My wife recently decided that she was due for a girls trip with her cousin. After deciding where to go, my wife asked me to come saying that she would feel safer if I were there. I didn't complain about a Caribbean vacation to St Thomas. I flew to St Thomas with my wife and her cousin. So my wife is rooming with her cousin and I have a room to myself. I had looked into things to do on St John since I hadn't been there before. I had been to St Thomas twice previously as a cruise ship stop, but hadn't actually stopped on nearby St John. St John does not have an airport and it's much less developed. The only way to get there is by boat. I learned that more than 60% of the island is a national park. So, I looked into excursions to St John and most of them pretty well kept to the water. So then I watched some YouTube videos. There were a couple of videos that talked about this Caneel Hill hike. I also wanted to ride scooters around the island. My wife and her cousin were on board and I booked the scooters. When we went to pick up scooters the next day, my wife’s cousin decided that she wasn’t comfortable with the scooters. It was also around that time that my wife looked up how long the hike was. The site that she found said the trail was 4 point something miles. So, I hailed a taxi for the girls and went to St John by myself while they hung out by the pool at our hotel in St Thomas. It was probably for the best. The roads on St Thomas (even the main highways) have a lot of steep slopes and sharp turns which would have been a bit much for a novice rider. My wife doesn’t generally like ferries. She did well on the one that we took to Martha’s Vineyard last year, but I’m confident that she would have not been comfortable on this. The portion of the hike that I did was 1.5 miles each way and showed me everything that I wanted to see, but it was way steeper and more strenuous than I had expected. After getting back to my scooter, I decided to ride around the island and see the beaches. Around the 4th one I was thinking that it was 3 or 4 pm. They had a store and I went in for a drink. I asked the cashier when the last ferry was and she said 6 or 6:30. It was already a quarter to 5 and I was only a quarter of the way around the island. So I didn’t even walk out to the sand. I hopped back on my scooter and booked it for the ferry. I actually caught the 5:30 ferry, but it was still dark by the time I got back to the hotel.
For the hike I started at the Caneel Hill Trail which was easy to find on my scooter. The highest point on the trail is Margaret Hill which isn't really marked. There was a rocky outcropping which looked like it was off the trail, but I checked it out and was glad that I did. That's where the cover photo for this post was taken. I continued onto Caneel Hill. Caneel Hill is easier to pick out because there's a big wooden platform with stairs so that you can see above the tree line. Halfway between these vantage points the Caneel Hill Trail is intersected by the Tamarind Trail. There is a bit of a path behind this sign which goes into a neighborhood 20 or 30 feet away. On my way back I took the Tamarind Trail which I thought was a little easier than the Caneel Hill Trail. If I had it to do again I would take my scooter right up to Myra Kestine Clewic Rd and look for the house labeled Caneel Trailside Cottage. which is right behind that intersection between the Caneel Hill Trail and Tamarind Trail.
The next day I was just along for the ride with my wife and her cousin. We went to Coral World Ocean Park where we spent a fortune, but got to swim with dolphins and sea lions. Both activities were a similar level of fun, but the the sea lions had an added degree of excitement because they're so big. The folks running the show were like "this is totally unscripted" just hop in this tank with an 800 lb carnivore, it'll be awesome. And it was awesome.
I hope that you've enjoyed my post. Thanks for all the comments, upvotes and reposts. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make these even better in the future.
[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 18.33742 lat -64.77995 long Margaret Hill and Caneel Hill d3scr))
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Now that is a vacation. I'm sure you accumulated many wonderful memories. !LUV
Travel Digest #2473.
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