Catching up - in picture form!

Yesterday's entry was wordy (and maybe a little bit preachy?), so to counter that, and in our continuing effort to get up to date, today's entry will be almost exclusively pictures - enjoy!

Here's a photo essay of the last few months of our life on island...

Sunset from high atop Gifft Hill Rd.

Four lovelies at St. John Guest Suites

Nap time!

Peace Hill ruin

Non-indigenous species

Turtle in Chocolate Hole

Spotted eagle ray in Frank Bay

Lionfish - lovely but dangerous - and a threat to the coral reef ecosystem!

Jason exploring

Great Cruz Bay and beyond, as seen from Contant 

Volunteers at the Animal Care Center (ACC) 8 Tuff Miles water station

ACC water station

8 Tuff for all ages!

Cruz Bay sunset from Wharfside

East end predator

InnerVisions perform at Oasis in Coral Bay

Getting in the spirit!

St. Patrick's Day parade staging area

ACC crew preparing

ACC crew at the St. Patrick's Day parade

Cruz Bay

Schooling Tang

Grey Angelfish

 

Haulover North Bay

Smooth Trunkfish

Trumpet Fish

Shark at Haulover North

Angel's Rest - St. John's floating swim up bar!

Leslie and Steve on Angel's Rest

Upeer deck action on Angel's Rest

Sunset from the Cruz Bay overlook

 

Champ in his element. Patches needs a little more convincing...

Patches' little friend is obviously terrified of pit bulls...

Cruz Bay as seen from Asolare

Leslie hunting for treasure along the shore at Hart Bay

Hart Bay

Hart Bay

Some of the things that make St. John, well...St. John!

As residents of this lovely rock surrounded by azure waters, etc., etc., etc. we get asked one question an awful lot - "how wonderful is it to live here?"

The short answer is, "it doesn't suck" or some variant of that.

The question we don't often get asked is, "why did you decide to move here?"

Fair enough, the answer seems obvious what with the azure water, etc...
For us it was daring to act on a dream we'd been fostering for years, and a number of things paving the way for us to take a chance and actually give it a go!

The one that we used to ask, and the one that may just separate the visitors from the potential future residents is this one - "what's it like to live (as opposed to vacationing) here?"

There are a lot of components to that answer, at least if you ask that question of me (you've been forewarned!):

Other than the natural beauty, what do you like best?

For me, it's got to be the sense of community. Yes, it's a smaller place, population wise, than where we moved from, but you do get a sense of being in something together, especially when you're supporting one of the causes for which folks here rally.

What do you miss the most about where you lived before?

Not even close - my friends and family. You don't live in a community as long as we did without establishing some long and meaningful relationships. Fortunately, they still exist, and in today's world we can, and do stay in touch. But it's different than doing so in person.

Secondary to that, it's a matter of personal preference and highly dependent on what you like to do with your "spare" time and energy. Leslie and Shane might say that easy access to a multiplex where all of the first run movies is something they miss. Although I like the people that work in the ones here, I miss my old local supermarket. And not just the (relatively) lower prices. Selection, space, easy parking... Variety in restaurants is another one. If you're coming here for a week there's no way that you can hit all of them. If you're here for many, many weeks it's amazing how few you feel that there are - especially if some of them are priced "for special occasions only", you eliminate some for any number of personal reasons, and you consider that even the reasonably priced ones can take a big bite out of your budget if you're not careful.

Services - I suppose that I took curbside garbage removal and personal mail delivery for granted. And the fact that practically anyone could/would ship their merchandise to you. Some companies have pretty weird and seemingly arbitrary policies about what they will and won't send down here. You can't subscribe to some music and video streaming services (no ESPN3 for example).

What do you not like about living here?

This one if usually posed in the context of a visitor remarking "if I lived here, "X" would drive me crazy"
I typically don't answer this one as asked, but instead try and couch it in terms of the "what do you miss" questions. Every place that is populated with humans has some warts. There are always going to be people that are either having a bad day, or choose to always have a bad day, so you devise your strategies for dealing (or not dealing) with those folks.

If you could, what would you change about the island?

Here's where new residents need to, in my opinion, tread carefully. Quite often this goes back to the "they do this so much better/cleaner/more efficiently where I come from" attitude. And while some of that may be true, one should be careful what they ask for. Make a place too much like "home" and you may as well stay home.

Families that have lived here for generations, as well as long time residents, don't necessarily embrace all of the change they have seen here, even if some of it has improved/simplified some aspects of their lives. Of course some change will always be inevitable, as is the longing for the "good old days".  That being said, I believe that trying to have a positive impact on your environment is a worthwhile aspiration.

I think having a more robust/comprehensive recycling program on island would be great. Not only from a "green" perspective, but to help eliminate some of the litter that is all too ubiquitous here.

Personally I would like to see better treatment of animals. There are some great organizations on island (the Animal Care Center for one!) that are doing a lot to take in, care for, and place abused and abandoned animals, provide spay/neuter/feed programs for feral cats and much more, but there are a lot of animals left outside to either wander into harm's way, or are left chained up all of the time. Some of that is due to cultural differences (the governor has gone on record as standing up for the "right" of allowing cockfighting) but I'd like to see a program of education implemented that might change, even slowly, some of the pattern of animal neglect and abuse.

Are you happy that you moved here?

I would hope that the answer to this is always "yes". If not, then do yourself a favor and move somewhere else! Really, I tell people that this is indeed Paradise, but it's not Utopia. You still have to run errands, do chores, deal with people that don't make it easy all of the time, etc.

But... when you are driving to the store, or the dumpster, or on any of those other errands and you catch a glimpse of those down island views...ahhhh!!!!

When you wander into town to pick up the mail at the post office and seeing a kid that's obviously a visiting cruise ship passenger sitting at a roadside food stand enjoying a drink, and he's wearing a fully inflated snorkel vest even though he's hundreds of yards from the water, you try not to laugh and you silently debate whether or not you can discreetly get a picture of this on your phone for the "you're not gonna believe this" file...

When you're snorkeling, and the coral, creature, and fish just take your breath away and you don't have to think "I only have X more days of this before I have to leave"...

When that West Indies clerk that appeared to have a sullen attitude finally cracks a smile at your silly jokes, and warmly wishes you a good afternoon as you're leaving....

Yeah, we're happy to be on St. John!

...and growing!!!

Editor's note: Looking back, the most recent entry here was made over a month ago, and it contained news that was two months old at that time. Obviously not what we had in mind when we started this thing. So I've decided that rather than wait and publish novellas bi-monthly, to make this a short, and hopefully fun read, and post entries often. Most of the big drama of our move is past, so going forward we'll focus on the things that make living here interesting - enjoy!

We last left you in January after adding Patches to our island family. She has settled in well, as has Champ, who has accepted (and at times even seems to have embraced) the idea that she's here for the long haul.

Shortly after that, our island family grew once more. No - no more dogs, no cats, no chicken, iguanas, mongoose, or deer (at least not that live in the house). Jason was unable to secure an internship that he had hoped would occupy his time and talents during the spring and summer, so we all decided that he should come down here to bide his time until grad school/the next phase of his life. He arrived mid-January, spent a few weeks working on his base tan, his beach volleyball game, and making on island friends, then ended up getting a job at the restaurant Asolare.

So we have a full house now - people that sleep (when the barking dogs and crowing roosters will allow) in every bedroom, and two dogs that sleep wherever they please!

Leslie's babysitting service ( shameless plug - her web site is at kidsnightin.com ) is thriving. One of the side benefits of that is that she gets to see a number of vacation homes that we would likely never get to visit otherwise.

Shane is doing well at his job with Cruz Bay Watersports - he's actually involved with training the new hires!

Leslie and I volunteered to help out at the Animal Care Center's annual winter gala - this year's theme: Party Like a Rock Star. It was held at a beautiful home high above Chocolate Hole, and brought out the best that the island has to offer - in costumes (Elvis won the costume contest!) donations, volunteers, food - the works! And Leslie showed, once again, that SHE is a rock star!

 

We've done a bit of snorkeling (yay!). We even discovered that the bay closest to where we live, which is a five minute walk away, has much better snorkeling than we thought. It's nice to know that swimming with the sea creatures is so easy and convenient!

   

Leslie got a haircut! Maybe not earth shattering news to most people, but it was her first one in a year. And, just like the previous one, it was done in conjunction with her being a part of a team that was part of an event that is a part of a national organization that raised (once again!) a ton of money (not to mention awareness) to help fight pediatric cancer through research. We are all so proud of her!

We have been busy living our lives. We do a lot of the mundane stuff everyone does, and we're not on perpetual vacation. But we do try and stop from time to time to remember and reflect on where we are, and how fortunate we are to be surrounded by friends, family, people having fun, and...of yeah - the scenery ain't bad either!

Growing...

There's an old saying, "life is what happens when you were expecting something else". I think most everyone can see the truth in that. We sure can. For better or worse (and it's certainly not all of the latter) our dreams rarely play out exactly as we imagine them. Take moving to an island in the Caribbean for instance...

When we first visited, and fell in love with St. John, we could only dream of moving to and living on this lovely rock. And dream we did. We spoke of and shared our personal versions of this dream from time to time. I have to be honest - I rarely if ever included having Champ with us in those scenarios - probably because he had never been with us on any of our visits. Not that we could even remotely consider not bringing him along once the decision had been made to make the move. And, despite some of the logistical obstacles of getting him here, and the tweaking of our day to day routine to accommodate his presence here with us, we wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm pretty sure that none of my daydreams included having other people living with us either. But when it seemed to work out the best for all involved to include Shane in our "island family", the reality of our dream once more underwent some changes. And despite some of the day to day challenges of having one of our grown children living full time (at least for now) back under our roof, we enjoy our life here in Paradise.

I suppose by now I should have been made aware that change isn't the outlier, it is the constant - perhaps the only constant! And so, less than a full week into 2014 (Oh - yeah - Happy New Year everyone!) we found our "situation" taking another new turn.

This one was probably less of a surprise to a lot of folks than it was to me...

Remember Patches? She's the loveable pit bull mix from the ACC (St. John Animal Care Center) that Leslie fostered from time to time before any of the rest of us had made the move down here. We'd had her over for "sleepovers" on a few occasions and had gone to the ACC and taken her for walks a few times as well. And, as was noted in our last blog entry, she was what Leslie had hoped would be her Christmas present.

Maybe I'm paranoid, or have an over active imagination, but there certainly seemed to be a "campaign", waged on multiple fronts, to convince me that we should adopt Patches permanently. I couldn't log onto Facebook without seeing comments directed "to Leslie" along the lines of "keep her already", or "you two are meant to be together", etc. On more than one occasion when we were meeting up with friends that were visiting the island, the question was posed point blank, "so, when are you adopting Patches?"

I had a litany of reasons (NOT excuses, as I often told myself - and others) as to why this wasn't practical for us at the present time. Having two dogs would certainly limit our housing options going forward. How would Champ deal with not being the "only child" - after all, wasn't he still adjusting to the move? How would a dog that had been living in a kennel environment adjust to living full time in a house? Would she tear things up? Given enough time, I could build a compelling case against bringing her home to stay.

One our trip back to Florida for Jason's graduation, I had mentioned to our friend Michael, once the subject had inevitably came up, that as sweet as a dog as she is, and as sorry as I felt that she didn't have a "forever home",  I couldn't save all of the dogs in the world. I figured as an engineer, that he would surely see the list I'd compiled and agree that it made the most sense. Instead, he told me a story about a guy walking along a beach that was covered with starfish that had been washed ashore by the tide and were left high and dry. As he walked along, he picked up one starfish after another and threw them into the water. When a little boy questioned his actions by remarking that he couldn't possibly save all of them, the man held up a starfish and said "you're right, but I can save this one". Thanks a lot Michael...

So...over dinner on a Sunday night with another friend that was visiting, the question was tendered yet once again. I was ready. I calmly laid out my objections/reasons/excuses, emphasizing that it had nothing to do with Patches herself, whom I thought was a sweet and wonderful dog. Surprisingly, the response was, "that makes a lot of sense".

Exoneration. A third party, someone else that wanted to see Patches in a good place, had acknowledged that my reservations were legitimate. Back to finishing dinner and moving on to other subjects.

But, as I ate and drank, my thoughts drifted to Patches sitting in her kennel in the dark, and..."but I can save this one".

I can save this one.

I can save this one.

I can save this one.

During the dessert/no dessert deliberations I suddenly blurted out to Leslie, "if you want to, we can bring Patches home tonight".

"For good?"

"For good."

"You better not be teasing me".

"Nope, if you want to we can go and get her right now."

There's another old saying. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you deal with it. We already knew that our life here is and was going to be different than the fantasy world version. Sometimes going with your heart has to take precedence over going strictly with your head. We had been operating on that premise ever since we took the leap of faith to chase our dream, so why stop now?

So...without further ado...welcome to our newest family member, Patches "Starfish" McKibben!

 

Happy Holi-daze Island Style!

The four of us are all back together again, for the first time in a long time. Thinking back, it was probably last year around Christmas time that we were all in the same place at the same time – almost a full year! Unthinkable not so long ago, but that’s the reality now. And, while we don’t want to think about that just now, it won’t be for very long, so we had best enjoy ourselves while we can!

First things, first - back from the chillier climes we'd experienced the previous week (I had to wear long sleeve t-shirts, and *GASP* socks!), it was time to get comfortable again. As you can see, Jason wasted no time getting his island on, although truth be told, he'd dress that way in a snowstorm if he thought he could get away with it!

Here he is, "chillin'" with his best friend...

There were some folks visiting the island that put out an SOS on the VIOL STJ travel forum stating that they had missed packing the charger for their underwater camera, and asking where they might be able to buy one on island. It didn’t look like they’d be able to, but Leslie happened to have an extra one that she said they could borrow, and they invited us to have dinner at their villa when we dropped it off, so that’s what we did on our first night back.

We really enjoyed meeting Lisa and Michael, their daughter Katie and son-in-law Mike, and Lisa’s parents, Joyce and Wally. Katie and Mike were on their delayed honeymoon and decided to make it a three generation affair! They grilled steaks and we spent several fun hours swapping stories until the travel day finally took its toll and we had to head home!

Wednesday morning came much too early – especially for Leslie, Shane, and myself, who all had to work. Leslie was doing her local regular babysitting gig, Shane was at the Westin working for Cruz Bay Watersports, and I was on the computer working on schedules for an upcoming soccer tournament in Florida. Unfortunately, my work day lasted a little longer than we had hoped for, so I was unable to join the rest of the gang when they went in to town for the Animal Care Center’s open house event.

Thursday we joined our new friends at Salt Pond Bay, on the other side of the island. They got there before we did, and had secured one of the prime spots at a picnic table at the far end of the beach. While Leslie, Katie, and Mike snorkeled, Shane and I took Lisa on the hike to Ram Head, the southernmost point on the island. When we returned everyone had lunch, then Michael and I “guarded our stuff”, while the others took the trail over to Drunk Bay. There was a big group snorkel after that, and then we all packed up our stuff and headed to the Tourist Trap for happy hour drinks, appetizers, and conversation.

The week was flying by! On Friday Jason and I snorkeled in Klein Bay during the day while everyone else was at work. Saturday came and – you guessed it – we were back in the water again, this time out on the east end, at Hansen/Long Bay/Pelican Rock.

Sunday is the day when a lot of locals, as well as visitors, play beach volleyball (one of Jason’s favorite leisure time pursuits) at Cinnamon Bay. The three of us headed there and while he joined in the games Leslie and I braved the sandblasting winds and chilly (?) water. We had our snorkel gear with us, but never took it out of the bag the whole time we were there. After Leslie and I had all of the sun, wind, and rain that we could stand we let Jason know that we were leaving. We offered to let him stay longer but he said that he’d go tell the others goodbye and thank them for including him. He was back right away to let us know that he’d been offered a ride home and that he had decided to stay and play some more after all!

I was grilling pork tenderloin for dinner that night, one of Jason’s favorite meals, so I was starting to get concerned when darkness was approaching and he wasn’t back. Our neighbor said that he was probably hanging out with the others at a local watering hole enjoying post play libations, and that someone would almost certainly bring him home once they were done. Sure enough, we heard a car stop at the top of the driveway, some voices exchanging pleasantries, and there he came down the hill, no worse for the wear and tear. As it turns out, he had been invited to a party but told them he’d have to take a rain check because his dad was making a special meal for him!

Monday – Christmas Eve! While Leslie was baking a boatload of cookies, the boys and I decided to take the Fish Bay/Beach hike/rock scramble to the Reef Bay Trail up to see the petroglyphs. We had been at that beach a little earlier to check on snorkeling conditions, only to find surfers there (so you can guess how suitable it was for snorkeling!). At that time we gave directions to a group that was looking to do that same hike. We ran into them at the bottom of the Reef Bay Trail and they said that the muddy trail has dissuaded them from hiking the spur to the petroglyphs. We found it to be muddy as described, but not to the point where we couldn’t or didn’t want to continue. All of the rain we’d been experiencing gave us, in addition to some mud to deal with, a waterfall at the end of our trail!

We hung out for a while, and even found a path we could scramble up to another waterfall, probably 100 feet above the main one. As we were heading back to from whence we came, we heard thunder rumbling ominously in the distance. About the time we got back to the junction of the Reef Bay and Lameshure trails, heavy rain drops began to pound the overhead canopy of leaves. By the time we made it back out of the forest and on to the beach we were in the middle of a full blown squall!

I really wasn’t too crazy about walking along the beach, out in the open, while keeping an eye out for lightning bolts, but the only other option was to duck under the nearby trees, which didn’t seem like a great idea either. So we just continued back towards Fish Bay, figuring every step got us a little closer to the comfort of the car. We made it back safely, if not a bit wet, and with a good story to tell!

Christmas Eve has, as our family has "matured", evolved to fit the current circumstances, but this year’s was a leap forward (?) in that regard. No driving around to see light displays, no sitting in a room around the glow of a fully decorated tree surrounded by presents. No, things were very different this year. But we were all here together! And though hot chocolate and egg nog may have been conspicuous by their absence, there was rum! And there were new family traditions born, sort of anyway. We played an old favorite board game of ours, Liar’s Dice, then the boys taught us a drinking game that they had learned in college, at which of course they kicked our tails!

Did I mention rum? So off to bed with visions of (from?) sugarcanes dancing on our heads….

Christmas arrived with not a bang, nor a whimper, but rather… a crowing! Or, more accurately, a lot of crowing. You see, there are a lot of wild chickens that roam this island, many of them roosters. And contrary to popular belief, they don’t necessarily wait until dawn to crow. And when one of them crows, there always seems to be at least one more that feels compelled to answer. But so it goes. And a Merry Cock-a- Doodle-Do Christmas to you!

By decree, and also aided somewhat by practicality, there were to be no presents exchanged this year. After all, what more could we give to each other than the gift of moving to St. John? We did get a couple of small gifts for Shane and Jason, but didn’t even wrap those. Christmas was now a blank canvas which we were free to make whatever we wanted it to be. So, what would we do? How about…going snorkeling (except for Shane, who learned more of the meaning of living in a tourist destination, since he had to work) ??? Or even better, hiking to a place to snorkel! Off we went to downtown Cruz Bay, parked behind the National Park visitor’s center, and set off down the Lind Point Trail, our destination – Salomon Bay!

This past December may very well go down as the wettest in history, or so we’re told. I do know that it rained a lot, and the infamous “Christmas winds” had also arrived! We expected the trail to be muddy and slippery, and in some places, just plain wet – and we weren’t disappointed. But I don’t think any of us expected the conditions we’d find at trail’s end, when we popped out of the woods and on to the beach. It was sunny and calm, the sand white, the water a clear turquoise – a picture perfect Caribbean beach scene. And we took full advantage!

We snorkeled the length of Salomon Bay, the point between it and Honeymoon, then another bay, and another, and another! Before we knew it we were a lot further east than we’d been when we got in the water! But it was a gorgeous day, so retracing our swim was no problem. Once we got out, and had finished the hike back to town we realized that we were starving! There was nothing open in Mongoose Junction, which was the closest place to where we were, but we were happy that when we stopped at the Lumberyard complex, just up the road, that Driftwood David’s was open! As always, we were greeted warmly by David and by Nikki, and the sandwiches and drinks hit the spot!

Back home we all got cleaned up, took care of Champ, and while the others napped, watched TV, and generally hung out, I got to the task of preparing Christmas dinner. That’s always one of the things I like best about the big day, and the standing rib roast I had scored at Starfish Market a couple of days earlier would ensure that I wouldn’t be forced to make massive changes to the menu. After the feast we topped it off with Leslie’s cookies then lapsed into a food coma!

I did catch Leslie looking a little bit sad a time or two. I hadn’t given her the one present she had asked for – adopting Patches, the dog that she had part-time fostered (and fell in love with) during the time that she was down here without any other family members.  We had had her over for sleepovers a few times, including once this past week, but I wasn’t sure if adding her to our family permanently would really work very well for us.

Soon, all too soon, we had another reason to be sad. All of a sudden it was Thursday, December 26 – the day Jason was to fly back to Florida. It had been a whirlwind nine days, and now, as we were preparing to take him to the airport on St. Thomas to leave, it struck me just how much it meant to have had him around. Sure, we had grown used to him being away, and Leslie’s “momma sense” kept her in tune with how much she missed him, but until I spent these last few days with him – often not even doing anything more than just being in the same room, I didn’t realize how much I did. But it was sure making itself clear now.

We made it across Pillsbury Sound on the car barge and across St. Thomas to the airport without incident. We dropped him off outside the departure gates, hugged him goodbye and watched as our little boy – make that young man, disappeared into the terminal. And with that, our wonderful Christmas week came to an end. He was moving on to follow his dreams and we had a car barge to catch back to ours.