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Here donkey donkey!

There was quite a substantial rain at breakfast today. We had to move our seats as the rain was coming diagonally into the eating area. It cleared up and we got a kayak to go over to Honeymoon Beach. The watersports guy told us that we could only use it in Caneel Bay. That was a bummer, but we decided to go ahead and kayak around the bay a little bit before walking to Honeymoon. It was pretty fun, but I couldn't wait to get my snorkeling gear on and explore Honeymoon again. After about 15 minutes on the Kayak, we headed back in and started the walk to Honeymoon. It made me kind of sad to think that this was the last time I would be going to Honeymoon Beach.

Honeymoon Beach is beautiful, but we decided that a lot of its charm was due to the fact that it was nearly deserted last time we were there. This time we were not so lucky. A boat dumped off about 20 snorkelers while we were there. This was not until after I was able to snorkel the nice point between Honeymoon and Salomon again. As we were heading back to the resort, it started to rain lightly. We hung out in our room for a bit, waiting for the storm to pass through. The rain stopped and we decided to check out Cinnamon Beach. As we headed toward our Jeep in the Caneel parking lot it started to rain again. Going east along the North Shore Road, it started raining heavier. We arrived at Cinnamon and waited about twenty minutes until the rain finally let up.

Cinnamon Bay...Peter Bay mansions in background

As far as beaches go, I thought Cinnamon was the least pretty of all that we've gone to. It was a beautiful beach, however, just when compared to Hawksnest or Honeymoon, it wasn't quite as pretty. What was interesting about this beach is that Cinnamon Cay, a small island, was bout 100-150 yards offshore. Another neat thing was that there were several dead trees along the shore and one or two in the water itself. It was a neat change of scenery. I came here in particular to see the remains of a crashed airplane that was underwater near the point between Cinnamon and Little Cinnamon to the left. I followed the directions in two of the guidebooks that I read and spent a lot of time in about 30 feet of water, getting a little scared about how deep it is (I don't know why deeper water is scarier than shallow, but anyway...) and then headed back toward shallow water remembering that the book said it was only about 20 feet offshore. I came upon what looked like a submerged dock. Upon closer inspection, it was an airplane wing. I was in about 10 feet of water. There was also an engine and a propeller.

Cinnamon Bay: Remains of a plane wreck

Cinnamon Bay: Another turtle!

I thought it strange that two airplane wrecks would be in the same area, so I figured maybe it was stripped of everything else after crashing. I swam back to Lara and opened the guidebooks. Turns out, that was all there was to see...I had been searching far and wide for about twenty minutes for what I thought would be a mostly intact airplane. If I had read the book closely, I would have learned that that was all there was to see. It's in very shallow water, but it was a very underwhelming sight. Unless you're really into airplane engines, I would suggest just skipping it. On my way back to see Lara I saw another turtle...a smaller one, but it's always a treat.

Cinnamon Bay: Snorkeling around Cinnamon Cay

The cay was too tempting, so I had to swim out to it and snorkel around it. It sounds kind of impressive to say you swam out 100-150 yards, but since you float so effortlessly in the Caribbean, you can take breaks when you get tired flapping your fins. To get to the cay you swim around a marginal rocky reef and then head straight for the island. The water never gets more deep than about 30 feet...it seemed a lot less deep than the swim was to Waterlemon Cay. I swam all the way around Cinnamon Cay...the snorkeling was pretty good on the northwestern portion of it...not up to Waterlemon standards, but I would say it's worth the swim.

Lara modeling our Jeep in the Caneel parking lot

At the Caneel Bay overlook

I was away for quite a while...Cinnamon Cay is a fairly sizable little island and took a little while to snorkel around...and Lara was in the water waiting for me when I got back. We headed back to the hotel and got ready to head into town for the last time. I took a picture of Lara outside our Jeep as we got in it for our last trip...it was starting to sink in that we were leaving soon, and every hour or so we'd pretend to cry and say "I don't want to leave!" As we headed into town we stopped at the Caneel overlook and took a picture of the two of us with Caneel Bay in the background.

In Cruz Bay

Once we arrived in town we filled up the Jeep at the Texaco station and realized we never did go to check out the Bordeaux overlook during the day or go check out the Westin. Returning the Jeep was painless. The Jeep looked good after having gone down the Lameshur Road a few days before. We walked around looking for somewhere to eat. Lara decided we should try to eat "cheap" on this night.

Margarita Phil's

There really isn't such a thing as far as I could see. I crossed my fingers as we approached the restaurant "Ten Tables." It shares a space with Chilly Billy's (another restaurant I've heard good things about but never got to check out). I've heard great things about Ten Tables, but it was too expensive for trying to eat cheap. We looked at Morgan's Mango, but it wasn't much cheaper. We settled on Margarita Phil's next door. It was good food. We got Conch Fritters, but they were nowhere as good as the ones at Cooper Island. Lara got a chicken quesadilla and I got a steak enchilada. Lara wasn't that impressed but I tried hers and it was good. Mine was very good. The service was good too, and it was fun eating on the porch. They have a stuffed nurse shark on the porch railing that was kinda neat.

It's kind of interesting that we took our first taxi on the last night we were on St. John. We were spoiled by the Jeep and would definitely recommend getting one if you really want to see the island. After arriving at Caneel we spent about an hour packing so that we wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning. I told Lara to wake me up at six since she tends to get up with the sun. I wanted to have one last snorkel...I still was bitter that I never was able to photograph a barracuda and I was hoping he might show up. I also didn't really get to savor the last snorkel because I didn't think about it being my last one.

Cinnamon Bay	Cinnamon Bay	Cinnamon Bay	Cinnamon Bay	Cinnamon Bay	Keeping it Real: Killer tan
Cinnamon Bay: Snorkeling around Cinnamon Cay	Cinnamon Bay	Caneel Bay grounds	Caneel Bay grounds	Caneel Bay grounds	Lara with our room in the background
Caneel Bay: One of those is our room	Caneel Bay overlook	In the Jeep: Driving on the left side of the road isn't that big of an adjustment	Lara's pic of a tree at the gas station	Cruz Bay sunset	Cruz Bay sunset
Cruz Bay sunset	Cruz Bay sunset