Jamie and Mona
Our trip to Calabash Cottages couldn’t have been better from start to finish. Prior to departure, Susan and Diane made sure that all of our travel arrangements were coordinated. They arranged for a private driver to pick us up at the St Thomas airport to drive us to the Red Hook ferry dock and for a second driver, or greeter, to meet us at the Cruz Bay, St John ferry dock. And, when I phoned Diane at 7am on the morning of our flight and told her that we would be catching an earlier flight, she still managed to rearrange all the pick-ups and accommodate our last minute travel change. Our greeter in St. John was Bruce. He took us to the Courtesy rental car company which gave us a discount because we booked it through Susan and Diane. After picking up our rental Jeep, he then had us follow him to a local grocery market and gave us suggestions as to what to buy and where. After waiting for us to shop, he gave us some driving tips for the island and we followed him to Coral Bay and made another stop at a local market in Coral Bay so that we would know where to shop on the other side of the island. The drive up to the cottage is not for the faint of hearted, but it is totally worth it. Upon reaching the cottage, we were amazed at the quaintness, the view, the privacy, the top notch attention to detail; it was perfect. Bruce showed us around and made sure that we knew where everything was. And to top off this first class pick up treatment, Bruce spent the extra time to tell us about some of the best snorkeling locations, the best eating locations, the best off the beaten path beaches, the best hiking trails, the best times to go, etc… making sure that we really were ready for our trip.
During our trip, we made sure to get up early and hike the island and visit every beach. We hiked the Lind Point Trail early in the morning to have Solomon Beach and Honeymoon Beach all to ourselves for quite a time and then hiked Margaret Hill and Caneel Hill to witness the amazing views. We hike the Lameshur Bay trail all the way to Reef bay, enjoying a strenuous hike and the ruins along the way (and back again!) and enjoying the entire bay to ourselves. The south beaches of Salt Pond Bay and Little Lameshur Bay are just as great as the famous north shore beaches and less crowded. We did go to Hawksnest Bay and Trunk Bay early in the morning and enjoyed the hike to Peace Hill to see these views of the north shore bays from there. We hit the Brown Bay Trail and the