Day 5 - NCL Encore - St Thomas

It was another early wake up for us.  Chris went for coffee and some pastries before our catamaran tour to St. John.  

We had to meet our friends on the pier at 8:30 and found a taxi to take us to the harbor to meet our captain.  The taxi was an open-air jitney and cost $15 per person.  Our captain for the day was there waiting for us and took us to his boat via dingy.  There waiting for us was a nice plate of muffins, fruit and cheese.   There was waters and beer available in the cooler.  After a brief safety talk, we were sailing to St. John.   Chris, Tim and I chose to ride up front on the nets.  It was a bit rough going with some sea spray but I loved it.

Our first stop was a very small beach, Scott beach that is only accessible by boat.  The water was perfect blue and the sand was soft and fine.   We all did some snorkeling.  I loved seeing a few turtles munching away on the sea grass.   While we were snorkeling, our lunch was being prepared.  We had a plate of caprese salad on bread to start followed by freshly made chicken Caesar salad.  It was served with their famous rum punch or pum runch as they called it.  For dessert, she had some cheesecake which I passed on but the others enjoyed it.   

While we were eating lunch, we went to a different location, Honeymoon beach.  After lunch, Tim, Michelle, Chris and I went ashore here to swim and snorkel.  The beach was nice but there was way more sea life at the first stop.  

On the way back to St. Thomas, we went back upfront to relax on the nets with Tim and his wife.  We enjoyed the breeze and I think everyone dozed off a little bit. This was a such a perfect and relaxing day.  It was much needed after the lack of sleep so far.  I highly recommend using Sail with Liberty and Justice to book a private or group tour in St. Thomas.   They are the nicest couple and provided us with a memorable day.

  We took showers and relaxed before going to Observation Lounge for a pre-dinner drink.  It was once again busy and took about 20 minutes to get a drink which wasn’t even made that well.  I had a Gin Martini and Chris had a Negroni.  After a few sips, we decided to go to dinner at the buffet.  The buffet was Caribbean themed, and we mostly ate food from the Indian section as Indian food is done very well since most of the chefs are from India.  

We saw the comedy of Christina Walkinshaw in the main theater.   She is a very conversational comic and at first, she seemed ok but it started to run a tad long.  I looked over and saw that Chris had his eyes shut.  Usually, I am the one who nods off at a show.  We decided to go back to the room earlier since we had an early arrival in Tortola with our tour departing at 6:45am to visit Jost Van Dyke.