On our last full day in St. John, I decided it was time to read on the beach. However, I didn’t want to get a sunburn, so I enlisted my trusty travel hammock and found the perfect little spot.

After some relaxing reading time, my friend found me and we went for a snorkel. He lives in St. John, and he does something called “lobster hunting.” He has a long stick with a small noose at the end. He dives under to look inside little coral caves for lobsters to catch.  It was a lot of fun watching him check out all his familiar spots, swimming along and checking out all the fish. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any lobsters that day, but after a little bodysurfing, we decided to head back to our campsite for lunch anyway.

On the way, we saw a guy up in the trees above where my hammock was hanging. He was knocking down coconuts! My friend explained that the guy was helping the beach stay safe for tourists, and also he would sell them in town. We decided to buy one. The man said it’d be $3. At first, I thought that was kind of expensive, since the coconuts were right there in the trees. But then I saw that he was doing much more than handing us a coconut. First, after climbing up really high, he used his machete to make a hole so we could pour out the coconut water.

After that, we brought the coconut back to him. Next, he chopped it up for us to eat the meat inside:

Finally, he even cut us up a little scoop to use to get the coconut meat out.

It was very gooey – different than other coconut I’ve had in the past! It also tasted more mild. It was refreshing!

The whole experience made me excited to try more new foods, and before leaving St. John, I stopped at a fruit stand in town. I got the weirdest thing I could find. It turned out to be a sugar apple! The customs official at the airport didn’t even mind that I took it on the flight home. It was a little smaller than an apple, and you squeeze it to break it apart. Then, you suck the fleshy fruit off of the seeds, and it’s a little gooey like custard. The fruit is very sweet!

I love trying new foods when I travel. Have you ever tried a food that you can’t get at home? What was it like?