Day 3 of our Eastern Caribbean Carnival Cruise Vacation 2009

We woke up docked at Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, and did our normal routine...take pictures of the island from the deck of the ship, eat a buffett breakfast with a couple Diet Cokes, and head out. From there we took a cab ride directly to the Red Hook ferry terminal...I grabbed a few El Presidentes from the bar while Tiff waited in line to get the tickets. The ferry only took about 15-20 minutes and we arrived at Cruz Bay in St. John.

From there we got on an open air taxi bus with about 8 other people. Another taxi driver hopped in a different taxi and said "Cinnamon Bay, On Our Way". I don't know what was so cool about that, but the way he said it had Tiff and I both laughing and obviously it meant something to us because I am writing about it...I guess you had to be there. Anyway, the taxi ride was quite interesting...between hanging on for dear life and trying to take pictures of the beautiful water and mountains. We were headed to beautiful Trunk Bay on North Shore Rd (Route 20). The views were beyond breathtaking. When we approached the last overlook near Trunk Bay, it was the exact view that I had seen a month earlier on two different tropical calendars back home in Illinois. I couldn't believe we were there, and it was even more beautiful in person. The view only lasted a few seconds as the driver sped as fast as he could to get us to Trunk Bay...so we weren't late...or whatever reason we had to get there so fast.

If I make it to heaven, I am hoping that it is Trunk Bay. I can't get into too many details because I don't even know how to describe it. We picked a spot on the beautiful white sand beach and set our stuff down, cranked up some Bob Marley tunes (like we always do), and drank our El Presidentes. We were about 300 yards from Trunk Cay which is surrounded by the underwater snorkelling trail. I made the swim out there with no fins on and had a hell of a time making my way back. We had cheeseburgers for lunch from the snack bar and spent some money at the little shop on some T-shirts and other souvenieers. We met a couple who was sitting next to us on the beach...he was originally from Chicago...now in Ohio, and his wife was from Poland. Of course we didn't exchange info, but maybe we'll see them again some day.

Sadly, we were only here for the day. We packed up our very obvious giant dark blue Carnival "yes I am from the ship" towels and waited for a taxi. We were slightly worried that we wouldn't make the ferry back to St. Thomas, but the nice taxi driver reassured us that had "Plenty a time to make da tree a clock ferry" so we relaxed and enjoyed the thrills of the open air taxi through the small mountain highway. At one point we had to stop because someone in the taxi ahead of us lost their luggage on the road.

When we got back to Cruz Bay, the local steel drum band was setting up at the park near the ferry terminal. The terminal attendant was obviously having a bad day because she yelled at me for not having a shirt on...and even yelled at Tiff that she better have a shirt on (she did of course). I took my shirt off again when we got up on the upper deck of the ferry, and believe it or not, the ferry terminal attendant borded the ferry just to yell at me again to put my shirt on. So, I did. The ride back was beautiful as the sun sank lower and made the water glimmer.

Back on the Carnival Victory, it got fairly choppy and started rocking back and forth. We ate dinner at Pacific dining room. i had salmon..wasn't that great but probably due to the many beers i drank throughout the day. Later in the evening we went to Kevin & Wendy's room to sit out on the balcony and smoke my Dominican cigar...water was very choppy and we seemed to be moving fast. After that we retired to the cabin for night.