St. Thomas, USVI

St. Thomas, USVI

NCL Pearl

January 20, 2010

The third stop on our cruise was to St. Thomas, USVI. Our shore excursion was the Castaway Girl Barefoot Sail & Snorkel. When we got into St. Tomas we docked and were able to get off the ship at our leisure. We of course were one of the first groups of people off the ship and were able to walk up and down the dock to take in the views around us. We had a more difficult time finding where we were suppose to go because nobody had signs that showed our tour name. After searching for a few minutes we were able to find a girl with the tour company who took our tickets and told us where to meet the crew of the Castaway Girl.

 

Views of St. Thomas from the dock.

After waiting on the dock for awhile we started to see more people that were taking the trip with us and eventually we saw our boat coming into the harbor.

 

Castaway Girl II

We were met by one of the crew men named Tim who showed us to the boat. Once we got to the end of the dock and near the ship we were met by the captain of the Castaway Girl II who told us that since the word barefoot was in the tour that we had to take our shoes off before getting on board and we would get them back at the end of the trip. Once on board we were ask to met in the sitting area of the boat while we left the harbor since the crew had to get things ready. The captain then gave us a brief safety talk, told us where the bathrooms were and went over some of the basic rules of the trip. After that we were free to move around the boat. As we were going towards our snorkel destination at Buck Island the rest of the crew came around handing out the snorkeling equipment.

 

Captain of the Castwaway Girl II.

View of St. Thomas from Castaway Girl II

We were told it's about a 45 minute ride over to Buck Island but I feel it didn't take that long at all. I think it took about 30 minutes at most. It was quite an enjoyable ride out though. We we got close to Buck Island we could see all the other boats that were there. When we got close most of them had people snorkeling or scuba diving.

 

After we got anchored down we were either able to jump right into the water or walk down a set of stairs. I choose to walk down the chairs and John choose to jump right into the water. We then had about an hour to snorkel around Buck island either by yourself or with a tour guide. We choose to go with one of the crew members named Tim who showed us things around the reef and the shipwreck. Tim was very informative and pointed our various fish and marine life to use. He also told us about how the shipwreck came to be placed a Buck Island. He even went down and got one of the non-poisonous sea urchins so we could see it up close. Tim even offered to let us hold it in our hands. I choose not to do this but quite a few other people did. When we snorkeled over to the shipwreck Tim did some trick where you snorkeled down and into part of the ship. I didn't really watch as I was amazed at all the fish just swimming right around me. After we saw the shipwreck we headed back to the boat to relax and enjoy a drink.

 

The cool thing about Buck Island is that it's a National Monument that is protected. We were told that we were not able to go near the shore because you can get fined for getting onto shore. We snorkeled at Shipwreck Cove and we were told that the island is a bird sanctuary.