Saturday, we bummed around our private beach for the morning because it was the last full day we'd be there, and with a 10am checkout on Sunday, we knew we wouldn't make it out that morning. We went down and started into the water a bit, but the water was a bit murky for some reason, and I wasn't really feeling like snorkeling again, so I basically just laid out on the beach. After a few minutes, Tom saw a shark not too far away from him, so he was done, too! Scaaaary... I'm just glad neither of us saw that guy until our last day, because neither of us wanted to go in after that. Tom explored the rocks farther to the right of our bay and ventured into some really shallow parts for a little more snorkeling. When he came back, we headed up to our villa and got in the pool for a bit.
That afternoon, we decided to head even further east on St. John to a place called Vie's Snack Shack on the recommendation of a few books/guides we had. The word was that Vie made great conch fritters, and I really wanted to have some good ones just once on our honeymoon. Tom decided he'd get lunch there, but I had a strong craving for a PB & banana sandwich before we left. It's a good thing I made one, because Vie was out of conch fritters. :-( Her place is the tiniest little shack, so it's no wonder she runs out of the menu item she's known best for. I got a diet coke while Tom ate his lunch, and then we decided to explore even further east on the island (which only took about 3 minutes!). Then we went back west to find the Reef Bay Trail and do some hiking.
We parked our Jeep on the side of the road and ventured into the rainforest around 3:15. It was incredibly lush and teeming with life! We quickly realized that our return trip was going to be more taxing than our outbound trip - we were going noticeably downhill for a good 15 minutes. 
We saw some cool things like a giant, ancient trees, mango & lime trees, ruins of estates and sugar cane plantations (inside the rainforest!), big, colorful spiders, and the treasure at the end of the trail: petroglyphs. We actually forked off for this - the true end of the trail was off to the left about three more miles, but we didn't want to get stuck after dark in a rainforest that was already very dark at only 4:30.
It was a pretty overcast afternoon, and we actually got caught in a torrential downpour while we were hiking that even the thickest tree cover couldn't shield. We were absolutely soaking wet, so after the initial drenching, we really didn't mind and just kept hiking. In fact, it kept us cooler and kept the mosquitoes away... that is, until it stopped raining when they came out in full force.
After just over an hour of hiking, we got to the petroglyphs. We were SO relieved - if it had taken any longer, we'd have had to turn back without reaching the main goal of our hike because it would've started getting dark before we got back to our car. The petroglyphs were very cool - they were created by the pre-Columbian Taino and their ancestors between 900-1500AD. They were carved into giant stones all surrounding a little freshwater pond, and we saw a mixture of 4-5 different petroglyph symbols including the one that's reproduced on my new bracelet.
After we looked around a bit, we booked it back to the beginning of the trail so we could get out of the rainforest by dusk. We made it back in 40 minutes, even with the uphill - it took a little over an hour to get down because of rain and stopping to take pictures/read info signs. Since we were soaked AND sweaty, we went back to our villa to shower before our last dinner in St. John.
We didn't have much gas, so our dinner options were limited to restaurants in Coral Bay. Tom picked a place called Aqua Bistro - a place with a good-looking menu and good reviews by others who had stayed at The Retreat. The restaurant was little more than a courtyard with tables and a hole-in-the-wall kitchen, and at least 5 minutes went by before we saw any semblance of a hostess or server, but eventually someone came and we got a table and two glasses of too-warm wine. The food was okay... not worthy of the rave review we read. We both got the mahi special with not-so-good pesto sauce. The crab cake I got was probably the best part of the meal. It was still a cool little part of Coral Bay, though. We headed back and took it easy the rest of the night since we had to get up and pack early the next morning.
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