Day 7 - St. Thomas

We woke up early to find we were still at sea. We came into St Thomas around 8am and docked in Crown Bay shortly after that. We gathered our snorkeling gear and headed down to Deck 5 and waited for the ship to clear. We disembarked around 8:15am and met our snorkeling guide. We had a short walk across the pier and boarded the "Dancing Dolphin" catamaran.


We set sail for a 25 minute boat ride to Buck Island. Here is a picture taken from the catamaran of the Noordam (right) and Emerald Princess (left).

Here is our first snorkeling site at Buck Island. Buck Island is part of the Capella Islands about 2 miles south of St Thomas. Buck Island is also a National Wildlife Refuge. We also saw a lighthouse here that is owned and operated by the Coast Guard. We saw several turtles and lots of fish.

Getting out the way of incoming traffic

A stingray swimming by

Marine life

Sea Turtle

Our 2nd snorkel stop, other side of Buck Island


We saw two sunken ships (one was a junk and the other was an old cruise ship). Here, scuba divers are surveying the ship.

Scuba divers were forcing fish to swim near the surface



Here we are at Honeymoon Beach, our 3rd stop. This wonderful beach is located on Water Island, right off of the West Gregerian Channel and close to Crown Bay. We take a leisure break here for about 2 hours and enjoy lunch, the beach and the lovely blue water.

The "Dancing Dolphin" at Honeymoon Beach



DH finds a conch shell, complete with living conch inside

View from Honeymoon Beach

Leaving Honeymoon Beach

Arriving back to Crown Bay


Once we got back to the dock (6 hours later), we headed back to the ship to drop off our snorkeling gear. We left the ship to take a taxi over to Havensight to visit a dive shop. Havensight was quiet as there wasn't a cruise ship docked there. So, our dive shop was closed as well as half of the other shops. I did visit my favorite store to get my "Sandals" pendant. I didn't have to haggle negotiate with the sales person...I got a really great deal. Tip: go to Havensight when there are no ships docked there. The stores are willing to give a better deal. Better for them to sell something, then nothing at all.

We had an awesome day in St Thomas. We've been here several times and this was our best snorkeling excursion in St Thomas and probably the best one on this cruise. DH thinks so. I still love snorkeling in Bonaire.

We were sad to leave this beautiful island. We were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day and looking forward to some Zzzzzzzzs.

I know we headed to the Caribe Cafe for dinner. I just can't remember what we ate for dinner.