Hiking on St. John

At the Annaberg Plantation

Yesterday we decided to take a break from pure relaxation and head back over to St. John for some morning hiking.  We started out at Maho Bay and hiked over to Leinster Bay, where we took the Annaberg Trail up to the ruins of an old sugarcane plantation.  It was really cool to see everything from the slave quarters to the windmill and rum still.  There was also a guy there who cut open a few coconuts for us and gave us a taste of raw sugarcane (really good).  I also learned that cotton grows on trees!  Seriously, this could be another one of those "Jackson, you're an idiot" moments, but I never knew that cotton grew on a legitimate tree.  In the south you always see fields of cotton and it looks more like a bush.  Yet in the Virgin Islands, cotton grows on trees because they don't trim it or anything like that.  Who knew?

From the Annaberg Plantation we went back down to Leinster Bay and hiked the Leinster Bay Trail, which was really nice and followed the coastline of the island all the way around the bay.  Our ultimate destination was Coral Bay and our trip took us up and over a few "mountains" that provided great overlooks.  My personal favorite was a ruined house overlooking Leinster Bay from the peak of a small hill.  You could see 360 degrees from the remaining foundation and the view was just spectacular!  From this last set of ruins, the trail mostly followed one of the steepest and most ridiculous roads I've ever seen in my life.  It's amazing that people can even live on the sides of some of these mountains, much less access their houses with cars.

Finally we made it to Coral Bay which is as close to a town as you get on St. John once you leave Cruz Bay.  There was a neat Moravian Church that we walked past and the local goats had clearly been charged with keeping the grass in the cemetery and soccer fields short and manageable.

Kati at Skinny Legs

We stopped for lunch at a little bar called Skinny Legs that had great burgers and even better drinks.  I'm definitely getting my fill of overly sweet island drinks on this trip...but it's really hard to resist.  I became particularly fond of bushwackers at Skinny Legs...they're very good (and very potent).  As I would soon find out, the day was to be one of many coincidences.  The first came at Skinny Legs when Kati looked at me and said, "Jackson, they're Kentucky Colonels!"  Sure enough, hanging on the wall of the restaurant were two Kentucky Colonel certificates.  The second coincidence came when we hitched a ride from Coral Bay with a couple hailing from St. Louis.  We were making small talk and discussing college when we learned that the wife's nephew (I think) went to Wabash...and was a Sigma Chi!  It never fails to amaze me where the Wabash connections turn up around the world.  We ended up in Francis Bay, which was gorgeous and very peaceful.  We spent the rest of the afternoon there before heading back to St. Thomas for the evening.  Once again, we whipped up some fish tacos from our catch earlier in the week - blackened tuna and blackened rainbow runner.  Both were very good, but neither quite matched up to the Wahoo tacos from the night before.  

Me with the Kentucky Colonel Certificates

After dinner we went out for a bit in Red Hook.  We started in XO Bistro, but were quickly driven out by one of the most obnoxious people I've ever met in my life (obviously from NY or the like).  After a quick jaunt at ITP we decided to quell Wes's urge to visit Duffy's Love Shack.  It didn't even take getting a drink before even Wes had to admit that this tourist staple of St. Thomas may be one of the worst bars in existence.  We ended the night back at XO Bistro for one more drink before all of us turned in, exhausted from a long day of hiking.