We were on the fence when it came to deciding which beach to visit.  We had it narrowed down to either Coki or Sapphire beach, but finally decided on Sapphire beach.  Sapphire is your typical St. Thomas beach, not particularly wide or well maintained (due to the lack of high rise hotels), however possessing a natural beauty that makes you forgive their shortcomings.

Since I frequently wear contacts I always bring a pair of goggles along anytime I am going to be around water.  Upon entering the clear blue water I donned my goggles and decided to look to sea what sort of sea life was around.  I wasn’t expecting much since we were hanging out away from the area where people were snorkeling, but was pleasantly surprised with what I saw.  There was literally thousands of fish in every possible direction.  I was actually shocked by the abundance of undersea life.  Most of the fish were small although groups of larger sized fish would pass through on occasion.  I was just thrilled to be seeing anything since I hadn’t planned on doing any snorkeling.

The view from the beach was similarly spectacular with topaz blue waters and a view of St. John’s in the distance.  There were beach chair rentals but we decided to just use towels instead, in order to conserve money.  There was also a restaurant and bathroom facilities.  We did order lunch on the beach about midway through the afternoon.

Our order was taken from a woman on the beach who said she would bring our food out to us.  As we waited for our food we noticed what looked like a storm rolling in and wondered if our food would ever get here (had over 30 minutes).  After a while the woman came back and assured us lunch would be ready shortly but warned us that a storm was on the way.  She said, “when St. John’s disappears its going to be a heavy raid” while pointing in the direction of St. John, sure enough it had disappeared behind a huge black cloud.  The waitress advised us to gather up our belongings and head underneath a shelter that was behind us and she would bring the food over.

Luckily we took her advise immediately because not 60 seconds after our warning the skies opened up and dumped rain all over the beach.  Seated safely under the shelter lunch (shelter area wasn’t very clean but was dry and covered)  in hand we ate (food was overpriced and not very good, bring a lunch) while watching the rain fall all around us.  Once finished eating the rain stopped as if it were on cue.  So we resumed our day at the beach.

Throughout the day, we would spend more time in the water which was great because it gave me more opportunity to look at the fish.  However, it was less than ideal because once the girls realized there were fish all around us they kept taking my goggles.

We were set to be back at the ship by 6pm but always like to get back early so we packed up around 4pm, besides at this point I had completely lost possession of my goggles.