Staying  in St Thomas but today...ST JOHN IT IS!! We have just went to Maho Bay and now we were on to a new beach. Then we arrived at Trunk Bay but first we seen there was a ruins across the street, so we stopped to walk around there before heading to the beach. 

Here's a picture of Trunk Bay from above. They say it's one of the most photographed beaches in the US Virgin Islands and I can see why. 

We made our way out to the beach. It is a bit of a walk (for me) but they did have sidewalks to walk on between the beach and sand across from it. So, that made it easy. We tried to locate a shaded area but most of the trees along the beach were already filled with people. It's double hard to find a place that you can remain 6' away from other people. 

​

We did see that across the walkway there were several picnic benches lined up and plenty of shade. Billy usually stays back and relaxes or naps so we figured we'd leave our things with him and me and the hubby grabbed our snorkeling gear and said we were headed out. Sakari didn't want to go and stayed back with them. 

​

I have to say this beach is GORGEOUS! And it's really big too. 

Now here's the map of the snorkeling area. We were all the way to the right.

We knew we needed to head out toward the big hill so that's what we did. 

So I'll show you around and I have to say this place was AMAZING!

​

The very first thing we came across while trying to make it out toward the hill was the very huge Permit Jack. Like it was massive. I had to get the hubby's attention to show him as it swam by us several times and then took off in the opposite direction we were going. These fish have massive crunching jaws to eat shrimp, crabs, shellfish and small fish. He looked a little intimidating to me with his mouth hanging out. "People are not food" I said as he swam by checking us out. 

Pictures never really show what you are seeing in person. Especially when you see something so big. It just looks like any other fish. So I decided to share this pic of it with part of my hubby's hand in it to show the size a little better.

 There was plenty of coral everywhere and fish as well. I'll just share a few pictures and then comment on the "specials" I found along the way. 

Now the one thing that I absolutely LOVE about Coki Beach in St Thomas is the purple tunicates. They are so vibrant and beautiful and I have maybe only found them one other place. Well, this place was LOADED with them. They were so pretty!

They also had some lighter purple colored one's too. 

We stumbled across a huge French Angelfish along the way too. It was pretty curious checking us out but wouldn't let us get too close. 

There were quite a few Puddingwife Wrasse's in the area and some were quite larger than almost all of the one's I had previously seen snorkeling around

the Caribbean.

I was able to snap a shot of a Ballyhoo. They like to swim at the very top of the water so they are hard to miss. Usually when snorkeling, you are not glancing upward but there were a lot of these both here and at Sapphire Beach. They are just very hard to get a picture of. You'll see it right above my name. They look like miniature swordfish.

The struggle was real on my attempted over/under pictures here. The water was not calm at all and was rushing in and out of the rocks from the other side. 

There were a lot of area's around the rocks that you could go up in and shallow but you had to be careful of the water rushing in and out around them. We didn't go too far in there and made sure we didn't get anywhere near the rocks.

When we decided to turn around, something very pretty caught my eye...it was a flamingo tongue snail. I have only seen these twice before. Once in 2010 in Cozumel and a year or so ago and I don't remember where. But you don't see them very often. They are so pretty and reminds me of a giraffe.

​

Then on the way back I noticed a group of squid. These were much bigger than the one's we had seen at Maho Bay. These are the size that we normally see when snorkeling. The hubby didn't notice them for awhile and tried to turn around quickly to let me know they were there...only I was already taking pictures of them. He doesn't seem to understand...I'm always on the look out for every little thing and usually spot things pretty quickly. LOL

As we made our way back, I noticed a "marker" in the water. I had forgotten that there was a snorkeling "trail" here. I'm honestly  not sure where it takes you but this marker what out more toward the area with not as many corals (the corals and colorful things were along the rocks by the hill). I also felt like it was too hard to read what they said because they looked a little old and decayed and they were pretty far down that you would probably have to dive down to actually see what it said. Also, the said was covering a lot of the one that I did see. If you look at the map I posted above, the trail looks like it's in a triangle shape. First heading up along the rocks and out and then back the opposite way (which wouldn't have much to see IMO). So how is this a snorkeling "trail"? You'd find more hugging along side the rocks. Right? I'm just left confused I guess.

We arrived back to the beach and found Kendra, Billy and Kam in the water (by the edge of course because fish aren't by the edge (rolls eyes) according to Billy and they won't bite them...and then Kendra and her puffy bips weren't letting any saltwater touch them. Kam was practicing her swimming of course.

Such a beautiful beach and big (long) with plenty of room to spread out. 

Since we were all out in the water, I was beginning to worry about our things so far away, sitting at the picnic bench, out of site. I said something to Kendra about it and she said that they had moved it down because when they were up there, there was a guy that was standing near by and watching them and it gave them an uneasy feeling. At one point, he came over and sat down at the table. ODD! They said when they decided to go out to swim, they just gathered their things and brought them all down to the beach. 

This is the area "above" at the beach and across the sidewalk where the picnic bench's were located.  So it's a bit of a ways from the beach. Also, once you cross the sidewalk, the beach (sand) goes down and you cannot see this area from the water.

It was about 2pm and I was satisfied with my snorkeling experience. Kendra stated "When are we leaving?" I told her we could leave at any time. She said she wanted some time to do some shopping. Of course I was anticipating hitting up one last beach (maybe not Hawksnest but at least Honeymoon Beach) but there just wouldn't be enough time to do that AND shop. They also stated they were hungry and would like to find a restaurant to eat at before heading back on the ferry. Ugh...they are just beach party poopers. This is so not my typical vacation that I'm use to. But, I had an awesome day snorkeling at some really pretty beaches and I guess that would have to do. Compromise!

​

Time to head out and they mentioned they had showers there so we headed that way. 

They had several buildings in this area (near the entrance), which had bathrooms, showers, and a foot wash area. Now some of us were rinsing off in the showers and others just wanted their feet. There were several people leaving about the same time we did and only certain showers were working good. There wasn't a line or anything but a few of us in our party waited outside some of the doors for others to finish. 

​

We had just finished rinsing off and was getting dried off at a bench and getting shoes on and some of the workers there were yelling "People are using too much water! I'm shutting it off!" And he went over and turned it off, while others were trying to shower and heading that way. There was one rather large man (large as in Arnold Schwarzenegger big) that was HIGHLY upset about it. Now there is a sign that said to conserve the water but all everyone was doing was going in and washing the sand and salt off. There wasn't anyone going in and out with shampoo and soap taking a bath! Like geesh!

Now I did want to mention that this is a pay beach. It is a National Park. Adults are $5 each and children under 16 are free. When we went up to the window (which had people in the little building) they motioned us on in. I'm not sure why they didn't charge us???

Here's a short video of our snorkeling day at Trunk Bay.