Apedaile 6: Saint Thomas

After a day as sea, we arrived at our second port, Saint Thomas. We arrived later in the morning and we were able to watch as we passed several smaller islands as we made our way to Saint Thomas.

Might be hard to see in this photo, but center screen there is a sailboat enjoying a morning sail.

Enjoying our personal view of Saint Thomas from our balcony.

On the corner of this peninsula, there were old war buildings.

John looking over the harbor in port.

Beautiful water everywhere in Saint Thomas!

Instead of having docks, most of the boats used mooring buoys and would take little motorized rafts out to their vessel.

Since we had an excursion planned for later that afternoon, we hopped off the ship and did a little souvenir shopping at the nearby shopping area.

It was very close to the ship!

I became quite entertained to take selfies on this trip. Heading back to the ship to drop off purchases and get ready for our excursion.

As we traveled through the city, we saw many interesting slogans/rants/suggestions posted on poles. Also, of the three islands, this one was the most "American" with traffic signs, American stores mixed along with local flair. Makes perfect sense since its the U.S. Virgin Islands ;)

Coki Beach-First Scuba Dive

This is the beach that our excursion of scuba diving and snorkeling took place.

We took about a 30-45 minute dive and eventually ended up near the white dome building and then returned back to this shore area.

After taking part in a education class on the basics of scuba, it was time to gear up and start our in water lessons. Our large group was broken down into groups of 4 for the scuba portion.

We had a little waterproof camera that we took some photos and videos of our dive. Me as I was heading out to the water to begin our lessons in action before taking the dive.

Most of what we have is video and some of it is quite long, so I won't post it here. We started out in waist deep water as we grew accustomed to breathing through the regulator and doing some basic maneuvers.

John took to it quite easily, while it took me a bit to get the hang of it. Our instructor, Dion, was from the UK and had been diving for more than 25 years. He was one of the most patient teachers I have witnessed and was fantastic!

Here, we were probably around 30-40 feet in depth.

It's hard to describe, but when we were diving it was so peaceful and beautiful. Me not being the biggest fan of swimming among fish, found that the fish didn't want to do anything with me either and left me alone. It was amazing to see the fire coral, plant life and many species of fish and a few large schools of tiny fish as we swam around.

After we finished our dive, we took our gear off and did some snorkeling around the rocky area just off the shore. Both John and I discovered just how freakishly easy snorkeling is after you learn how to scuba.