The Pier at Frederiksted

On the far west end of the island is Fort Frederik and the pier.  At the pier is where all of the cruise ships dock when visiting the island.  The pier is a fun spot to go snorkeling and a great place to watch sunsets.  Swimming at the pier gives me the willies because you're swimming in and out of huge sixty foot pylons and you never know whats around the corner, but there is plenty of cool stuff to see.  It is also how we introduce people who come to visit.  Frederiksted is pretty boring and not worth making a day trip too if you only have a few days on island, however it is close to the airport.  So we'll pick people up from the airport and drive out to the pier to go jump off of it.

Tide Pools

Wednesdays  are the only day that all three of us have off together, so we try and make the most of them.  One Wednesday we went to the tide pools on the west end.  You have to hike to get to them.  Normally it is about a forty minute hike, but we managed to get lost and turned that forty minutes into a two hour hike.  Overall the tide pools were cool and it was something worth checking out.

Bio-luminescence

Located in the Salt River Marina is a bay that has bio-luminescences?  Bios are organisms in the water that light up when touched.  Drew, a few co-workers from the Pelican, and I went to go do the tour one night.  Our tour guide was a crazy hippie named Ty.  He made the trip.  We kayaked over to the bay to see the bios.  It was a full moon and we had a bottle of rum.  We kayaked throughout sail boats across the marina.  It felt like a scene out of Pirates of the Caribbean.  The bios themselves were completely different from what we were expecting but still very cool.  How it works is that you do not actually see different things light up, just the water where you make movement glows.  So when you put your hand in the water and made movement for about two feet where you moved your hand, the water would glow for a couple seconds.  We all jumped out of the kayaks and swam around the bay which was awesome.  You were lit up as you swam.  There was one also a species of jellyfish that when touched would glow.  Unfortunately bios are hard to catch in pictures unless with a super high tech camera. After the bay we kayaked over to an abandoned ship.  A rich lawyer was building this lavish boat with all custom mahogany decor inside.  During the middle of the project something went wrong and he left island.  We had a great time on the boat messing around and walking the plank.  People call it the Dragon Ship due to the symbol on the back.

Guardrail

Guardrail is a small beach on the way to Point Udall.  We have snorkeled there a couple times and have always seen interesting stuff.  There are patches of sand and coral heads spread out through the beach.  Guardrail also has an awesome little cove tucked away behind some cliffs.  We came across by accident when we noticed it from the water.  It would be a great place to have a campfire.

The quality of the videos on here are pretty bad. But felt it was worth uploading.

The elusive amateur danselfish.  In my opinion this is the coolest fish we have seen.  It is also the most difficult to get a picture of.  I probably took close to thirty pictures before finally getting a decent one.  

That is conch shell being dropped on the ray to get it to move.

The cove from the beach.

Beached Whale.  This is how big the cove is.  Sand goes for another five feet behind where Drew took this picture.