Excerpted from “Vieques, A Photographically Illustrated Guide to the Island, Its History and Its Culture”
On April 19, 1999, Viequense security guard, David Sanes, was killed by a 500 pound bomb that missed its target and exploded near the observation post where he was working. The incident led to the establishment of civil disobedience camps in the bombing range. The occupants of one of these camps built a chapel on the beach called Playa Icacos.

La Capilla Ecuménica

The chapel became the spiritual center of the movement. Priests gave mass there, holy water was sprinkled on bomb craters and unexploded ordnance in the target zone. The Archbishop of San Juan, Roberto Gonzalez gave a sermon at the chapel about civil disobedience. The Bishop of Caguas, Puerto Rico, Monsignor Alvaro Corrada del Rio, brought a statue of the Virgin del Carmen, the patron saint of fishermen and blessed it.

The chapel was damaged by Hurricane Lenny, but was rebuilt as soon as the storm had passed.

On May 4, 2000, the day when all those present at the camps were arrested and removed from the bombing range, the chapel was occupied by nuns and religious leaders who were inside praying. Heavily armed agents of the Navy, the FBI, Federal Marshals and the Puerto Rico Police Department, many wearing helmets with plastic shields or gas masks and jackboots and bulletproof vests, stormed the church, handcuffed the priests and nuns and threw them into military vehicles. The chapel was torn down by navy bulldozers.

The chapel bell, however, was preserved.

In 2002, with the support of the government in Puerto Rico, a replica of the chapel was reconstructed on the hillside directly across the street from the Capitol building in San Juan. The original church bell was recovered and placed in the new chapel.

The chapel became the scene of confrontations between pro navy supporters and those who wanted the navy to leave Vieques as well as between statehood advocates and separatists.

In 2003, the governor of Puerto Rico decided to send the chapel back to Vieques where it was to be relocated across the road from the Camp Garcia gate and serve as part of the transfer ceremonies on May 1, when the navy was to leave Vieques.

Unfortunately, Big Island officials did not include Viequenses in the church relocation plan, which resulted in logistical complications. The Ecumenical Chapel arrived at Isabel Segunda on a barge leased by the Puerto Rican government.

Meanwhile, as anyone who has spent time in Vieques could tell you, it is impossible to move something as wide as the chapel through the narrow streets of the town. This problem soon became apparent to those in charge of the relocation who now realized that the chapel would have to leave Isabel Segunda by sea and be offloaded somewhere else on the island. (A better alternative, for example, might have been Playa Caracas inside the camp)

But it was too late. The government leased barge was long gone.

Many times things on Caribbean Islands move at a slower pace than they do elsewhere. A slower pace can also be expected for government related activities, not only in the Caribbean, but just about anywhere in the world. Such was the case with the chapel relocation.

A second barge was eventually sent from the Big Island to Vieques. The barge turned out to be too small to safely carry the chapel, so back it went to the Big Island.

Vieques, A Photographically Illustrated Guide to the Island, Its History and Its Culture

By the time a third, and this time more suitable barge arrived in Vieques, it was too late to follow the original plan of locating it across from the camp gate. Alternatively, the Ecumenical Chapel was taken to the Rompeolas, offloaded, and trucked to the former Navy lands on western Vieques, where it stands today, overlooking the beautiful Vieques Sound, a symbol of peace standing on a site where war was once the order of the day.

Habiba, Jacob and I are currently off island visiting relatives, but judging from the many telephone calls we’ve received about the murder of Juan Ayala yesterday on St. John, it seems that the sense of sadness and shock that has resulted from this incident has been shared by all residents of John, regardless of economic position, race, nationality or any other subset of St. John society. There seems to be a willingness to do all that is necessary to solve the crime and get to the root of a problem that everyone seems to recognize to be harmful to all the people on St. John.

I would like to emphasize at this point, that all in all, St. John is a safe and peaceful part of the world. We now have to recognize that on this island where crime was just about unknown, that this is no longer the case. Drugs, disaffected youth, economic disparities and other social problems now effect St. John, like just about anywhere else in the world.

However, by and large, crime on the island is still relatively rare. If you’re not obviously inebriated staggering down the street late at night, or involving yourself in a drug deal, regular people can still walk about Cruz Bay safely. The same goes for the trails and the beaches, although I wouldn’t suggest leaving your valuable articles unattended, either. The best bet is to use one’s good judgement as one would anywhere else in the world.

St. John locals are by and large, extremely friendly and very helpful. Hopefully, this horrible crime will not go unpunished and will galvanize positive action in the community to prevent an escalation of crime on this, for the most part, safe, friendly and beautiful part of the planet.

The well known and well liked owner of Cap’s Place, Juan Ayala was shot to death at 8:00 this morning outside his home in the Pastory area of St. John. Mr. Ayala had been shot multiple times possibly with an automatic weapon. There has been speculation that robbery was the motive for the crime.

St. John police, National Park Rangers and DPNR enforcement officials are investigating the crime. A $10,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators.

The Seattle Times, The Canadian Press, The Nashua Telegraph and other Associated Press fed newspapers featured the Virgin Islands in their weekend travel sections in an article by Roger Petterson:

“Don’t just sit there. Pick a destination and plan a vacation, maybe to someplace a little exotic, where national parks come with tropical beaches, and boats rather than big RVs are a common mode of transportation…”

In the section about St. John, they chose our website, SeeStJohn.com as the go to website for St. John information:

“…he smallest of the three major islands is St. John – http://seestjohn.com/ – where the snorkeling guide takes you to spots such as Hawksnest Bay, a convenient and popular beach where a reef waits for you just a few yards off the shore, or Cinnamon Bay, a popular windsurfing beach where snorkelers can explore an old airplane wreck. Some of the same spots are covered in their beach guide. And don’t miss their photo and video galleries.

And as the “snorkeling guide,” they refer to, judging from their mention of the light airplane wreck,  it’s got to be the St. John Beach Guide.

Thank you Roger Petterson!!!

Read article

The Cuna people live on the San Blas Islands, just off the Caribbean coast of Panama and enjoy a limited self government within their traditional homeland. Most of them stay within their Cuna culture, but some have found temporary work on U.S. military bases. It is there that many Cuna young men learned the love of a typically North American sport, basketball.

My Friend Craig at a Cuna Village

Upon returning to their native villages, the Cuna wanted to continue playing and to teach the sport to their friends, but they faced a serious obstacle: Every square inch of land was accounted for — either for crop cultivation or for housing. There was simply no space to put a basketball court.

The Cuna, who had solved greater problems than this, soon came up with the obvious solution — make the island bigger.

There was a shallow coastal area adjacent to the island that could be filled with rocks and then covered in concrete to make a basketball court.

Needless to say, this would not be an easy task. Rocks would have to be transported by canoe from the mainland some five miles away. These canoes, called cayucos, are carved out of a tree trunk and their rounded bottom makes them unstable.

The rocks would have to be hand-gathered on the mainland, loaded onto the cayucos in quantities small enough to allow a marginally safe crossing, and unloaded at the future basketball court site. As vast quantities of stones would be needed, this would be a monumental task. Where would this intense amount of labor come from?

The problem was approached in typical Cuna fashion.

Many cultures throughout the world have established laws, rules and regulations that are routinely disobeyed. The Cuna had such a law. Unmarried people of the opposite sex were forbidden to have any contact with each other, even speaking to one another was prohibited.

As you may imagine, this was a law that was just about 100% sure to be broken, human nature being what it is, and Cuna teenagers would secretly meet their sweethearts after dark in prearranged locations. Actually it was not so secret, for the parents and elders of the village had broken the same law, in the same places and in the same manner.

The proponents of the basketball court construction decided to harness the reliable power of teenage sexual energy and use it for a means to accomplish an end. A strict enforcement of the law was called for, and a new punishment was established, which was to gather, transport and deposit one cayuco-load of rocks for the first offense, two for the second offense, three for the third and so on.

The idea was successful! Just one year after the passage and enforcement of the new law, the citizens of this tiny crowded island in the San Blas archipelago were able to enjoy spirited games of basketball on their very own, brand-new basketball court.

The following story was told to me by Hyacinth Ashley on St. John USVI

Magic Noir – St. Lucia
The occult science of Obeah is alive and well on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia where supernatural practices and beliefs have become incorporated into the fabric of everyday life.

Obeah came to the Caribbean on the hellish slave ships that brought captured Africans across the Atlantic to toil on the plantations of the New World.

Some practitioners of Obeah follow a dark and deadly path while others are dedicated to the light, to warding off evil spirits and harmful spells, and to aid their fellow man on the often difficult and treacherous journey of life. It is said that the evil ones can grant great power, wealth and worldly delights. It is also said that they can cast evil and wicked spells bringing pain, sickness, insanity and death.

Magic, like anything else in the universe, does not occur without consequences, and with consequences comes responsibility. Most Obeah men and women are considered mediums or intermediaries between the individual wanting a spell cast and the person who receives that spell. It is widely accepted that the initiator of the spell is accountable for the consequences of the magic. Sometimes, however, the Obeah priest or priestess acts on their own for their own purposes. In this case, they must bear full and total responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This is the story of one such Obeahman, who corrupted by the power that he possessed, practiced his dark arts in order to satisfy his own wanton and selfish desires.

The Obeahman in question had long ago withdrawn from society and lived as a recluse near a secluded swamp surrounded by a dark forest. On one of his rare visits to the village, he became obsessed with desire for an attractive young married woman. The next new moon, at the stroke of midnight, the sorcerer performed an ancient ritual that allowed him to leave his body in the form of an evil spirit.

Unseen and unheard by any of the villagers, he made his way to the door of the woman’s house. He knocked on the door. The woman’s husband opened the door. The evil spirit then blew a magic dust that he was holding in his hand into the face of the unsuspecting husband.

The husband then fell into a profound sleep; one which seemed more like a coma or death than ordinary sleep. The spirit then took the woman, bewitched her with a spell, and had sex with her until just before the dawn. Before the sun arose, the spirit took leave of the house and returned to the shanty in the swamp and back into the body of the Obeahman.

Both husband and wife awake shortly after dawn. Neither remembered anything of the night before, The woman, however, felt drawn and ill at ease and was troubled by a deep scratch that itched and burned.

On the evening of the next new moon the spirit generated by the Obeahman returned to the couple’s house. The husband was again rendered unconscious and the woman bewitched into having sex with the spirit. As on the previous month, neither husband nor wife remembered anything and the only evidence left by the evil spirit was the disturbing scratch that itched and burned.

The woman began to feel unexplainably ill and depressed. One day the woman’s brother came to visit and noticed that something was troubling his sister. He asked her what was wrong and in the course of describing her feelings she showed her brother the scratches that refused to heal. Suspecting that his sister was under the influence of an Obeah spell, the man took her to see a white magic woman.

The Obeah woman immediately recognized the scratch as the mark of the evil spirit. She told the woman what was happening and gave her an herb, which her husband was to brew into tea and drink at dusk on the new moon to counteract the effects of the magic powder.

On the next new moon the spirit returned. He blew the dust into the husband’s face, but this time the man did not sleep, he only pretended to. The spirit then took the wife and began to have sex with her. Her husband taking hold of a long sharp knife, which he had kept hidden and ready for this very moment, plunged it into the spirit’s back with all his might. The evil spirit uttered a horrifying shriek, jumped from the bed and ran out the door. Returning to the swamp, the wounded spirit reentered the body of the Obeahman who could now feel the life force draining from his body. The Obeahman knew that there was no hope. No doctor or no hospital could save him, neither could his magic incantations, because his spirit was mortally wounded and as a result the body could not go on living. The Obeahman locked his door, sat in his chair and waited for death.

Some weeks later, a hunter passing by the swamp was struck by a nauseating odor emanating from the shanty. When no one answered his calls, he broke down the door and found the decaying body of the evil priest.

Just as it is in the physical realm, so it is in the spiritual realm. Balance will inevitably be restored. The laws of karma can be as rigid as the laws of physics, and the Obeahman, who had abused his powers, had to bear the responsibility for his actions, for which he paid the ultimate price.

On St. John as well as the other Virgin Islands and, for that matter, virtually all of the Caribbean islands, the occult sciences of Obeah, Voodoo, and their equivalents form a part of Caribbean culture even in these modern, high-tech and sophisticated times.

St. Croix, US Virgin Islands
For example, during the highly publicized trial of the Fountain Valley Five on St. Croix, a large dead frog whose mouth was sealed shut with a padlock was found in the courtroom at the start of the trial. It was clearly obeah,  and the message was also clear, “keep your mouth shut.”

Under orders from the judge, the obeah curse was to be neutralized. An expert in removing spells was consulted and a remedy was provided. The court security was instructed to carry the frog to the beach, turn his back to the sea, listen for the sound of three waves and then to throw the frog over his back into the ocean.

The deed done, the trial was able to continue.

Antigua
In Antigua a couple who were under investigation for an insurance scam hired an Obeahman to place a death spell on the detectives investigating the case and the insurance official who would be testifying against them.

The Dominican obeahman, described as a “41-year old burly black man with plaited hair fashioned three dolls, placed them in little coffins with graveyard dirt and sent them to the homes of the intended victims. The obeahman was identified, arrested and fined. He also turned over the names of the couple who hired him and agreed to testify against them.

Nothing happened, no one died or took ill, but the alleged conspirators were arrested and the court took their attempt at obeah seriously. Their intent was clear, although the means was questionable – to cause the death of their three enemies. The couple, who ordered the delivery of the death spells were charged with nothing less than conspiracy to murder.

Read the newspaper articles.

The part one post was about having a publishing business on St. John. I had divided the steps of producing a St. John guidebook into these categories: (1) research, (2)writing, editing and design, (3) printing and shipping and (4) distribution and sales.

On that post I covered the research category, doing what we love to do on St. John, like going to the beach, hiking the trails, snorkeling, boating and kayaking and then recording the experience.

Now the writing, editing, design, printing and shipping aspects of the business, I imagine would be just about the same anywhere, except that, and this is a big exception, you’re doing these things on St. John, where the weather is fine, the skies are clear, the living is easy.

With the resarch done on the many enjoyable days at the beach, hiking, snorkeling and talking to people, we concentrate on written and web based information and then put it all together. Generally we work with a designer to help us lay out the book. Here lies another advantage of publishing on St. John, you’re very often working with friends and neighbors. We try to work with St. John locals as much as possible. For example, the photographer from whom we’ve gotten so many of our incomparable photos is Steve Simonsen – he and his lovely and very helpful wife, Janet, live just a five minute walk from our house.

The last category, distribution and sales, is a different animal altogether when the book that you’re publishing is about St. John. Here you can distribute the book yourself on island and use the internet effectively to market off island.

No dealing with uptight reps, big publishing houses or full of themselves people. No you just go to the various stores on the island and place your books. The owners and managers are generally island people like yourself, be they ex pats or natives. You’re among friends. It’s actually fun to get out, see people and talk to friends while at the same time, delivering books around the island.

There are rarely any problems. Collections are a breeze. We’ve never been stiffed once, even with more than 10 years in the business.

So there you have it. A perfect niche for me. You can get to do the things that brought you to St. John in the first place and make a business out of it to boot. Couldn’t ask for more…