St John

Every year, the Reich family spends the second to the last week in a villa on top of St John in the Virgin Islands. I have been lucky enough to be invited have spent four years now vacationing in the Carribean.

A welcome spelled out in shells was waiting for us when we drove up to the villas. I can't remember what it spells out at the bottom. I believe it's Sunset Ridge Villas, which is the name of the time share.

Even the shells welcome you...

The door to one of the villas

The view to the south over looking St John

The view south east. It was more impressive in person.

Ben and Batya drying off after a swim. You can see St Thomas in the background.

I believe this was the fifth screening of 101 Dalmations.

We always take one day to go out sailing with a local sailing tour captain by the name of Captain Phil. He takes us out to remote snorkeling locations. This is usually the trip that makes me forget about my life in New York.

Here's a picture of Captain Phil. We're just beginning to leave the St. John harbor. We've always been very lucky weather-wise on our boat excursions. I believe that one year we had a little bit of ran on the way back, but it always returned to sunny very quickly.

Here we are leaving the St John harbor. That's Captain Phil.

Here's a picture of David as we're anchoring near an island.

Here we are at anchor at one of our stops.

These photos were taken during a day at our favorite beach spot, Trunk Bay. It's right next to the more exotically named "Cinnamon Bay", so I've used that name for the journal entry. We found this bay one day when we were at Cinnamon Bay and David and I rented a kayak and paddled over here. The water is not too rough, it's not too crowded, the snorkleing's not too bad...this would definitely be the beach that Goldilock's would pick.

Trunk Bay

Our camp is set up.

Everyone's relaxed. It's hard not to be.

More sunscreen.

The favorite Reich Family dining destination is Chateau Bordeaux. It's a little French restaurant in the middle of the island at the top of a mountain.

The viewpoint giftshop.

Pose #1

Pose #2

I never seem to get tired of snorkeling in St. John. Unfortuantely, these photos do not capture how much there is to see underwater.

This pictures probably look like no big deal. It's a shame because I was looking at hundreds of fish of the brightest colors I had ever seen. Apparently, the magnificence of tropical fish doesn't show up when using a disposable underwater camera. Go figure.