St. John's Post 2: Which way to the beach?!?

Our first morning in St. John was an early one, unfortunately.  I was hoping that we would all sleep late to catch up on our rest from staying up all of Friday night...but between the light window sheers and bright blue, sunny skies we didn't have a chance of sleeping past sunrise.  At this point, I think we're we still running on pure excitement and welcomed the early morning start. 

We sipped coffee on the deck and overlooked all the sailboats, fed the fish in the fish pond and started to pack up for the beach! Packing up 9 adults and 2 babies takes some time, let me tell you! The bags of sunscreen, beach toys, beach chairs, towels, coolers, beverages, and floats made our 14 suitcases look like nothing:)

By the time we actually made it to Cinnamon Bay (even with our early start) and got settled, it was clear that there would be little "beach hoping" during the day on this vacation. 

Jackson started out very unsure of the sand and the water.  He hated his life vest and proceeded to throw tantrum #578 for the morning.  Luckily, it didn't take long for his uncles to snatch him up and get him used to the ocean.  By the end of the day, he was literally rolling in the sand and loving every second of it!

We stayed at the beach until the mosquitoes tried to eat us for dinner.  We only thought that Louisiana was bad...these things ate.us.up.  We tried everything and even resorted to pouring a bottle of Gin all over us, as suggested by the locals.

That night we left Cinnamon Bay and went home for an evening swim at our house and drank lovely frozen's in the hot tub until bedtime!

*************************************************************************

The next day we woke up feeling a  bit adventurous drinking our morning coffee and decided that we would all hike to Leinster Bay to snorkel at Waterlemon Cay.  And by hiking, we thought it was just a long casual stroll down a path to the beach.  Well, it was a definitely a long walk, in flip flops, carrying all of our crap.  However, the "path" was anything but a walking path.  We were passed by quite a few hikers that were laughing at the site of us! 

After hiking over a mile, carrying my 33lbs. toddler the entire way there and back, my arms have never been so toned!  It was a good thing that the snorkeling was absolutely amazing and totally worth the hike.  It was breathtaking!

The shore was a rock beach which meant that we spent the entire day in the water snorkeling and swimming.  So to reward our tired legs and thirsty mouths, we finished off the day at Skinny Legs for hamburgers and you guessed it - more frozen's:)

We passed a few wild donkey's on our drive there, a pretty common site on the island!

Up next, the best surprise ever!!!