St. John, USVI

Thursday, Mar 29 thru Thursday, Apr 5

Thursday

We travel to St Thomas, USVI from Raleigh, where we spent the night and left the car at La Quinta Motel. It was a long day with 3 legs flying via Orlando, Miami, then finally arrival in St Thomas - about 11 hrs including layovers. We stayed overnight at Sunset Gardens, a small older motel in Charlotte Amalie way up on the side of the mountain.  Adequate for a nights sleep and a great view.

Friday

A hectic start with every thing working perfectly. We called a taxi and it shows up in 2 minutes (before I was even ready to go), we arrive at the Red Hook ferry 2 minutes before the ferry leaves for St John. Then, we arrive at Cruz Bay and are met near the dock by the car rental representative (L&L Jeep Rentals), who has the contract with him and a portable credit card scanner and we are in a Jeep Wrangler in 5 minutes, driving on the wrong side of the road. All before breakfast.

First stop is breakfast at Jakes, a great little restaurant in Cruz Bay, then to the grocery store for wine and rum. We call our hosts, Pat and Dave Poole and arrange to meet Dave so we can follow him to their house. It's a good thing he did. We could not have found it otherwise. Their home is in the rain forest about 3,000 feet elevation (the highest point on the island is only 3,177 feet), up a dirt road, seemingly miles from civilization - a perfect place.

Bordeaux Mtn on Centerline Road, where we turn to go to Dave and Pat's

After settling in, Dave (Pat is volunteering today for the Friends of the St John National Park) goes with us to show us the island and all the great places to go (and snorkel).

Tonight we had a special treat. We all go out to dinner at Maho Bay, which is whole story in itself.

Maho Bay

After a great dinner overlooking a beautiful sunset over Maho Bay, we were treated to a demonstration of glass blowing, which is about the most unexpected thing I could imagine doing in the Virgin Islands. A pretty incredible start for our 3 week visit.

Saturday

Today we were introduced to a taste of what it's like to live here. A good part of the morning was spent on the upstairs deck drinking coffee with our hosts, meeting the neighbor, Gary, and just relaxing.

Around 10:30 we headed for Francis Bay for a couple of hours of snorkeling. Saw a couple of big turtles and a ray of some sort and lots of beautiful tropical fish.

Lunch in Cruz Bay at Jakes (their breakfast is a lot better than their lunch). Then picked up some items at the grocery, filled the Jeep up with gas (at $5 per gallon - or maybe it was per liter) and came back to the house and napped.

Tonight we went with Dave and Pat to a party of mostly people who have worked or currently work at Maho Bay. Great and very diverse and interesting group of people. The hosts, Fred and Renee are the couple with whom we are going out snorkeling on their sailboat Wednesday.

And we've only been here 48 hours. Wow!,

Sunday

The morning started slowly with coffee and breakfast with our host. Around 11:00 we headed to Great Lameshur Bay in the national park for snorkeling. This was probably some of the best snorkeling we've done ever. For about 1 1/2 hours it felt like we were swimming in a tropical aquarium. Visibility was probably 100+ feet. After resting for a while we went to Miss Lucy's for lunch. What an incredible location sitting on the edge of the bay watching the boats moving across the bay.

We were pretty tired so we spent the afternoon napping and enjoying talking with our hosts.

Tonight we went to Skinny Legs in Coral Bay for dinner and listening to a great band.

We gave up the night life around 7:30 and returned to get ready for tomorrow. 

A little about where we are staying this week.

Pat and Dave have a lovely little post and beam cottage located in the rain forest near the highest point on St John. The house is about 12 x 24 with a sleeping loft and a 8 x 24 porch. Below the porch is another porch which is the guest quarters where we are staying.

The guest quarters is a screened in porch where we can see and feel nature at its best It really feels like we are living in a tree House. It almost seems that the house was dropped among the trees. There are trees and plants growing within inches all around. It is perfectly delightful.


It seems that the house is dropped in the forest



The "porch" living quarters



The porch where we lived in the trees




The walkway to the house.  The entry to our "porch".




Pat and Clara prepare dinner

The bathroom is a delightful separate structure with all the amenities

 



The upstairs porch



Beautiful trees grow right beside the house


The home is very self sufficient. All the water supply comes from rain which is collected in a 10,000 gallon cistern. All the gray water is piped into the forest , and the black water is composted in composting toilets. The electric come from the grid as well as the cable TV.

The cabin is located about 1 1/2 miles from the main road that runs down the center of the island. The last 200 yards is a "very" unimproved dirt path. We get all our daily stretching exercises going in and out on this path. The jeep gets a pretty good workout also.

It is a great location getting the cooler temperatures and breezes and makes for some great sleeping. The highest elevation on the island is 1277 feet, and we are very close to the highest point on the island. It is reported that the temperature is typically about 10 degrees cooler at this elevation compare to sea level. I slept over 12 hours last night - and probably will tonight.

Monday

This morning we went into Cruz Bay to get a few items and to let Clara do some looking around at the stores.

Dave (our host) had made arrangements with a friend of his, Phil, to spend the afternoon on his boat (a 26 foot power cat) going to his "secret" snorkeling spots. We met at a marina (actually a dinghy dock) behind Skinny Legs to go out to his boat which is on a mooring in Coral Bay. A couple other interesting characters joined us, Collin, a former Alaskan fisherman, and Roy, who had formerly been a rodeo cowboy. Phil had been a corporate attorney with one of the large TV networks.

We first went around to the northeast side of St John to Newfound Bay. The entry is a narrow channel between reefs opening into a wide bay. We snorkeled on the reef in great underwater visibility. Then we up anchored and went to Flanagan Island which is between St John and Norman Island. Here we had the best snorkeling we've ever had in incredibly clear water. It is hard to believe that the visibility can be that good underwater. Where the visibility ended, the water turned to a beautiful blue. There were an amazing variety of fish and coral. We swam and snorkeled until we were totally worn out.

We took a tour of all the hurricane holes around Coral Bay on our return trip. After dinner at Shipwreck Landing, we were ready for bed.

Tuesday

Today we're on our own again, so we decide to go snorkeling at Salt Pond Bay, the place we are most familiar with on the island. We had first come to Salt Pond Bay several years ago and stayed at Estate Concordia overlooking the bay with Bill and Jan. And we've visited here on charter boats several times when we chartered out of the BVI.

Rams Head, St John, near Salt Pond Bay

The snorkeling was nice, but after yesterday, everything pales in comparison.

We stopped by Miss Lucy's for a late lunch and relaxed the rest of the day back at the house.

Coral Bay

Wednesday

Sailing on "Pepper"

We get an early start because today we're going out with Fred and Renee on their island skiff "Pepper" for a day of sailing and snorkeling. We had met them at the party Saturday night at their home.

Unfortunately, it was a rather cloudy day, but the snorkeling was excellent at Whistling Cay. Fred was very helpful in pointing out various fish and Coral. Their was another couple and their two teenage girls on the boat, which added to the fun. Renee had a nice lunch prepared when we returned to the skiff, followed by a nice sail back to the mooring.

This makes our fifth day in a row of snorkeling. We are beginning to feel like fish.

Tonight Pat fixed a delicious dinner of pork chops. Dave left this afternoon to fly back to WNC. Pat will follow in a couple weeks.

Thursday

This morning we drove to Cruz Bay and the Virgin Islands National Park Headquarters to catch a shuttle to the head of the Reef Bay Trail for a hike.

The hike was led by a park ranger who provided interesting narration about the history of the island and the variety of vegetation.

We hiked 2 1/2 miles down the mountain stopping at petroglyphs that are estimated to be 1000 years old and a sugar mill ruins which were the last to be abandoned in the early 1900's.

Petroglyphs

We were met at the beach by a boat for a ride around the south side of the island to Cruz Bay and the Park headquarters. Pat met us there and she and Clara went shopping and I came back to the house for rum.

Dave and Pat Lodge

We have thoroughly enjoyed our week's stay with Pat and Dave and look forward to getting with them when we get to our mountain home. They have a home near Linville only a few miles from our home.

Friday


Today is a transition day. We start phase 2 of this trip, leaving Dave and Pat and head for St Thomas and 10 days of sailing. We drop off the car, have breakfast at Jakes and get on the ferry.

Island Yachts is only a couple hundred feet from the ferry dock at Red Hook. We meet Suzan and Skip at Island Yachts, get some lunch and the start briefings and boat checkout?

We're on a 37 foot Island Packet "Sea Dog". It's a spacious beautiful boat and we look forward to sailing her.

Clara does the grocery shopping, about $500 worth, and Bill and Jan arrive around five. We put the provisions on the boat have dinner and settle into a restful evening, except for the "Puerto Rican Navy" that has settled in on the docks.