Hi. I'd like to say thank you to everyone who offered advice and suggestions prior to our trip. We used your suggestions while planning our vacation and while we were on St. John, as well. Thanks!

We (me, my husband and our 4 kids) stayed at Surfside villa on Reef Bay. It was lovely. (it's a 3 bedroom, 3 bath house) It was a short (5 minutes?) walk down to a sandy/rocky beach. The beach wasn't good for swimming but it supposedly has some really good snorkeling when it's not too rough. Unfortunately the water was rough all of the days that we were there.

There was construction going on at the house next to ours but it never really disturbed us. At first I was annoyed by the construction and thought the villa rental agency really should have warned us about it...but we weren't at the house much and even when we were the construction noises never bothered us. (Maybe if we were late sleepers I'd feel differently. The crew did arrive each week day at around 7:30, but most of us were up before then-except my 13 year old-but he can sleep through anything!)

Overall we liked the island. It wasn't nearly as lush as we had anticipated. We asked about this and were told that this is the dry season on the island. Everything looked pretty brown and kind of sparse. We just weren't expecting that at all after seeing pictures of the island prior to the trip.

The water views around the island are beautiful. All of the views are! It was so nice to look out and view the various islands and cays out in the water. It was interesting driving around the island. The hills and curves! And our rental jeep had the squeakiest brakes we'd ever heard! The first day that was unnerving but we didn't even notice the squeaking by the end of the week.

We knew when choosing this island that we would have to drive to get to the various beaches. We thought that the snorkeling would make that worthwhile but in the end we really didn't think that the snorkeling was extraordinary. Now having said that I should say that we obviously didn't hit every beach! We went to Francis Bay and we saw a turtle but the day we were there the visibility was very poor. Only myself and one of my sons could actually make it out in the water. At Salt Pond we saw 3 turtles, which was great, but we didn't see much else. Cinnamon Bay was very windy the day we were there. I didn't even go in the water. Too cold! My husband and 2 of my sons swam out to the island and thought the snorkeling was "pretty good." It was a long swim though.

What we kind of took away from the various beaches is that they are all beautiful to look at but rather crowded. For us it was usually a bit of a drive to get to them...and then the snorkeling wasn't right there. You often had to swim pretty far out to find anything to see. We went to Trunk-which we all liked but left after it started to get way too crowded. We tried Caneel, as well, but weren't very comfortable there. It felt like you were intruding on other people's vacations! I would never pay all that money to stay at Caneel and then have people traipse onto "my" beach with their beach chairs and supplies. Yikes! It wasn't appealing to us at all...and we left.

Our favorite day was the day we chartered a sailboat. (a half day sail) It was just the six of us and it was great! The captains (there were 2!) were a husband and wife named Gary and Joan and they made us all feel very relaxed and comfortable on their gorgeous boat. We went out to Lovango Cay and there was some very nice snorkeling there. (Very pretty coral and interesting fish.) The boat was called Bread on the Water and again, it was agreed by all that this was our best St. John adventure. What a wonderful day!

Other highlights: The donkeys! (so cute!) We saw a mongoose! The huge hermit crabs.

Thanks for the trip report! I have a feeling that previous rough weather before your arrival on St. John was contributing to the low visiibility in your snorkeling. I just got back from the British Virgin Islands and was told that just two days before our arrival there, there had been terrible storms, with 20 foot seas--really wreaking havoc with the regatta that week. While I'm glad we escaped that kind of weather, it was still windy during our trip and the water was still fairly murky. During that trip I was cold in the Caribbean for the first time. I had to gather my courage and make myself swim one day because I was feeling a little chilly even before I went in the sea!

Thanks for the trip report. Sounds like you had a nice time. Not sure when you were there, but right after St Patrick's Day, the islands had some unusually large swells. The pictures I saw looked more like The North Shore of Hawaii than the Caribbean. The beaches were pretty much gone from the swells. I saw a short video of Trunk Bay with virtually no beach. I'm sure the coral took a beating.

I agree that the island has been looking pretty brown lately. It's normally very lush and green.

ej, The News of St John, (Frank Barnako's web site) reports cooler than normal temps this winter. Coupled with the previous rough seas, I would have been feeling cold too.

Is heavy surf usual in the spring? DH and I are planning a trip for early April 2009 and want to snorkel as much as possible.

jcjc: Thanks for the trip report. It's always great to read someone's first impressions. One of the problems for first time visitors is that they do end up going to the famous northshore beaches most and those popular beaches do attract more people. We make it a rule not to go to the northshore (except Maho or Francis) between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. because that is when the cruise ship people pile in. Also, while snorkeling is easy entry in many cases, you do need to swim out if you are going to see much. The exception being Hawksnest. Weather is always unpredictable but April is usually plenty warm. It's actually my favorite time because the winter swells are over, the water is warmer and clearer, and it's not the high season. STJ is definitely not as remote and underdeveloped as it was even 5 years ago, but it is still very beautiful and there are still many wonderful, secret spots which are not readily found by the average tourist/visitor.

We knew through our research that the best time to get to the various beaches was early. As I said in the trip report, we thought the snorkeling would be a lot better than we found it to be. We were thinking that great snorkeling would offset the inconvenience of having to get up early and get to the beaches before everyone else.
We had a nice vacation but found that St. John wasn't an exact match for us. (It seems that most people know you have to get to the beaches early! They seemed to always be more crowded than we would have liked.) It was fun driving around the island and seeing it's beauty but it's not a trip we would repeat.