Caribbean

The moon is nearly full and casts lots of light here in the evening; here is the Moon; and here is our moonlit view; note the bright patch on the ocean which must be non-cloudy sky!

Yesterday Margaret and I flew from Boston via San Juan to St Thomas in the US Virgin islands, rented a Jeep and took the ferry to St Johns where we were met by Bob, who took us on a short tour of the island before guiding us to our home for the next week, the beautiful and peaceful Moon Cottage.
High on a hill with very steep and narrow roads to reach it (hence the Jeep) but well worth it once you get there – look at the views:

This view is available always, even when you’ve just woken up:

Even at night it’s beautiful (though at night very noisy with all the tree frogs and other night animals!):

Inside is lovely too – these pictures from when we arrived last night, and a few outside, this morning:

This is the view from our room, perched right at the top of a steep hill on the ocean’s edge, in the Point Pleasant Resort on St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean! The downside of this view was the incredibly steep roads and paths to get anywhere in the resort – after one day we rented a car so that we could get around! Another reason was that the resort had no restaurants offering breakfast, only one for lunch (and with not a very wide menu choice); I supposed we could have cooked, since our room had a kitchen …

Here’s our room, from a nearby road – you can see how high it is (our room is top right on the rightmost building):

 

St. Thomas was quite strange; it’s single main town catered primarily to cruise ship tourists, offering loads of jewelry shops! Elsewhere the island was all hilly with steep twisty roads, regular chances to bottom out part of the car, and a cross-section of different homes, run down areas, etc … but the views were so spectacular that any downsides were forgotten!

Another highlight was touring Coral World, with it’s sting rays, sealions, lorikeets and an underwater viewing area:

Then there was the amazing sight of watching weather roll in across the ocean – here it’s raining over part of St. Johns (another nearby U.S. Virgin island):

And, eventually, we found a nice (but tiny) beach where we could swim in the warm blue-green waters of the Caribbean ocean: