Sailing Trip Day 4: Great Dog + Jost Van Dyke

Happy Monday, friends! How was your weekend? Ours was amazing! I had a photoshoot Friday, we went to the drive-in movie with some friends Saturday, and Kyle and I had a tennis and tacos date night yesterday. All around a great weekend!

For those of you just joining in, I am in the process of recapping our 10-day Sailing Trip around the British Virgin Islands that we took back in the middle of May. Today I am talking about Day 4, so if you want to catch up on the previous posts, they are all linked up on the Our Travels page. And get excited, because today's post features a blog first: underwater photos!

Day 4 was another long day at sea since we were sailing away from Anegada. We left pretty early so we could get a late morning/early afternoon dive in at a group of islets called The Dogs. Here are a few photos from the 3-hour trip over to the dive site:

Once we arrived at the mooring field off of Great Dog, Zach, Kyle, and his mom and dad started getting their dive gear on. Jenny would have joined them but she was feeling congested, and she didn't want to risk messing up her ears by going on a dive. This is Kyle's dad getting his gear on:

Kyle's mom jumping in the water.

Kyle getting his gear on and jumping in the water.

I also got a video of Kyle jumping in the water if you want to see some live action :)     
And last but not least, Zach got all his gear on and jumped in the water.

Zach is a certified Divemaster, so he planned most of the dives on the trip and was the designated person to follow while on the dive. It's pretty nice to have your own Divemaster, especially for trips like this where you can dive off the back of your boat.

While the four of them got their scuba on, Jenny, Fred, and Christina went snorkeling, and I took the kayak out around the rocks. It was a beautiful day and the water was so clear that I could easily see to the bottom, even on my kayak. I really enjoyed just exploring around the rocks and looking down at the coral and the fish in the shallower areas. But enough about that, now for the underwater photos, courtesy of Zach!

Isn't it so neat that there's another beautiful world right there under the surface? What an awesome God we serve!

After the dive, it was time to say goodbye to Pedro and we sailed over to Trellis Bay to drop him off. Once Pedro was off the boat, everything really was in Kyle's dad's hands. He was the true captain from this point on! From dropping Pedro off at Trellis Bay, we made our way over to Diamond Cay off of Jost Van Dyke, where we would be spending the night. Kyle's dad had a fun excursion planned for us once we got to Diamond Cay, so we all put on our hiking sandals and made our way to shore within minutes of mooring up (photo credit to Zach for the next 11 photos!). 

 Once on shore, we took a scenic hike over to the northern coast of Jost Van Dyke.

A short while later, we made it to our destination - a little slice of heaven called the Bubbly Pool.

 We had dinner reservations for the beach bbq at Foxy's that night at 7:30, so after half an hour of enjoying the bubbly pool we had to make our way back to the boat to get ready for dinner. We took another open air taxi to get to Foxy's, which was on the other side of the island in Great Harbour. Being on Jost Van Dyke and eating dinner at Foxy's really made me feel like we were living a Kenny Chesney song, and that's a great feeling! He mentions both in his song Somewhere in the Sun:

Oh I wish I was there tonight on Jost Van Dyke
Sipping on some Foxy's Firewater rum
Or kickin' back with Ivan
With all my friends down in the islands
Wouldn't take much for me to up and run
To another life somewhere in the sun.

 They had a ton of stuff on the ceiling at Foxy's, including this UGA flag. Go Dawgs!

 The beach buffet did not disappoint. And in case you had any doubts, both of these plates are for me. :)

And thus concludes the longest post ever. I didn't realize how much we packed into this one day until I started writing about it! Sorry about the picture overload. Up next, Sandy Spit and Cane Garden Bay!