Our first morning on St John, we woke to what sounded like a deluge. We looked out the window to see rain pouring down. It lasted about ten minutes. When Moses, our taxi driver, picked us up we mentioned the storm, but he said, “That was no storm, it was just a sprinkle.” I guess perspectives are different if you’ve lived through hurricanes. We experienced another sprinkle the next day and joked about what to call it.

This day, Moses drove us to a trailhead in the national park.

The trail was super steep at first, but Jenn had told us it leveled out, so we weren’t worried. The views were nice.

At the top, Clare took a break in part because she got blisters snorkeling yesterday. Her feet were hurting, and she wore tennis shoes rather than the water hikers we bought for this trip.

Nice hike, and it did level out somewhat. Very interesting plants!

Then, it started sprinkling. Pouring. We were drenched in minutes, but it kept coming down. We kept walking—what else are you going to do? We yearned for our umbrellas which were left in the room.

The plants looked different with a coating of fresh water.

On the way down, the trail got steep again and very slippery because of the rainwater on the fallen leaves. It took a lot longer getting down than going up!

We enjoyed fresh Grouper for dinner, with rice and squash. We then made preparations to leave in the morning.

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