Water Island, USVI 4

At one end of Honeymoon Beach, a family from Wisconsin were renting out jet skis. After talking with them, I learned that they spend every winter here on Water Island, escaping the harsh winters up North. The family spends most days on the beach running their business out of the back of their truck (one of the few I saw here) and a small pop-up tent.
It looks like they all just take turns helping customers, jet skiing around the bay, and hanging out on the beach... what a life! They seemed to have it figured out for sure, and the teenage boys were phenomenal on those jet skis as we came to find out.

While her parents entertained the baby with a hermit crab and some beautiful flowers growing around the beach, my wife and I signed the waivers, listened to the brief safety talk and followed one of the boys to the far end of the beach, where a few craft were waiting. He led us out to where it was safe to let loose, and then took off, to keep an eye on us, but allow us plenty of space.

Honeymoon Beach is tucked into Druif Bay.

We weren't trying to really cut loose on the machine, (though we did a little!) but just get a good look at the island. A half an hour gave us plenty of time to zip along the coastline of the island, where we noticed cozy little beaches nestled in hidden coves, and watched an enormous cruise ship glide past into harbor on St Thomas.

Meanwhile, our guide must have been convinced that we weren't going to do anything stupid, as pulled off even further away and started having some fun. First getting up to speed, or getting the but of the machine down low in the water, he was performing some incredible flips and jumps; stuff I didn't even know you could do!