In the winter of 2021 we were slowly coming out of COVID-19 lock down. Our Africa trip had to be postponed for many reasons including the fact that British Airlines(BA) was still not flying. A safe destination at that time, still inside the boundaries of the US, was St Thomas which to date had only a total of 25 COVID deaths.
St Thomas is just one island referred to as "US Virgin Islands". The US Virgin Islands consists of St Croix, St John, St Thomas and 50 other surrounding minor islands and cays. Both Puerto Rico and the USVI are unincorporated territories of the US. St Thomas is a rather small island with only 32 square miles of area.
We used to visit St Thomas frequently but our last visit was 2009 during which time we would frequent a number of the island's more popular resorts. However during COVID times relying on resort services did not appear appropriate. Instead for this visit we decided to book condos where we had full kitchen facilities and could thus do our own food prep and better able to be COVID safe. But unfortunately we could not select just one condo. Our compromise was to split our time between three different condos. This St Thomas map has three location highlighted, our condo locations.
Our first condo ("A" on map) was part of the Point Pleasant resort that overlooks Water Bay, Coral World, and Coki Beach. The Point Pleasant link (above) is to the rental link we used and thus only valid as long as this unit is a rental. Click "images" to see condo views and furnishings. Water Bay was home to a dock (at Margaritaville) and numerous catamarans. One of the catamarans was a large party catamaran that played loud music every-time it came or left Water Bay. The other catamarans would depart regularly with a smaller number of passengers. Daily dive boats would pick-up divers at the dock. Although outdoors these activities were still not 100% COVID safe, so we simple enjoyed watching the activity.
Our second condo ("B" on map) was a three-story private residence, called Tree Top. The 2nd and 3rd levels were condos rentals which overlooked the Red Hook commercial area and Vessup Bay, like shown on the map. We rented the top/3rd level which was the only one available during our time frame. The Tree Top link (above) is to the rental link we used and thus only valid as long as this unit is a rental. Click "images" to see condo views and furnishings.
The activity on Vessup Bay was so entertaining we did not use our car at all during our Tree Top days. Besides the vast number of catamarans there were docks of boats of many shapes and sizes. But the most entertaining were the ferries, especially the car ferries. There were a total of three vehicle ferries that ran constantly to and from St John. During COVID BVI islands were closed thus the only destination was St John.
Our third condo ("C" on map) was a condo in the Mahogany Run area. Mahogany Run area is home to the only golf course on St Thomas but it has been closed since the hurricane Irma in 2017. The Mahogony Run development consists of a ridge sloping own to the ocean on the north side and sloping down to a valley to the south side. The golf course is located on the south side in the valley. Our condo was north facing and thus looking out over the Atlantic Ocean as can be seen on the map. Because of this orientation the deck at this condo got a bit cool after sundown. This was not a problem as the interior of this condo was 2nd to none. Click "images" to see condo views and furnishings.
Looking at the map above it is easy to see how close Mahogany Run was to Magen's Bay, one of the top 10 beaches in the world on anyones list. Thus at this condo we sent our days at Magen's.