St Thomas 2020
Day 5: Thursday, July 23
Up next...Day 5: Lindquist Beach snorkeling, swimming, food, and parasailing?
I was up at the crack of dawn again. I just don't know what it was during this vacation but there was no sleeping in for me. The hubby was always up shortly after me as well. Mr EeerkAeeerka was up and standing outside of our window. I mean why was it always our window he stood by?
I checked the weather and it looked like a beautiful day. We had reservations for parasailing at 4pm, so I was determined to head to ANOTHER beach today! I decided going over to Lindquist (Smiths Bay) beach would be in the cards for us because it was just basically next door. That way we could optimize our time there and head back when it was time for parasailing.
We had breakfast and I called to make sure Kendra was up and told her what the plans were going to be today. She said that B really didn't want to go to the beach and "spend all day there" and he'd much rather stay in the condo and just watch his video games. ARE YOU SERIOUS??? I informed her with or without her...I was going. She brought up the idea of maybe us going and she'd drop us off and then they'd come later. Um...no! I'm not trusting Miss LateToEverything to come back and get me when she should if they decided not to come. I told her they could just go now and we'd come back early instead. Same amount of time right?
We packed our lunch and beach towels and headed down to pick up Kendra and the crew. B was moping around and acting like this just wasn't something he wanted to do. But, guess what "you're going!"
Like I said, Lindquist is pretty much the next beach over. It's a 21 acre protected park that you have to pay to enter. There are no places there there sell food or drinks, so you have to pack your own. There are nice restroom facilities and showers and there are picnic tables in different places under the trees. The beach is pretty long so plenty of room to spread out. They also do have lifeguards there as well.
So we arrived, paid our admission of $5 per adult (kids are free) and were told we could drop off everyone and our items, but would have to come back up to the entrance to park and the driver walk back down. It's a bit of a haul for this driver so Billy and B decided they would drive back to park the van.
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We picked out our spot under the trees that had 2 picnic tables and set up our area...which really consist of throwing our things down and heading to the water!
One of the trees we sat by had a cactus growing around it. I thought that was a little strange.
The beach was beautiful...just how I remembered it last time we were there. Kendra immediately looked for the tree she had carved Billys name in last time we were there. But we looked and looked and I mapped it out and the branch was no longer there. A lot of the trees in the area had branches cut off of them and I imagine that it was one of them with all the carvings in it that time that was cut off. She was sad because she wanted to show Billy it...but it was 2016 when she did it I believe. So, chances were slim that it was going to be there anyhow.
I asked Sakari if she wanted to head out snorkeling and she was more than eager to go. She morphed into a mermaid and led the way. Now snorkeling here is not the greatest. This place is known for it's beautiful sandy beaches. But there is some snorkeling to the right (if you are facing the beach). So that's the way we headed. Out and to the right. The water clarity was not the best.
Like I said, it's not the best snorkeling and I did discover that the further OUT you went was not as good as being closer to the shore. So, we spent a lot of time in that area instead.
At one point I came up and asked Sakari if she was ready to head back in. She said yes and we went back under and I immediately found something to take a picture of and looked back up and she was GONE! Like totally GONE! She was almost up to the shore back where we started from and I mean that was far! I couldn't believe how quickly she went back. That fin gives her some speed! Maybe she really IS a mermaid.
By the time I arrived the mermaids had multiplied!
The kids decided it was time to build sand RESORTS (well, at least that's what Kam did). She had the main building and hotel area, then up on the hill were the condo's and it had a pool as well...only the pool wouldn't hold water well. LOL
Sakari and B decided to start working on their own. Only...I think were digging their way to China instead.
I stayed along the shoreline in search of seaglass. I was successful and found a few pieces and was happy that I managed to find a few brown pieces instead of the normal green ones. I found a few nice shells worth keeping as well.
Everyone had worked up an appetite and we decided to break out lunch and eat under the trees. I think the sound of food woke Billy up, who immediately threw down a beach towel on the sand under the tree and took a nap as soon as we had arrived. I mean after all, I'm pretty sure had been for maybe...2 hours at this point? LOL
Of course you can't do anything with the birds automatically becoming your new best friend.
After eating lunch, the hubby and I decided to walk down the beach. I needed to work off some of this lunch I had just had and actually wanted to see the area that Kendra and I had walked down to last time. There was an area that started getting a little rocky, but you could still get in the water and it was deep enough to snorkel. Then if you followed that right out to the buoy ropes, there was pretty good snorkeling there as well. So, off we went.
We went pretty far down and around the corner and it didn't look anything like the last time we were there. Everything was definitely rocky, but no areas that you could go in the water and it was very shallow.
Once my foot couldn't take it anymore. We turned around. It is so hard to walk on the beach when it's slopping and one foot is lower than the other. I struggled to get back and took frequent breaks along the way. Taking pictures of everything is always my excuse to stop and rest.
When we made it back, there were seagulls surrounding Sakari and B. Only my child would take a bag of chips out into the water. Seagulls must be able to spot food a mile away with those keen eyes.
As soon as we arrived, I was greated by Miss Repeat "Mamaw, where you been? Mamaw, where you been? Mamaw where you been?" Then the subject changed to "Will you take a picture of me jumping like you did that one time?" I couldn't believe she remembered that. It's been awhile. But hey...I'm game for giving it a shot.
One, Two...(jumps) No, wait until 3 Kam. Ok, One, Two, Th...(jumps)wait, not yet. One, Two, Threeeeee (finally jumps when she is supposed to) Perfect!
Kendra was laughing and of course my reply was...let's see you do it! No really...I really mean it! Kendra's always up for a challenge so of course she did it with Kam. Now I'm pretty sure that Kendra thinks the wider her mouth is open, the higher she will jump. I didn't want to spoil it for her.
A little bit of cooling off for Kendra, Kam AND BILLY! Wait, what?!? He was in the water? And up to his neck? Something is bound to happen at this point. He don't get in the ocean for anything. We make fun of him constantly and the time he decided he would get in the water when we were in Bermuda....don't you know he came out of the water bleeding and saying a fish bit him??? Of all the luck and us trying for so many years to get him in the water and telling him the fish aren't going to hurt him and that happens! Well, it's been many years since that incidence and he was willing to try it again.
It was around 2:30pm and we decided to pack up and leave. As we were packing, Sakari and Kam were dancing. I don't know where they come up with these dances but all of the kids seem to know it. This was not a good example but it was at least funny to watch them.
They have a lot of fun together. Actually all Sakari's neices and nephews love Aunt Sakari. I'm so glad they are close to her. Sakari and B have become really close lately and he stays with us a lot and they have so much fun making up dances and hand shakes and the kind of "patty cake" hand slaps. They have an entire routine. LOL
As soon as we arrived back at the condo, we got that dreaded call "Hello, Kim. This is Parasailing. I'm sorry but the winds have picked up too much to do parasailing today. I'm so sorry about this. This is not normal weather and I'm not sure what's going on. Do you want to try again tomorrow?"
Ugh! We had issues trying to parasail back when we went to Aruba and never got to do it. I wasn't hopeful at this point either. Will this ever happen for us? Maybe it was a sign that I'm not to do this! At this point, I told them I would let them know when we'd like to try to book again. I wanted to discuss our plans over with Kendra and see what we could come up with. I already knew they were booked solid for the next day so that was not an option.
After the bad news, we decided to just head to the pool for awhile. Gotta get more water time in somehow right?
I would find a spot and pretty much just rest and watch everyone. I really didn't feel like moving at the moment and it was so nice out.
The kids were busy doing anything and everything they could to bend the rules. Jumping off the walls, then they'd get yelled at. Then they came up with a solution to that...sliding down the handrail of the steps. #faceplant They are kinda to that age where you can't tell them "the cops are gonna come get you if you do that". Nope, they don't believe that story anymore. You also can't tell "ok, if you get hurt and they take you to the hospital, you are stuck here by yourself because we are going back home with or without you!" Nope, too smart for that too. Sigh Growing up is hard work for this momma/mamaw.
Kendra, Billy, and Kam were up at the top pool having some fun as well. Then it started to pour down and rain AGAIN! The clouds looked gloomy and it was so windy. I was glad that I hadn't got back in the pool because they looked pretty wet and cold up there after that. But hey, we were blessed with a rainbow. (We were honestly blessed with A LOT of rainbows during our entire stay because it would always rain off and on).
I decided I was going to take a walk on this side of the condo's. I hadn't really been down this way passed the pool. I headed down to the rocky gravel seashell area by the water. This side of the beach is all rocky and the waves are a little more prominent. It's not really a swimming area but the second week we were here I did see an entire family in there snorkeling. I don't think I would have felt comfortable snorkeling in there (or even making it out there passed all the rocks) and definitely wouldn't have wanted my child in there (they were younger than Sakari). But, I'm sure there's probably good snorkeling there.
I figured this would be an excellent place to look for shells and neat pieces. To my surprise, it was SEA GLASS HEAVEN!!!! I swear this must be the place where all sea glass comes to live. There's was tons of it. You just had to look closely in the sea of shells and rocks. I was SUPER excited that not only were there green ones, but I started finding DARK BLUE one's as well. I think I had read that the blue are somewhat rare. I also found some VERY light blue one's and I'll have to look those up. There wasn't many but on the STT fb boards, someone brought up seaglass and said that the light blue one's are possibly from the stopper top to old cologne or perfume bottles? Then I also found the normal green, some darker green (like a seafoam green), 2 colors of brown, white and some odd pink looking glass. I was so excited with my finds. My hands were full and I headed back to show Sakari and Kendra my pot of gold. Immediatley they both went out looking for more and Kendra was getting pretty serious about it and would sit down in one spot and dig and then move on to the next. LOL
I found a really neat something-or-other that had washed up on the shore. Sakari wanted me to take a macro shot of it.
While we continued to look for seaglass, we noticed Billy had walked down the beach and over toward the marina. We wouldn't find out until we came back that there was a boat accident and he went to go investigate. They had flipped their boat over, was wading in the water, their entire contents from their boat floating in the water and and another boat trying to rescue them.
Kendra and Billy would spend the next hour gathering everything that washed up on shore and taking it to one location where the boat actually ended up washing into the rocks at. They had hoped that the owner of the boat (hopefully not hurt) would return and find all their belongings in one place easing the pain of everything that had just happened. Yes, they have a good heart and it's not always fun and games with them.
Since it was starting to get dark...it must be what? 9:30pm? No wait, that would be back home. It was only 6pm here. We headed back to the condo for dinner.
We decided to cook out on the balcony. Our condo came with an electric grill so we were about to put it to use.
A couple of brats and some pasta salad.
Soon after we ate, it was shower time and bed. We watched a little tv and got involved in watching a show called scared and naked. I have never really been into shows like Survivor but there wasn't a lot on tv and this was on the channel we had been watching (with a lot of animals on it) and we became addicted during our stay here. LOL
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