Driving tour, Morningstar, and Philippe

Yesterday we did a bit of a driving tour in one of our guidebooks.
We drove up to Drake's Seat first, which is where we took this

first photo. This is Magen's Bay, where we go swimming all the time. Friday afternoon we swam most of the width of Magen's Bay. (The view that we have from home is essentially the same as someone who is standing on the beach in this picture looking to the left, we our house is to the right of this photo). Drake's Seat is named after Sir Francis Drake who apparently used to watch approaching ships from there.

Okay, actually, I'm not sure anymore where we took that photo, because after Drake's Seat, we went to Mountain Top, which has essentially the same view. Hmm.. oh well. Both Drake's Seat and Mountain Top are listed here on this St Thomas attractions website. Mountain Top is another tourist trap. In addition to the restaurant and bar, it has a bunch of shops. The bar is supposed to have amazing banana daiquiris. We tasted one, and trust us - when you come to visit, you don't need to waste the money there. We'll just take you for the view.

After driving around and enjoying the A/C in our car, we went to Charlotte Tamale's Mexican restaurant for lunch. It was a bit disappointing. I'd heard they had good fish tacos there. I was hoping for Rubio's quality, but my fish was super deep fried and overly crispy. They have both a one-pound and a two-pound burrito. If you can beat the record time for eating one of those (we're not sure which), then it's free.

Then we went to Morningstar beach for our afternoon swim. We had never been there before, so it seemed time to try it out. It's right near the Marriott Frenchman's Reef hotel, for those of you who've been here. It was pretty nice; not super calm water, but the waves were kind of nice. It was such a hot day, we had to run into the water to keep from burning our feet on the hot sand. The water was refreshing at first, but then after awhile even the water was too warm - we guess about 85 degrees. Dave spent most of the swim a few feet under water to stay where it was cooler - maybe 80 degrees. The sun was bright and high enough that the photos of the beach itself didn't show up too well, but I'll share one anyway...

The Marriott is on top of the cliff in this photo, with the Charlotte Amalie harbor entrance just behind it.

Well, now we've got to run to the store and get some more hurricane supplies; we've decided if a storm hits, we don't want to be stuck with just canned beans.... As I'm sure most of you don't know (mainland news only seems to report about storms that may hit the mainland, we've discovered), there is a potential big storm coming our way. Tropical Storm Philippe. The picture to the right shows the projected path, and if it stays that way, it'll just miss us. Last night the projected path was a little closer to us, but it seems to have shifted a bit to the northeast. So, you can keep an eye on it on the National Hurricane Center website if you're the type to worry (or if you just want to see a larger image of the storm path). On a similar note, if a hurricane does hit us, we'll only be calling our parents to let them know how we're doing, rather than trying to call everyone we've ever met. So, if anything happens, I'm sure my mom will post a comment on the blog website to let our friendly readers know we're okay.