HOTEL ON THE CAY

We are headed back to Christiansted and going to take the ferry over to Hotel on the Cay. I've heard it was pretty over there with good snorkeling. I knew I had to check it out.

 We parked at the historical parking lot and it said it was a paid parking area. However, it was broken and we didn't have to pay. We grabbed our beach towels and snorkeling equipment and decided to leave the cooler and snacks in the car. I'm glad we did because we would learn that you are not allowed to take those items over to the island and it was a bit of a haul across the grounds to get over to the dock anyhow.

Once at the dock, there's an area where you wait for the boat shuttle. It's like a 2 minute ride over to the island so waiting is never long.

When you arrive to the island, there's a dock you walk down and a building you have to walk into. This is where you pay to come to the island. It is $5/pp for adults and children 12 and under is $1.

We started following a path that led to the beach. They had rentals if you wanted: Lounge chairs $10. Umbrellas $15 and Cabanas $25. We weren't quite sure yet as we wanted to check out the area first so we declined.

They also had an area that was a restaurant, although I don't believe it was open yet.

It was a pretty large beach with several palm trees...and a few iguanas.

We found a spot with chairs under the palm trees. These didn't look like the chairs that you rent so we figured if they didn't say anything to us, this would be our spot. There was another couple that came over with us on the boat, and they did the same thing beside us.

The water was CRYSTAL CLEAR!

The beach itself only seem to have a small area that didn't have any sea grass that you could hang out in and it wasn't very deep. The kids decided that's what they would do.

You know me...I would have to grab my snorkeling gear and head out. I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone with no pictures. There was an area that looked like a "trail" in the water and that's the way I headed. The entire area was pretty shallow (maybe 1-2' of water at any given time) and nothing but sea grass went on forever.

I found a cylinder block in the water and decided to explore in and around it. I mean with this much open space, there had to be something hiding in it for safety right? Yep, I found an Arrow Crab and a Sharpnose Puffer.

Another cylinder block has some coral and small Damsels hanging out around it.

A few random pictures here and there, but there was nothing exciting.

Then I came across this thing...no clue what it was but it has some coral/sponge growth with more baby fish around it. Since I really didn't see any bigger fish in this area, I can only assume the babies were dropped off at fishie daycare and the parents left for the day.

I did spot a few barracuda and decided to vacate the premises. I wanted no part of that!

I had managed to go around a corner and since I was by myself (which I don't like), I decided to just turn around and head back where I could be seen. This didn't look like the snorkeling I like to do and for some reason I was feeling itching...as a matter of fact stingy sensations all over my body. I had been ignoring it for awhile thinking maybe it was the grass but now I was starting to have second thoughts about the "grass" brushing up against me.

Ouch, ouch, ouch...what the heck. I would get out of the water and head up to our chairs only to find that I had several whelps on my legs and arms. I DID NOT see anything out there but there definitely was something stingy in the water. I was quite uncomfortable after that.

The kids were still out in the water cooling off. Man was it hot!

We had an iguana hanging out by us.

I figured I would head down to where the kids were and hang out for awhile. Sakari was trying to teach Karl to float...it was pretty unsuccessful I might add. I wanted to let them know "there's something in the water" just to watch Karl jump up real quick and run for the beach.

I decided to walk around and take some pictures of the area. I really didn't want to be in the water after getting stung multiple times.

The kids came walking back and Karl was still worried about the "stinging" in the water. He was determined to try to find the culprit...unsuccessful again.

Yep, he's still sporting the hubby hat. The hubby won't be getting it back any time soon I'm sure.

Karl kept asking if I was ever going to book our excursion to Buck Island. He was excited to do some "ocean" snorkeling. So, I gave them a call and booked for tomorrow. They said they would email me the waivers to sign and I went ahead and paid with them while they were on the phone. I let Karl know it was now booked so he could prepare himself with a barf bag for the boat ride over (remember last time while whale watching and scuba diving from the boat? It didn't go over well). He assured me he would be "fine".

It was just so hot and I was on fire where I was stung and the kids didn't want to get back in the water after that so we decided to just pack up and leave. It really wasn't what I thought it would be over there. Plus, they were now cooking at the restaurant (bbq) and Karl's nose was in over drive. I knew I should probably get him back to the car so we could eat some yummy sandwiches. 🤣 They couldn't resist walking over to the restaurant to have a look on the way out (I'm sure to try to convince me of how great it smelled and how our bellies would appreciate it...only I didn't walk in there...I kept going straight HA!)

As we walked back into the building to the boat dock, the lady at the desk said "Are you guys really leaving already? You just got here". I showed her my whelps on my arms and legs and she's like "Oh, gosh, I hate to hear that. There's been several people complaining about that recently and several kids were stung yesterday as well." Well just awesome. They couldn't have told me that when we arrived?

It only took a few minutes for the boat to arrive and we were back on and headed across the water.

Here's a short video of the island and beach area: