St John - Caribbean Weekend

Virgin Islands Weekend

Here are some pictures of our recent trip to the US Virgin Islands.

For a refresher on geography, click here for the google map.

There are three major islands in the US portion of the Virgin Islands, and we visited two. Our flight arrived in Saint Thomas, and we took a ferry to Saint John. ST is larger than SJ, and since the cruise ships and airplanes stop on ST, things tend to be a bit more populated and developed there. After arriving at the airport, it was easy to find a taxi to take us to the ferry. There are basically two options for a ferry ride to SJ. One ferry leaves from downtown Charlotte Amalie, while the other leaves from the western side of ST (red hook). Our first plan was to catch the downtown ferry. Though it takes twice as long, the cab ride from the airport is much shorter, and thus the fare would be less. Instead, we met up with a couple who were living on a boat that they had moored off of SJ. Since we didn't know the area very well we enjoyed talking with them, and they offered to show us how to get where we needed to go. They were going via Red Hook, so we were too. The cab ride from the airport to Red Hook was $26 for two people. The ferry from Red Hook to SJ was $14 for two people and one bag. I didn't bother taking out my camera until we were on that ferry, but I'm glad I did. The water and scenery looked nice in the late afternoon sun, and I couldn't let the big sailboat go by without getting some shots for Phil.

As usual, click on a small picture if you want to see the bigger version.

The most popular taxi configuration is the converted pickup truck. Since the temperatures are never cold enough to worry about a little bit of fresh air, the system seems to work pretty well. We had plans to stay at a place that had a dedicated shuttle, and it took us a little while to figure out the arrangement. They have one taxi that is painted up very nicely, but another driver was telling us that he was the shuttle driver. We weren't sure if he was trying to trick us or if he was telling the truth, but it turned out that he was legit. The ride was quite tolerable, though the roads were as narrow and winding as you would expect. More than half of SJ is a National Park, so the whole pace of the island was much nicer than ST by our standards.

When we set out to find a warm place to spend Valentine's day, I started with my neighborhood search engine. That led me to a web page called http://tripadvisor.com. This turned out to be an incredibly useful tool for finding a place to stay. My first target was Puerto Rico. I figured that it would be warm there, and since the currency would be the same as home and the language would be close enough, we wouldn't be in over our heads. I had been to PR before, and though I enjoyed my time there, it wasn't overly spectacular. I wanted to be sure to find a good spot on the island so I called Sheri, a friend who had spent more time there than I had. She recommended Saint John and the Florida Keys rather than Puerto Rico, and I agreed. The climate would be about the same at either place, but the culture would probably be more inviting at SJ and the keys than at PR.

My research at tripadvisor.com led me to a camping vacation place called the Maho Bay Tent Cottages. After reading the reviews of people who had been there I was convinced that it was the place for us. Our real challenge would be getting there via our standby air travel, and being able to check in with only a few hours notice during the high season to a place that is often booked a year in advance. Our saving grace was that we were visiting on weekdays. The plan was to show up at the airport, check in and be sure that we had seats on the flight, then call the camp to check for availability. This way, we wouldn't be stuck in the Virgin Islands without a place to stay, and we wouldn't have to pay a non-refundable deposit on a place to stay without a sure way to get there. As I'm sure you have figured out by now, our plan worked perfectly, and we didn't have to use our backup plan, a trip to the keys.

The accomodations did work out very well. One of our favorite parts were the wildlife, especially the hermit crabs outside the tent. They must be a great way for seashells to be oddly transported to the top of tall hills, much higher than waves could ever take them. We also had several small lizards, including anoles that could change color. These are especially common back at home in Mississippi, and we were glad to have them as our in-house insect eaters.

Here are some pictures of the inside of the tent. It is easy to see that the designers really put a lot of thought into providing what would be hard to transport. For instance, they provide dishes, a gas stove, a fresh water jug, some diswashing bins, linens, and even dish soap. Some conveniences that you won't see are running water or a bathroom. They provided these in a community area down the hill. Did I mention that all of the tents are connected with the rest of the property with wooden boardwalks and stairs? I wouldn't suggest trying to stay here if you weren't interested in walking. For people like me who take the stairs at hotels instead of the elevator, it was just as well. The good news was that all of the boardwalks were very sturdy, and never seemed rickety.

This is the view from the resturant. In fact, this series of pictures is along the path from the resturant to the beach. As you can see from the view, the water is down the hill quite a distance. The art gallery is where they sell most of the glass pieces that they make in the glass studio on site. There is also a general store with everything from bologna to candles and postcards. We took most of our own food, including granola bars and snacks and the like.

The on-site beach was very nice, with small waves and white sands. The boats were available for rent, though for a premium price. There seemed to be a definite pricing theme for the entire place; the essentials were cheap, but any extras or luxuries were especially expensive. For instance, if you wanted to bring your own cup-o-noodles to cook in your room, the tools were in place for you to do that. On the other hand, if you wanted someone else to cook you food for you, it was going to be $17 per plate. I didn't have too much of a problem with this arrangement. It would have been bad if the minimum essentials were very expensive, but that really didn't seem to be the case.

Oh, and did I mention that the way back from the beach is up these stairs? We saw a local kitty there in the woods, and if he could eat lizards and hermit crabs, I'm sure he was never hungry.

Here are a few more pictures of the resturant. The first is standing near the edge of the pavillion looking in towards the kitchen and ordering area. After I took the first picture, I turned around 180 degrees and took the other three. You can see why it made such a great place for our engagement. The resturant is run cafeteria style, so that you order and pay for your food, then carry it to your table. There were usually about 4 gourmet entrees to choose from, and each one included salad and a drink. There is no excuse for bad service when you are your own waiter! And best of all, no tip. Can you tell how cheap I am?

The next group of pictures is of the glass studio. The best time to see it in action was during the nightly demonstrations after dark. The glowing glass and the heat from the furnaces were fun to experience in person, though I would think the process would be less exciting in the warmth of summer. Evening temperatures while we were on the island were just barely cool enough to want something more than a t-shirt to wear, but only after sitting still for a while. The motorcycle was also interesting, though on closer inspection I was surprised to see how small the engine was. The blue and yellow fish in the second picture of finished pieces was one that we watched the artist make the night before. Finally, the last view is looking up from the studio area to the resturant pavillion above.

We had some time on our last afternoon, so I took a walk back down to the beach to try for some better pictures. Did I mention how glad I was that I brought comfortable shoes?

In this group of wrong-way pictures you can see the glass case full of advertisements for one of the boats that offered daily cruises. It was called The Pepper, and was built using traditional methods that would have been up-to-date in the 1850s. The bright yellow hull made it easy to spot on the water, and the $90 per head price made us sure that we would be seeing it from the shore. In spite of our lack of interest in actually sailing on it, I thought it was still a neat idea. If you look really carefully, there is a picture of it in the bay somewhere up there in all of those beach pictures.

With all of that fun stuff to see just on our campground, you can imagine that we didn't spend much time in the tent. The picture of TB in the tent captures quite a rare sight, with the exception of the smile, which was a regular fixture during our stay. Thanks to some local advice, we walked over to Waterlemon Cay for some snorkeling. I didn't take my digital camera but we did take a disposable conventional camera and a disposable underwater camera. Once we get those pictures developed I'll add them to a web page as well. The map shows the island of St. John. Our area of exploration includes about a 2.5 inch radius from the camp. Look at the top of the island to see a large hammer-shaped peninsula. The beach pictures were from the bay just under and to the left of that hammer, and the snorkeling trip was just to the right, inside the little opposite hammer created by the water. We also stopped at the Annaberg sugar mill ruins on our way to go snorkeling, but those pictures are on the disposable camera.

When it was time to go back to Saint Thomas for the trip back, we left a little bit early to allow for some exploring there too. The rest of these pictures are from that portion of the trip. Luckily we found a place where we could pay a few dollars to store most of our luggage for the afternoon. This made it much easier to convince the hundreds of taxi drivers that we didn't need a ride back to the cruise ship or to the airport. When we asked the information desk volunteer how to catch a ride to the airport, he grinned and said "Don't worry, they'll find you." We spent the afternoon walking around all of the jewlery shops and perfume shops and watch shops. It was good for us that all of these had air conditioning. When we were ready for a break from the tropical warmth, we just looked at sparkly things for a while to cool off. The part of town where we were was mostly geared for the cruise ship crowd, and I doubt it was a very acurate picture of island life. But we still enjoyed checking out what was there, and admiring TB's new engagement ring.

This orange boat was the one that brought us from St. Johns to downtown. It was much smaller than the Red Hook ferry, but it was still very comfortable.

The rest of these pictures are from the park bench that we sat on for our last hour or so in town. We just sat and watched the boats and planes, and enjoyed the island breeze. This was actually much nicer than looking at lots of overpriced retail shops hoping to befriend a passing tourist. Two of my favorite sights were of the old sailing ship and the twin otter seaplane. I guess it was a twin otter... who cares? Can you tell that we were adapting to island time?