Magens Bay, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

After checking in and getting settled, we decided to go to Magens Bay, which was just about four miles to the north of us over the ridge of the island. We had read a lot about it and were anxious to see it. We also wanted to see what the roads were like, and work on getting used to driving on the left side of the road with a left-steering-wheel car. The road to the bay was extremely steep and narrow, but was well paved and we had no problem following the map and finding Magens Bay and the beach.

The beach at Magens Bay is a long narrow crescent which probably extends half a mile. Brenda walked the whole length of it and back while Mark snorkeled at the extreme north end of the beach. I poked around with the video camera and watched the sunset.

We found that Magens Beach was very popular with the local people. There is a fee until 6pm, so the locals come after that. There were several families, several people walking on the beach for exercise, and lots of local boats in the bay. I appreciated the creative sand castle shown below, built by a young local couple. Another family with two children told us that the snorkeling was probably best at Coki Beach, so we made plans to go there the next day.

The colors of the sunset deepened and it became very beautiful.

As we watched the sunset, a dark cloud grew to the right of it and we could see the beginnings of a thundershower over a distant island.

I enjoyed the birds on the beach, including a number of laughing gulls like the one below. Mark enjoyed swimming in the surf and Brenda walked the beach and talked with some of the local people.

As the distant thundershower grew in intensity, the thunderhead above it grew in height. We watched it tower upward, with the thicker parts showing dark grey, but the outer parts catching the red of the setting sun. I don't remember having witnessed this much of the life cycle of a thundershower before. It made a memorable end to a day of adventure. On the way back to the Bluebeard, we made a wrong turn somewhere and wandered over a substantial portion of Charlotte Amalie, circling the Bluebeard at least twice before we figured out how to get back into it.

We settled in for our first night in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. From our balcony we looked down on the lights of the cruise ship dock, Havensight, and the bay.