Beach Hopping and Shipwrecks

Today we decided to do a little beach hopping and some snorkeling (because everyone seems to be as addicted to it as I am!). We got up early to head over to our first beach of the day at Oppenheimer Beach. This beach used to be owned by the man with the same name who helped develop the atom bomb. Once he died he donated the land to St. John and they turned his house into a community center. There is very little parking on this beach so usually not many people venture to it. We got some prime real estate right on the beach under the Sea Grape trees. I love these trees because they grow at all levels almost like thick vines. They are also excellent at protecting from the sun. We snorkeled there some but did not see much sadly. There were a few parrot fish and a ton of little fry fish, but what was really fun was we snorkeled to a very secluded beach with about 20 cairns on the shore. If you dont know what these are hikers usually build these on trails to show others that they have been there. We decided to add our own cairns to the display and snorkeled back. We lounged on the beach a bit more but then Rob's stomach started to tell us it was time for lunch.

Apparently a Tucker tradition is to go a restaurant/bar called Shipwrecks. It is across the road from the bay so it has a great view. It also has some excellent food. I was really in the mood for a taco salad with some ground beef on it. What made it awesome though was the Valley Doll hot sauce. There are two kinds: a mild sauce with curry and nice easy spices, and super super hot with habinero peppers in it. In case there is any curiosity I used the mild sauce. :)

After we were done with dinner we headed to a new beach called Little Lampshire. And yes there is a Big Lampshire but it is usually the much more popular one, so we chose to hang out with the little brother. What we forgot though was that today was Memorial Day, which meant all the locals who know about Little Lampshire were there and we had a very hard time snorkeling. Where there are usually a good amount of sea turtles, there were nothing but sea urchins. Lets talk about how much I hate sea urchins. They are these ugly black blobs with huge spikes coming out of all ends and not only are they poisonous they are also barbed so that sucker ain't coming out without A LOT of pain. I was not a fan of this beach and my mask also decided to screw up so I couldn't see much anyway. What was fun was there are some ruins at the top of a little hill in Little Lampshire which I got some great pictures of. Apparently it was a station for men to watch to see if any enemy boats were headed to St. John. It was really neat to see.

Once we were done playing in the sun we headed back to our villa to get cleaned up and have dinner. Ken, Rob and Val cooked an excellent dinner of ham (for me, thanks to my allergies) and chicken for everyone else. We also had mixed veggies and amazing coconut mango rice. It was delicious. Around the time we got the grill started, the sky opened up and started pouring. It rained for the rest of the night. So we hung out listening to the rain and talking until bed time.