USVI Day 4 - Ram Head hike and Salt Pond Beach snorkel

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/23/2024	3.1 miles	4 hours 26 minutes	397'	1.3 mph	268 miles

Parking: 

• Taxi to Ram Head Trailhead.

Map:

• Gaia GPS

Directions:

• Salt Pond Trail to Ram Head Trail to Ram Head. Return the same way. 

Today's hike was to Ram Head, which was the one hike I really wanted to do in the park. It was pouring rain just before we woke up. I really didn't want to get out of my tent, but Tara luckily was motivated to go. We ended up using our taxi driver from yesterday, as most taxi drivers don't want to go out this way. Unfortunately, he couldn't pick us up again, so we had to come up with a different plan for getting home. There is a bus stop at this trailhead.

Everything we read said to start this hike early and to bring lots of water. I got in the practice of carrying 3 liters every day with me. This hike has full sun exposure. This area is hot and humid, so hiking was challenging for me. The water feels great though!

This hike is all about the views. Wow! It was a cloudy day, so the water looked less turquoise, but we were really grateful for the clouds, because it made us feel less like we were baking in the sun. We were still dripping sweat constantly. I also really enjoyed the cacti on this hike too. There were hundreds of barrel cacti. 

On our way back on our hike, we stopped at Salt Pond Beach and snorkeled. By then, there were several other people on the beach (it was empty when we started our hike). I saw my first sea turtle! This was a bucket list item for me :) We believe it was a Hawksbill turtle, based on our lecture yesterday, as we learned they eat sea grass, which we saw it doing. So amazing! The combination of the hike and swimming with my first sea turtle made this my favorite day of our trip. 

After our hike and snorkel, we hung out at the bus stop. There were many people parked in Jeeps by then, but no one offered us a ride. We waited for an hour and a half at the bus stop, and no bus. No bus schedule was posted. We ended up calling for a taxi. It came a half hour later. This was our craziest taxi driver. He told us he raced out there to pick us up. And he kept racing. OMG. He drove very fast and often in the middle of the road. There are a lot of hairpin hilly turns here, and most taxi drivers would honk before going around them, as they needed to go into the right lane in order to make the steep turn. This guy just sped through those turns, no honking. I'm so glad we didn't rent a car here. I think driving on the left wouldn't be so bad, as there really aren't many roads here. But dealing with the steep hills and hairpin turns and the occasional crazy taxi driver would be stressful. 

Tonight's campground event was a presentation on native plants on the island.

Leaving our campground to meet our taxi driver.

Salt Pond / Ram Head trailhead

Butterfly Pea

Lots of cacti on this trail.
Picture a little fuzzy because of condensation on my camera lens

Salt Pond Beach
More people would be there by the time we finished our hike.

Turning off to hike to Ram Head.

A small hermit crab

Some cacti had pink flowers and cottony seeds?

Brain coral, one of the favorite types of coral I saw.

So many barrel cacti

This plant is called Bloody Head - Raw Bones according to Seek!

Sea sponge on the beach

More pretty coral on the beach

Brain coral

We wear our hats for sun protection when we aren't snorkeling.

There were a couple of wild donkeys on the beach.

Donkeys walking by our picnic table on the beach.

Waiting at the bus stop for the bus. Jeeps everywhere by the time we finished our hike.

And donkeys walking up the road.

Very crazy taxi driver on the way home. Hanging on tight, lol. 

I traded in my Tevas for a free pair of flipflops. Yeah!

Adult beverage with ice bought from our campground store.

I believe this used to be a museum at our campground, but it was decimated by the last hurricane here.
It does make a nice picture window.

I enjoyed all of the lizards.

Evening workout at the restaurant.