Caneel Bay

 Yesterday Paul and Robbie and I drove to Caneel Bay to swim while Ben hiked Caneel Hill to Margaret Hill, a trail described as "ninety minutes of strenuous steep climbing."  That's a great thing about St. John; it has pretty much everyone's version of bliss.  

Caneel Bay is home to Caneel Resort, a luxurious spread of lodging and restaurants and seven different beaches, most of which are available only to paying guests.  But Caneel bay and Honeymoon bay are open to day guests, so off we went to explore the offerings.  We brought our snorkel gear but never used as the floating diving/jumping platform was way too appealing for Robbie and Paul.  They had a great time leaping and doing tricks off of it.   

To give you an idea of the money spent on this resort, the palm trees,  brought in from off-island to decorate the landscape, are insured by Lloyds of London!  A guidebook dryly noted that when they were destroyed during Hurricane Hugo, the islanders watched in amazement as new trees were ferried in while the island residents were still waiting for electricity to be restored. 

We had a wonderful couple of hours at this magical place. 

 Ben's hike conveniently ended at the resort and we all met for lunch at the its bay-side bar and grill.  

It was pretty nice lounging around on the patio while we ate.  

The waitress recommended that the boys share the banana split,  and she was right on!

Later in the evening we walked down to Frank's Beach to an open house hosted by Coconut Coast Studios.  The boys weren't so sure they wanted to go, but they were glad they did when they got to check out the cool house, drink Painkillers without rum, and watch the resident duck and chocolate lab interact.  Seems that the duck is crazy about the dog and follows it wherever it goes.  Too cute. 

As one might guess, the lab pops up quite a bit in the artist's work.

I bought a mousepad with a fun underwater scene on it that I'm going to use with my computer at school.   Should be fun to look at it while I'm at work and remember  the good times we've had here.