The best thing about road tripping with someone who has a similar travel style to you is that you don’t have to worry about randomly saying “Pull over!” because you saw something beautiful. That’s often the very best part of road trips – wandering with someone you feel so comfortable with that you can have hours of endless conversation while you explore unheard of places. Even after an entire day of being in their company, you still want to do more.
On our second day of exploring we continued road tripping around the island, beach hopping and taking in the beautiful sights and sounds along the way. Some time in the middle of the night, two giant cruise ships had sailed into Saint Thomas and now had the little town in an excited frenzy. Somewhere far up on a hill, we pulled over and took in the beautiful sight of the Caribbean sea.
Our first stop was Magens Bay – known to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. Located on the North Atlantic side of the island, Magens Bay forms one of the most popular beaches in the world! In fact, if you ask any local for recommendations, they will quite frankly direct you to straight to Magens Bay. It’s easy to see why with endless soft white sand, clear blue water, mangroves, coconut groves and wetlands.
The great thing about the Caribbean though, is that almost every beach has rental facilities with everything you could quite possible need for a day on the water. From towels, beach chairs, snorkeling gear, kayaks and even paddle boats, you can rent them, use them and return them when you’re done. There was a little snack counter and beach side bar nearby and since we had not had breakfast yet, we quickly grabbed some hot dogs and drinks before wadding into the warm water.
The U.S. Virgin Islands is located pretty close to the Equator so I can quite safely say that the sun was more than just blazing hot. I should have definitely worn more sun screen. After an hour or so in the water, it was getting a little cooler and the sun was masked by some big grey clouds that seemed to be moving in our direction pretty fast. It seemed random showers of unexpected rain were fast approaching. Before we knew it, everyone was seeking shelter under the little wooden roof of the beach side bar.
From Magens Bay we drove on to Coki Point Beach located on the North East Atlantic side of the island.
There quite literally is no way to put this other than Coki Point was simply breath taking. Different shades of turquoise blue water surrounded us and if you wandered in deep enough, you could snorkel and swim with the fishes.
The amazing thing about a tropical island destination is that you never know what wild life and marine life you’re going to see. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, it was endless iguana’s roaming freely quite literally everywhere. The Caribbean is known for their resident Iguana population, so don’t be alarmed if you see them laying on tree branches, casually walking across the road or in our case, waddling past the entrance to Coki Point Beach.
The best part of our time at Coki Point?
We spent close to two hours thinking an actual sting ray was swimming towards us. We were bold enough to stay in the water but not brave enough to take the three steps forward to find out the truth. After two hours of sticking our GoPro’s and Sony underwater camera’s in the water trying to video what we thought was a sting ray, we came to the cold hard truth – it really was just a rock.
(Way to go Gemini Blogger with a crazy imagination that leaves you piggy backing on your friend in fear for being attacked by an imaginary sting ray!)
Our time at Coki Point soon came to an end and we decided one more beach stop was in order before heading back to the hotel.
You never know when you’ll find something magical while exploring and this was it – strange cross currents, a sun that had begun setting and a close to empty beach.
After spending some time listening to the gentle lapping of the waves, we headed back to the hotel for a long shower, a late night walk, cocktails and dinner. Nothing beats long drives to a Caribbean beach destination with The Chainsmokers on replay.