Vacation_:St. John Here We Come

A view from Tim's house on St. Thomas

Well we have done it!!

We have booked "Paradise Revisited" for the first week of March 2007. If you visit my link section you can open the link and view the house that we are going to be spending 8 days in. The view above was taken from Tim's porch in St. Thomas looking west. Every morning that Tim got up and headed off to work he had to look out at this view. When he was there for 2 years he told me he had to leave- nothing to do, boring, no where to go. He really needed to leave. Now when we ask him about St. Thomas vs. Delray, he has only fond memories of his 2 years and now plots and plans to return. We will probably be going back before him, (although I have heard a rumor that Carol at Crowne Bay has put in a request for his return for brief period of time).

The weather was a little hazy when I took this shot and it would be easier if you enlarged the picture to see the islands.( click on it and it should pop up) Starting from the left- The dark island is Jos Van Dyke and the next large one in the haze is Tortola. Both in the BVI's, (British Virgin Islands). In the haze on the very right is St. John. The nice blue water just below us is Magen's Bay. If you look up on the hills above Magen's , where the houses are and then to the little hills beyond them,( still a part of St. Thomas and then look a little to the left you will see 2 small islands one of which is Congo Cay a really great snorkleing spot. The other island is Lovengo. Local history has it that this island originally had a brothel on it and that is where the name came from- Love N Go.

If we rent a boat, we will go to Congo Cay, Jost van Dyke, ( to clear customs entering BVI and have a Pain Killer at Foxy's), Sandy Cay, and the Indians for snorkeling. Although with over 30 beaches on St John, there may not be the need to leave the island.

Home_:Florida Vacation

We are in Naples visiting Cis & David. The weather is warm and nice, couldn't be better. We had a good visit with Tim at the beginning of the week and will be heading back over to Delray on Saturday. We have added to our geocache finds and are now over 75. On Sunday we borrowed Tim's friend's boat and had a nice cruise down the ICW from Boynton to Delray. Lots of big houses. We understand that there is a lot of buying up of the small single story older houses and tearing them down to put up McMansions. One actually had a mountain with water slide going into the infinity pool. Castle towers and Spanish architecture dominate the designs. Tim did a little fishing on the way down but didn't catch anything. On the way home we saw a dolphin. Brian's 21 foot Mako is for sale and for $11,000 you can buy it. On Monday we had lunch with Ted in Delray at Boston's on A1A, right across from the beach. People viewing was really great, lots of nice cars and other things going up and down the road. Ted is doing well although he will be going in for surgery on his knee at the end of this month. He was in a car accident and his knee was damaged. We did not see Barbara who was having a bad day from her Chemo. She has a ways to go on this therapy but Ted says she is doing well and has lots of medical support. Later on Ellen went for a swim. It was the nicest day we had. Warm with hardly a breeze. Tuesday brought a strong wind out of the north and cooler tempertures. The weather is starting to warm up again and it will be up in the mid 80's for the weekend. Tim is going to take us people watching on South Beach on Saturday. Should be an interesting afternoon. So for the next couple of days we are Reading & Relaxing


When we drove over to Naples we went the Northern route so we could see the middle of Florida and Lake Okeechobee. It was like driving thru the plains flat, flat and more flat with a sprinkling of orange trees, lettuce and other crops and lots of cattle. Tim said that we would be able to see the lake for a good while, but the view was blocked by a large levee. It must have been at least 50 feet high and ran parallel to the road. We finally figured that we needed to pull into a park so we could drive over the levee to see the lake. In future visits, we will take Alligator alley which is a much shorter ride. Of course that view is swamp and more swamp.