SWIMMING IN THE TRUNK

In the morning we motored over to Truck Bay, a few beaches over from Maho Bay on St. John.  Trunk Bay often finds itself on top ten lists for best beaches as you can see why from this photo I took overlooking the beach during our tour the day before.

But we didn't come for the beach.  We motored over to snorkel Trunk Bay's underwater trail featured at this national park.

We hooked up to a mooring ball just off the tip of the island to the left of the photo.

If you look hard, you can see in the picture above a labyrinth of beach-goers and if you squint even harder you'll see a lifeguard shack.  Thankfully we arrived before the cruiseshippers stormed onto the beach like a Normandy invasion and we had the underwater trail mostly to ourselves.  

Honestly, most of the snorkeling we did on our own throughout our trip was probably better than the trail in the Trunk.  It was kinda weird seeing underwater placards everywhere pointing out the obvious.

Every beach we stayed at over the course of our trip had giant turtles.  Here at Truck Bay we came across a tiny baby turtle who didn't mind us swimming with it.

What was awesome was the crystal clear water at the beach.  The visibility at the sandy areas nearest the shore was incredible.  I was able to get some fun pics of our swim.

Hey look, even a pic of me!

Despite the crystal clear water, as the day wore on, what was becoming even more crystal clear was the crowd making their way to the beach.  We were shocked to see a lifeguard stand and soon heard deafening whistles being blown by the red clad guards.

This was our signal to go.  Trunk, though pretty, was not our beach.  The throngs of people swelled making the trunk just as suffocating as being locked in an actual trunk.  

On our way back the wind picked up and kicked up quite a surge.  Luckily our swim back to the boat was in the direction of the current though not making the long swim much easier. All of us had to paddle and swim HARD to reach the boat, but even Chloe managed to make it back without any help.  Sev was the first to reach to boat where he laboriously climbed aboard, laid down on the bow’s trampoline, and passed out in the sun like an exhausted sea lion.