 723aec.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="leinster bay"></a>

You can see there is seaweed on the rocks here—this is the only place we visited that had piles of seaweed. It wasn’t too bad though. The first thing I saw on entering the water was this fellow:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911075773/" title="leinster barracuda 2 by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/6911 ... 7d521f.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="leinster barracuda 2"></a>

Grey angelfish:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911076029/" title="leinster grey angelfish 2 by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7198/6911 ... 6068f1.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="leinster grey angelfish 2"></a>

Grunts:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911076463/" title="leinster grunts by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7202/6911 ... 8f7ecd.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="leinster grunts"></a>

Pair of grasby:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911076931/" title="leinster grasby dou 2 by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7066/6911 ... 0e77dc.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="leinster grasby dou 2"></a>

Three spot damselfish:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911077181/" title="leinster hamlet with fan coral by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7043/6911 ... d543b1.jpg" width="500" height="457" alt="leinster hamlet with fan coral"></a>

Yellowtail wrasse:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911076657/" title="leinster yellowtail wrasse by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7199/6911 ... 3f8281.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="leinster yellowtail wrasse"></a>

Initial phase stoplight parrotfish:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911077329/" title="leinster stoplight parrotfish initial phase 2 by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7180/6911 ... f88521.jpg" width="500" height="363" alt="leinster stoplight parrotfish initial phase 2"></a>

Spotted trunkfish:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6772967152/" title="leinster spotted trunkfish by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7051/6772 ... 8049b0.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="leinster spotted trunkfish"></a>

All in all, a very enjoyable snorkel.

All that snorkeling had worked up an appetite, so we headed into Coral Bay for lunch at Shipwreck Landing. Appetizer of blackened shrimp with cucumber dill dipping sauce ($9):

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911077555/" title="shipwreck blackened shrimp by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7189/6911 ... 71bb4e.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="shipwreck blackened shrimp"></a>

John ordered a special drink, the watermelon cooler:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911077723/" title="shipwreck watermelon cooler by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7198/6911 ... 184fc8.jpg" width="243" height="500" alt="shipwreck watermelon cooler"></a>

And we had a grilled wahoo sandwich ($15)—yum!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911077993/" title="shipwreck wahoo by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7055/6911 ... 4c5ae4.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="shipwreck wahoo"></a>

After lunch we tried to stop at Maho (again! Maho was THE beach for us this trip) to read for a while, but we got rained out. So we headed back to Gallows in the rain and spent the late afternoon there. All that rain led to a lovely sunset peeking out from the clouds though!:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911078527/" title="thursday sunset 2 by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7065/6911 ... de80ea.jpg" width="281" height="500" alt="thursday sunset 2"></a>

Dinner that night was at Zozos, and it was hopping! Completely packed with what seemed to be film scouting people (??). I am a sucker for Zozos pastas, so ordered the seafood linguini carbonara ($15) for my appetizer. The flavors were delicious, but the portion was a lot larger than I am used to here:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911078635/" title="zozos linguini seafood carbonara by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7201/6911 ... 43d7ca.jpg" width="500" height="365" alt="zozos linguini seafood carbonara"></a>

John had a special appetizer of mixed sausages—pork, boar, and venison ($14). He said it was OK, and that he liked my appetizer better:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911078723/" title="zozoz sausage sampler by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7179/6911 ... 72c109.jpg" width="500" height="383" alt="zozoz sausage sampler"></a>

For entrees, I ordered my usual, the pistachio crusted mahi with goat cheese arugula salad and polenta crouton ($36). Again, the portion was huge! I think I ate less than half—the flavor was good, but it was just too big :

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911078815/" title="zozos mahi by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7184/6911 ... f02250.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="zozos mahi"></a>

John had the jumbo shrimp with sweet corn risotto ($38 ). I don’t know if the picture makes clear just how huge these shrimp were—they were the size of lobster tails! Just huge. John could only eat two:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911078917/" title="zozos shrimp by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7055/6911 ... 41fd39.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="zozos shrimp"></a>

The food here is really outstanding. Next time though, I think we will share an entrée!

Day eight

We headed off for a new-to-us adventure—Grootpan Bay. When we arrived we had the place to ourselves:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911079497/" title="grootpan 2 by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7181/6911 ... a5f40e.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="grootpan 2"></a>

We snorkeled from Grootpan to Kiddle Bay and back. This is a great snorkel! The water is deep, but there are canyons you can swim through, lots of crusting corals and sponges, and plenty of fish. I think this would be a place that would be even more exciting to scuba dive than to snorkel. Here is some stuff that we saw. Jacks:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911079971/" title="grootpan jacks by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7060/6911 ... 73889a.jpg" width="500" height="265" alt="grootpan jacks"></a>

This photo shows one of the cavern walls, you can get a sense of how deep it is:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6919083323/" title="grootpan jack wall 2 by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7070/6919 ... 3a5d95.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="grootpan jack wall 2"></a>

Fire coral:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911080885/" title="grootpan fire coral by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7187/6911 ... 33a785.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="grootpan fire coral"></a>

Spanish hogfish:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6772968264/" title="grootpan spanish hogfish by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7041/6772 ... 3f3ee3.jpg" width="500" height="327" alt="grootpan spanish hogfish"></a>

Grunts:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6772968172/" title="grootpan grunt and strange grunt by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7190/6772 ... fd4f7c.jpg" width="500" height="420" alt="grootpan grunt and strange grunt"></a>


Scrawled filefish (we saw so many of these this trip!):

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6772968070/" title="grootpan filefish by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7061/6772 ... e2d364.jpg" width="418" height="500" alt="grootpan filefish"></a>

Pillar coral:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6772967678/" title="grootpan pillar coral by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7069/6772 ... 1f5883.jpg" width="500" height="430" alt="grootpan pillar coral"></a>

It started to rain when we got back to the beach at Grootpan and oh my, the no see ums came out in force! We got out of there as fast as we could, but I still got about 20 bites—mostly on my face (great). We headed over to the Tourist Trap for lunch:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911082335/" title="tourist trap by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7042/6911 ... 1282e2.jpg" width="281" height="500" alt="tourist trap"></a>

Nachos with vegetables ($7):

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911081405/" title="tourist trap nachos by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7047/6911 ... d869e2.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="tourist trap nachos"></a>

Hot dogs ($3 each):

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911081785/" title="tourist trap hot dog by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7055/6911 ... 9585e1.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="tourist trap hot dog"></a>

Tourist trap view:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911080309/" title="tourist trap view by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7194/6911 ... 06b746.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="tourist trap view"></a>

After lunch we headed back to Maho (yes, Maho again!) and spent the afternoon lazing away.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6772968706/" title="maho ballcap by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/6772 ... 49a811.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="maho ballcap"></a>

The water was too stirred up to snorkel and I was feeling lazy anyway, so we just floated away until the sun began to set. We were the last car out of the parking lot:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911083839/" title="maho last car by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7181/6911 ... 67f862.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="maho last car"></a>

We managed to get back to Gallows just in time for the sunset:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911082619/" title="friday 2 sunset with boat by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7202/6911 ... c182bf.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="friday 2 sunset with boat"></a>

This was a Friday night, and we had not made a reservation for dinner. So far on this trip, the only place we ate at that was at capacity was La Tapa for Valentine’s Day, and Zozos (which always seems to be at full capacity). Not making a reservation turned out to be a mistake. My theory that “every night is Saturday night to the tourists, so the restaurants will be the same level of business each night” turned out to be dead wrong! Everyplace was completely full, and most were not even maintaining a waiting list. Yikes! We ended up back at Fatty Crab, where we still had to wait about 40 minutes for a table, but there was room at the bar, so we were OK. Once we were seated, we were quickly brought an order of crab ramen ($14):

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911084323/" title="fatty crab crab ramen by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7052/6911 ... d52c9c.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="fatty crab crab ramen"></a>

I love dishes that you can mix egg into!

Followed by some salt and pepper squid ($13):

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911084675/" title="fatty crab salt and pepper squid by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7070/6911 ... ecce60.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="fatty crab salt and pepper squid"></a>

I liked this much better than the last time we ordered it. It was not greasy at all, and had loads of pepper on it.

Then John wanted to try a pork belly-watermelon dish ($24). I didn’t try this (I like bacon, but not pork belly! It’s just too intensely fatty) but he seemed to enjoy it:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911085309/" title="fatty crab pork belly watermelon by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7054/6911 ... b1b32f.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="fatty crab pork belly watermelon"></a>

And finally some Indonesian fried rice ($22)

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/6911085677/" title="fatty crab indonesian rice by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7066/6911 ... 619260.jpg" width="500" height="281" alt="fatty crab indonesian rice"></a>

I would have preferred if this was spicier, but other than that it was tasty.

[jmq]

^^^Now that is a very cool shot that captures that "canyon" snokel well.

Mmmm...Shipwreck for lunch. An all time fav along with Sun Dog.

[FinsUp]

Thanks for taking us along!! Awesome report, as usual

[shoemak38]

I've always loved your photo's

Even more on a damp cold day here in Mass

[Pickle]

I had to catch up with your reports today - I mean happily.

How was the drive to Grootpan? I assume it remains rough, but are there any plants and bushes sticking out on the way down to the beach? The last time we went to Kiddel (have never taken the road to Grootpan), those plants made me wince as they kept scratching the jeep. With a rented jeep, I get nervous.

Beautiful underwater shots as well as sunsets!

[msgcolleen]

I'm really getting island fever now!! Thanks a lot Becky!

[EagleRayLover]

When I saw you posted the third installment, I was a little sad BUT then I read your first sentence and was really happy there would be a fourth!! I am loving your sunset shots- absolutely breathtaking! And you know I can't say enough about the underwater shots! So now I am so excited for part four! Thanks again for including us!

[michigancouple]

Great trip report. Looking forward to installment #4

[cindygad]

I had to laugh when I saw the picture of the Linsterbay snorkel. The pile of rocks my brother in law stacked up is still there from this past Jan.

I agree we saw several scrawled file fish. Some were quite large this year.

Glad you enjoyed Grootpan bay. We only snorkeled the right side. How long did it take to snorkel over to kiddle bay and back?

[BillVT]

As usual another nice trip report. You can snorkel off to the right at Grootpan also. We stayed one year at La Sirena and had plenty of chances for exploring the area. The Kittle and Grootpan snorkels have never disappointed us. They are not spectacular, just rewarding.

[parafins]

Thanks for the great report,the snow is falling here in Elkhat,In.and this report warmed me up!I would someday like to visit the rock in the dead of winter,but having all those people there is sort of a turn off.

[BillVT]

Thick heavy snow here too. We go down at the end of next month. Best way to think of it is that it is not crowded, just festive.

[Dan]

Great photos! What underwater camera are you using?

I have the Canon D10. My pictures don't seem to have the same quality. And this last trip my camera leaked.

Here are some of mine on my blog.

http://sunshinelobster.blogspot.com

ENjoy!

dan

[designbyroe]

I don't spend enough ime underwater to ever get those shots but still trying to get my nephews on island and I know my SIL would love to take those shots. is there a good camera to recommend for someone just starting out with underwater photography.

As usual your pics and TR are amazing and making me hungry. Thank goodness only 120 days til I get on island.....

[JC]

Always great photos. Always a great read. As always...thank you for sharing!

9 & out...