Thursday, March 26, 2026
We had the best day yesterday!! It felt so good to just put all that travel stress behind us and start enjoying the trip.
As I mentioned, the morning started off slooooowly. We spent a long time on the screen porch/decks. (Our place has 3 outdoor decks plus our huge covered screen porch.)
Asher checking something from school, I think:
My morning tea:
Once we got moving it took quite a bit longer than I had hoped to get everyone situated and out the door, but oh well.
Finally heading out of our VRBO. This place is FULLY stocked with tons of beach towels, chairs, snorkel stuff (we brought our own, though, for some of us), coolers, and more. It’s perfect.
First up, Cinnamon Bay Beach. The drive. Eeks the drive!! From our place, it was a winding, super steep drive, with a million hair pin turns. I can see why most people rent Jeeps here! We couldn’t fit 6 in a Jeep though so our trusty minivan rental has had to step up. lol.
We made it though. Snagged a great parking spot (Ivan is a lucky parking wizard and literally always has a spot open up right in front of him even in crowded places…).
Parking at beaches on St John can be sort of an issue in general. Most of the island is protected National Park and it’s very rustic. There just are not enough spaces! Some beaches only have a handful of spots. So far, we haven’t had an issue though. Many people do use taxi transport too, which helps.
Cinnamon Bay Beach:
I loved this beach! It is soooooo beautiful!
Ruins at the entry:
Ethan. Look at that water!!!!!!!
Heaven.
With my parents!
We walked way down to one end and found a nice shady spot under some trees. The other end of the beach was moderately busy, but really not bad at all.
Our end was pretty sparse, which as you know, is what I prefer!
We had a visitor!!
We spent several hours here. I spent almost the entire time swimming!! Asher and I swam WAY down the beach and then snorkeled out to that little island (left side of pic below).
Directly out from our chairs was beautiful, but not much to see in the water. Turns out the reef was on the other end.
I enjoyed this so much. First, we actually swam swam to get down there- like, freestyle swimming. It felt good to move and exercise after the travel day. The rest was mostly floating/snorkel swimming but then we also swam back.
I was tired in a good way after. 🙂 We saw lots of really cool fish!
After a little break, I swam around to the left side. There were big rocks on the beach and jutting out into the water, but I could see sand stretching out past them. I wanted to go see what that was! I swam over and Asher hiked over the rocks instead.
Turns out there was more reef over there and the swim there was cool. It wasn’t super far.
From the little deserted beach! It was gorgeous. I didn’t have my phone obviously but Asher did.
Later Ivan and I walked down the beach to take some pics at the ruins. Cool photo op spot!!
On the way back we saw this cute donkey on the beach! 🙂 adorable!!
Finally we decided to pack up and move on to another beach. It was already late afternoon due to our late start.
Hopped in the car and drove down to this lookout:
Jumbie Beach
Next we stopped at Jumbie Beach. This is the beach where my sister got married!!! Almost 19 years ago now. I was there! 🙂
We wanted to show the boys, but there are only like 4 parking spots at this beach. So we weren’t sure if it would work, but lucky us- one was open.
It’s a short hike down and then this:
My sister got married down at the far end (see pic above). Happy memories!
We hadn’t unpacked all our stuff and only stayed a short while. We still wanted to try snorkeling at one other beach.
Hawksnest Beach:
Our next stop down the road was Hawksnest Beach. I had read there was some good snorkeling here and I wanted to do some more.
It was a really beautiful spot too. Not busy at all! It was later in the afternoon, like 4-4:30 too, which I am sure helped.
Stunning! 😍
I then left my phone in the car and we did more snorkeling! Even my dad got in this time.
I loved this whole experience! The boys, my dad and I snorkeled way out to this reef that had a lot of really cool fish, plus we even saw several sea turtles. Asher saw a shark!!!! 😳 (He came sprinting back towards me and I yelled at him for swimming so fast because he was going to scare the fish away and he was like I saw a big shark!!!
A lady who seemed experienced near us assured him it was (probably) just a docile nurse shark. Um, ok… I’ll take your word for it… 😬 I was a tad jumpy for a few minutes but we never saw it again.
The views from the water when I’d pick up my head, of the water and the sun and the greenery, were just out of this world. One of those super special moments for me to be out there with the boys like that, experiencing this! 🥰
We finally headed back to our VRBO. The original plan was to hurry up and clean up and try to make it to this one restaurant nearby that is supposed to have great sunset views.
Well, we realized- wait, our place also had great sunset views!!! Let’s not hurry and just enjoy this first, and then go out for a later dinner after dark.
I cut some cheese and crackers and Ivan and my dad had a beer (I had some tea) and we sat out and enjoyed the view for a long while.
Look at the beautiful progression of the view:
We all quickly showered and got ready to go for dinner:
We drove back down the winding roads to Cruz Bay. We didn’t really have an exact destination in mind but I had pulled up a few options.
Ended up parking in a lot up an insanely steep hill (omg I thought our van was going to like tip over backwards!!) and going to Lovango Rum Bar.
There were tables open but we had to wait briefly if we wanted one outside. The bar area was super cute!
We got drinks:
Only waited a very short time for our outdoor table. Loved this place!! Super fun vibe and the food was great. Turns out they specialized in pizza which Ivan had actually been in the mood for, anyway- but we hadn’t found any dedicated “pizza places” really when we searched… so this was a lucky find. It was great.
March madness on the TVs, too:
Sorry, photo overload- it was nice lighting for pics!!
The BEST key lime pie!! Yum. We shared.
The restaurant (upstairs):
After dinner we walked over by the water and stepped into the Beach Bar which was very lively and had very loud live music playing. Turns out it was this local band’s final show before they were splitting up (a couple guys headed to Nashville, one guy I’m not sure, and the drummer was apparently headed to rehab, they said, to “get cleaned up”. And much needed- he was clearly stoned out of his mind. 😝 ) They were really good, though! lots of local people from the bar industry seemed to be there as well to see them off. It was a VIBE!! lol.
We stayed for the final 30 min or so, mostly just hovering kinda by the doorway and listening. We didn’t get drinks even or anything.
Getting photobombed by this couple as I tried to take a selfie with Asher:
The real version:
Then, the drive back up the hill to our home away from home, some more sitting on the patio while researching a few things on my phone. Went to bed way too late after midnight but what a wonderful wonderful day!!!!! 😍
GRATEFUL KAE 