In mid-December, like all who fly in from the States, Europe or Latin America, I arrived at Charlotte Amalie, capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands, on St. Thomas.

My plans included short, aggressive samplings of St. Thomas and St. John, but unfortunately not St. Croix, which is a few dozen miles south of these islands, reached by air or a $90 round-trip ferry ride. I had just two full days and pieces of two more to "do" the northern pair, separated by little more than 3 miles between Red Hook on St. Thomas' east end and Cruz Bay on St. John's west.

St. John is the smallest (19 square miles to St. Thomas' 28 and St. Croix's 82) and most preserved and, many say, most beautiful of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Some two-thirds of it is national park. Outside the park, shores include many gem beaches. One, at Cinnamon Bay, was also my departure point for the kayak trip across into the British Virgins, which was the trip's primary goal along with biking and snorkeling.

Charlotte Amalie is the Caribbean's busiest cruise port. Charlotte Amalie and the eastern half of St. Thomas are arguably overdeveloped and crowded with too many cars.

A great disappointment, especially given my prior idea of the Virgin Islands as the most perfectly alluring Caribbean destination, was the trash in Charlotte Amalie and even in suburban and rural St. Thomas.

But I knew the beauty was out there if I could get to it. My chosen means were bike and kayak.

It's startling how absent bicycling is on these perfectly bike-sized, warm islands. A few locals bike city streets or short stretches of coast road, but there seems to be no commercial bike rental. So I borrowed a bike from a friend's friend with promise of giving him a District of Columbia bike tour someday. I didn't see another bike, tourist or local, climbing mountain roads.

There are basically two reasons for this. First, St. Thomas and St. John are very hilly. The hills are steep and, over any distance, a real challenge for all but the fit and resolute. On St. Thomas especially, getting from southern to northern shores means some extended serious grinding.

On St. John's most used coastal road - that skirting the northwestern shores - one set of switchbacks is steep enough that I almost couldn't keep my front wheel on the ground. But that's what low gears are for.

Second, roads are narrow and often poor, with no shoulders. Traffic is excessive, which can be dangerous to even a careful biker. Great views reward your effort, but you must stay alert and nimble.

Despite good commercial kayak availability, I also didn't see another kayak in the main channel above St. John on the breezy afternoon I paddled over to the British island Tortola. It's only a few miles from most points on St. John's north shore over to Tortola's town of West End. From Cinnamon Bay it's less than 5 miles.

The biking and kayaking went joyfully. I biked into Cinnamon Bay about 2 p.m., having surmounted the aforementioned road; pushed off about 3, and stopped to snorkel in lowering but still-brilliant sunshine off Whistling Cay, a charming little island.

Then I battled up the basically east-west sea channel against stiff headwind and waves, arriving about 5 p.m., with sundown near.

To my bemusement, no one in the harbor seemed to consider me anything but a local paddler, so I might have been free to land, walk around, shop and paddle out without official contact. Sentimentality as well as legal duty pushed me to seek a passport stamp, so before landing, I waved and hollered to dock-loitering Customs: "Ahoy the dock! I'm over from the U.S.! Can I get my passport stamped?"

After a moment, I was told to land and enter. It became clear this was a first in anyone's experience. Customs warmed to it, but in best bureaucratic tradition insisted I have a vessel name despite my remonstration that it was a rental sit-on kayak. Hailing from Cinnamon Bay, I listed her as Cinnamon 1. The stamped fee receipt read that I was "Received from Cinnamon Bay."

As for the passport stamp, someone noted it in ink with "kykak" as my conveyance. The fee total was $28, but I got away for only the $18 cash I carried. They were too cool to run my VISA for the rest.

I got back on the kayak just as dark was falling. The moon, waxing a few days up from new, cast fine silver on the sea, and bright stars were emerging.

The late-afternoon easterly wind and waves that challenged the trip had broken with dusk, so while they would not fully speed my return, neither did they require any concentration. Enough remained that I flew back in an hour's easy paddling.

The lights of homes on the slopes above Cinnamon Bay marked my landing on an otherwise inscrutable shore. The careful bike ride back to Cruz Bay in total darkness was happy.

Mark W. Powell of Arlington County is an experienced long-distance open-water kayaker.