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We woke up at around 8:00 a.m. and made coffee and ate cereal. We got ready for to go to Coki Point Beach, our favorite beach on the island. We left the room shortly before 11. Coki is a fun and funky beach where the locals will sell or rent you just about anything. When we arrived, a guy helped us to park and walked us to the beach. He introduced us to his friends, who rented us snorkel equipment ($10 per person) and beach chairs ($5 apiece). A West Indian woman fitted us with the snorkel gear as her toddler ran around happily. We were each given a MilkBone to feed the fish. A guy set up our chairs in the shade near the Coral World Aquarium end of the beach. We have never sat on this side of the beach before, and thought it would be nice to have a whole new perspective. A waiter named Miko came by and took our drink orders. He suggested a fruity strawberry frozen drink and we ordered a round. He asked where we were from and when we said Boston he said "I'm from Wiss-ta!" (Worcester). We knew that he was our man and that he would take good care of us.
After enjoying our drinks we went snorkeling. The weather was very sunny and we snorkeled near the rocks and coral on the right hand side of the beach. The fish were swarming around us. If we held the MilkBone out a bunch of the fish would come and nibble at it out of our hands.There were tons of fish and even a small (3 foot) shark-like fish which Steve hand-fed and touched. It was amazing how close it would come. We learned afterwards that this was a remora, or "sharksucker". It had a prominently visible pattern on its head that looked like it had been stepped on by a sneaker. This is actually a suction cup, with which the remora attaches itself to sharks and other sea creatures larger than itself. It feeds on the scraps from the larger fish's meals. This was different than any fish we had ever seen while snorkeling in the past, and it was quite interesting. After a while we headed back to shore. We ordered jerk chicken wraps with fries and another round of drinks from Miko. We sat in the sun and ate our sandwiches. We then relaxed for a while and Gina got her hair braided. Craig and I went back into the water and saw a little coral and some fish, but no more remora. When we were through, we gave the leftover MilkBones to some other snorkelers. We sat on the beach and enjoyed some people-watching. Miko introduced us to Lindsay, one of the beach waitresses. We ordered a round of brown monkey frozen drinks from Miko. As we were packing up at around 3:00, a band called Shark and the Blaze started playing some funky music about Coki Point Beach. We wished they had started earlier, as they lent to the party atmosphere. Gina and Roger had never been to St. John, and today would be their only chance. Craig, Steve, and I had been there several times and we opted for some low-key lounging at Secret Harbour. We dropped them off at the ferry and then headed back to the hotel. We got to the dive shop just before closing and rented gear for the the Island Hop the next day (snorkel gear was $10 per person for the day). Then we went back to the room. We looked for Patriots game on TV, but it wasn't on so we watched Bears and Tampa Bay while we soaked up the gorgeous view from our sliding glass doors. We took showers and Craig and I headed down to the beach to watch sunset. He sat in a lounge chair and I laid in a hammock. Gina and Roger were enjoying the same sunset from St. John, though their time was a little more stressful as they sat on a cactus. On our walk back to the room, we encountered a cute little gecko and I snapped a few photos. Afterwards we went inside and watched some of another football game (Giants/Seahawks). Gina and Roger took the 7 o'clock ferry back to Red Hook and we picked them up around 7:20. We talked to Marty on the phone and told him that we were all set for tomorrow's Island Hop. We would meet him and Tiff first thing in the morning at Marina Market to buy supplies. We called Agave Terrace, one of our favorite restaurants, and made a 9:00 reservation. When we arrived we were seated at a nice table with fish napkin rings. Our waiter pulled out my chair and put our napkins on our laps. Craig and I both ordered the same thing: combo dinner with Chef Nakata's jerk chicken and two hockey puck sized crab cakes with sweet potato stuffing and garlic mashed potatoes. Crab cakes from Agave Terrace are one of my favorite foods, and I was happy to see that they were on the menu this year. Gina and I ordered a cocktail recommended by the waiter. It was called Desmond Delight and contained lime juice, Midori, Cruzan rum and pineapple juice. Craig got a painkiller. We were given free samples of mufungo, a stuffing-type concoction made of plantains. We then had fresh out of the oven pepperjack biscuits. The food was delicious and the service was really great. Almost too good to be true. We all had quite a bit of food left over, and asked to get it wrapped up. Everyone else's leftovers were brought out all packaged up and put on our table. Mine never arrived. I reminded the waiter and he got a panicked look on his face and rushed back to the kitchen. He was apologetic when he returned, and said that my leftovers had gotten thrown away when they were cleaning up the kitchen, and the kitchen was now closed so they couldn't make me a replacement. With the price of meals, that half a crab cake that went missing was worth something. Not to mention the fact that I dream about Agave Terrace crab cakes, and was looking forward to enjoying the leftovers. Oh well, it would give us a lot to laugh about. We noticed that the agave flower for which the restaurant was named was not there. We asked about it and were told that it died and they had to get rid of it. That was a shame, because it had been decorated with white lights as an island Christmas tree in the past. Agave plants only flowers once in their life (after 25 years), so this was a major loss. We got back to the room around 10:20 and watched some more football (Jets vs Saints) until we all grew tired and went to sleep. |
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