We had one last full day with the US Virgin Islands. Tomorrow morning we will be packing our bags and our sunburns and heading to the airport. We had scheduled this day to do one thing….. Sail with Ryan Diehl. Chris and Ryan have know each other for many years. It goes back to when he was a drummer in Annapolis, Maryland. Every single trip since 2019 we have scheduled one “Boat Day” with Ryan and his charter company Sail With Justice. It is ALWAYS a highlight of our trip.
Rick starts to sing “I’m sailing away….” We stopped him.
This year we had one request, to swim with turtles. Ryan said “OK, lets go see some turtles”. We left Yacht Harbor in St. Thomas and headed for Honeymoon Beach on St. John. The ride was a little bit choppy but the views from sea level are always amazing. As Ryan said to me, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.
Ryan “Captain Chesapeake” Diehl is the REAL DEAL!
We moored at Honeymoon Beach and Ryan dingyed us to the beach. He brought his snorkel gear and he turned to me and said, “lets find some turtles” 15 minutes later we were watching turtles living the life in the Caribbean ocean. We watched them eat grass, swim and saw them come up for air. It was wonderful.
Jason is our second mate for this afternoon. We did not call him Gilligan once…. (well not to his face)
We swam with the turtles for a long time. We then came back to the boat for a rest. The band hung out with Ryan and his assistant Debra. We had lunch and listened to the album we recorded in Las Vegas during the pandemic. You can listen to it here. It was surreal. It allowed us to celebrate everything we accomplished in the 2 1/2 years since our last visit.
This is a rare picture of Chris without his Resting Bass Face. Who knew?
We then made another quick snorkel stop before heading back to St. Thomas. The sail back was all that and a bag of chips. Ryan dropped us off and we made the 4 PM ferry back to St. John.
The Caribbean Summer looks so good on Debra.
We stopped at the St. John Spice Company for some last minute souvenirs. We walked down to the Beach Bar for one last round of Painkillers and to say goodbye to the Beach Bar.
Goodbyes are hard…. really hard.
We drove back to the Jaguar Villa for our last dinner together. Chef Rick made us a grilled chicken dinner that was the best meal we had all week. In a word, spectacular. We then got to the band tradition of answering 6 questions as a way of reliving the best memories of our trip. It turns out there were many great memories. We said our long goodbyes with big hugs since Jason and Chris were on a later flight and probably would not be out of bed when we left.
Did we mention that Rick is also a good singer?
Jason and Chris went to the Beach Bar one last time to say another goodbye to the amazing staff. We will always remember how they welcomed us, danced with us, sang with us and drank with us. They are one big fat reason why the Beach bar is world famous. Well done Reed Compton… well done.
Jason made a quick stop at the Quiet Mon Pub to have one last toast with the locals and to say goodnight to St. John.
Goodbyes are hard…. really hard.
This is not a picture of Beavis and Butthead.