Locals will be enjoying some fairly substantial discounts at two St. John supermarkets.

It seems that the owner of the Dolphin Market has bought out his partner at the St. John Market and will be aggressively courting local business. To do this he plans to keep his stores well stocked and offer discounts to locals.

Starting today at the Dolphin Market in Cruz Bay, locals will receive a 10% discount on purchases of more than $25.00 and a 20% discount for those who spend $50.00 or more. You’ll have to identify yourself as a local and ask for the discount. The same discount will go into effect at the St. John Market located at the Greenleaf Commons shopping plaza across from the Westin beginning next week. According to the owner these discounts will be permanent.

Good T’ing!

fresh water pool

our route

The St. John Explorers Club met at the entrance to the Fish Bay Gut. There had been some light rain so the rocks were slippery. Because of this the going was slow as extra care had to be taken with just about every step.

See Google Map of Fish Bay Valley

Advice to anyone attempting this hike: do it on a sunny day.

The gut environment is simply beautiful. What more can I say?

explorers begin the hike	Robin swings over freshwater pool	fallen tree across the gut
	handholds and footholds	emergency repair

In order to avoid a particularly difficult section of the Fish Bay Gut, when we arrived at the junction of the Fish Bay and Battery Guts, we headed up the Battery Gut for a while and then bush whacked overland back to the Fish Bay Gut. We did something similar further up the Fish Bay Gut above the big pool, heading up into the bush and coming back down after we passed the pool and the steep rocks.

Not easy, very challenging, but exiting and fun.

Near the top of the gut we found a trail that took us to the Seiban ruins and then it was down the Great Seiben to Fish Bay and back to our vehicles.

Spring is here. My mango tree is in flower as is the lime tree. The mampoo is dropping it’s sticky seeds that find there way all over my shoes, my socks, my pants and all over the house.

The tourist season is winding down, but my unofficial take on last season is that it was stronger economically that the year before.

I say this through anecdotal conversations with business people on the island and increased sales of my St. John related books, St. John Off The Beaten Track, St. John Beach Guide and Tales of St. John and the Caribbean, which I’m feel is a good indicator.

The gauge of St. John economic strength that I favor most are my book sales to the Westin timeshare people. It seems that every time they sell a timeshare, they give away a package of stuff as a present to the buyer, one item of which is a St. John Beach Guide, and sales to the Westin are way up. When I go there to deliver books the desks are full of salespeople and potential buyers. You can feel the excitement in the air. When I ask anyone how it’s going, they smile and say, “good.”

Let’s face it. St. John is a special place. There’s nothing quite like it in the Caribbean, so we ought to be doing well. Let’s hope I’m right.

Buried on a hilltop overlooking Leinster Bay and an overview of his vast property holdings on St. John, is the grave of Irishman, James Murphy, a wealthy merchant and slave trader who died on St. John in 1809. The trail to Mr. Murphy’s grace heads off to the south just about 50 feet east of the trail to the Great House of his estate.

Grave of James Murphy

View from James Murphy's grave

One of two graves located just before Murphy's grave

Just before you reach  Murphy’s grave there are two more graves, one intact and another which appears to have been broken into.

Jeff Chabot and his crew of volunteers keep on with their good work making hiking on St. John so much more enjoyable. Now, thanks to them we have two new highlights on the Johnny Horn Trail, an overlook to the west and another one with views into Sopers Hole, Tortola and east.

Mara Hope South Map

The Maria Hope Road runs from Maho Bay all the way to the Reef Bay Trail, however, with the construction of Centerline Road and the enormous amount of fill used to create it, access to the old Danish road from Centerline was rendered steep and difficult.

An alternative access to the northern section of the road now exists and as a matter of fact that section of the trail, from Centerline to Maho, is now an official National Park trail.

On the south however there is no such access and hikers using the southern section of the trail have been accessing it from a point further east on Centerline near the intersection of the Bordeaux Mountain Road. The access is steep and slippery so be careful.

The southern section of the trail is not at this time an official park trail and as such receives no maintenance other than improvements carried out by local hikers.

The highlights of the southern section of the Maria Hope road include access to the ruins of the Paquerau and Hope Estates, and passage through a beautiful dry forest environment. All along the trail we passed by beautiful examples of bay rum, guavaberry and pepper cinnamon, as well as large West Indian locust, genip and turpentine trees.

The Maria Hope Trail winds through a natural dry forest	A stone retaining wall supports the lower side of this old Danish Road	Ruins of the Paquerau Estate
Pepper Cinnamon tree on the Maria Hope Road	Ruins of the Hope Plantation	Rollers used to crush cane stalks
Gungalo	termite nest	Golden Orb Spider

Although the road does eventually lead to the Reef Bay Trail, trail conditions below the Hope ruins area deteriorate and passage is very difficult.

On a recent hike I was shown a new and easier way to get on and off the trail at a point along the Bordeaux Mountain Road. (see map)

Circular structure near the Hope Estate

We also discovered a circular stone structure about 20 feet in diameter and four to five feet tall in the vicinity of the Hope Estate, the purpose of which I have no idea.

photo taken from the summit of Great Thatch's highest mountaintop

A team consisting of two St. Johnians succeeded in scaling the steep mountaintop on the island of great Thatch in the British Virgin Islands bringing back some absolutely awesome photos taken from their perch atop the summit, a feat not likely to be duplicated anytime soon.

photo of Great Thatch taken from the Narrows	Approach to Great Thatch	Mountain seen from the shore
Hilltop as seen from the ruins	close up view of the south coast from the summit	view of the south coast from the summit

View from the Aubrey Goat Trail

the route

I’ve been meaning to go hiking with these guys for some time now, but yesterday was my first experience.

Let me tell you, this is a serious hiking club going on some serious “off the beaten track” (why do I like that term?) hikes.

We met at Salt Pond Bay at 8:30 in the morning. and head out shortly thereafter taking the dirt tracks that lead to Kiddle and Grootpan Bays.

Kiddle Bay

Our first stop is at Kiddle Bay where we relax for a while enjoying the cool ocean breeze and another beautiful St John morning.

Next stop Grootpan Bay the long cobblestone beach just to the west of Kiddel.

We walk the length of the beach lead by our fearless leader, Dick Corkhill, who discovers the entrance to the trail that will take us up to the hillside to meet the Tektite Trail.

Explorers at Grootpan Bay

Our Guide

Dick finds the entrance to the Aubrey Goat Trail

This narrow steep path is called Aubrey’s Goat Trail, as it was probably made by goats, but kept up by a man named Aubrey who lives nearby and who used the trail to get to his goats that grazed on the grassy hilltops above.

The trail is steep and can be slippery when wet, but the explorers negotiate it ease. At any point you can turn around and gaze out onto a magnificent scenic panorama.

Aubrey Goat Trail

View from Aubrey Goat Trail

At the top of the hill, we walk along the ridge until we meet the Cabritte Horn spur of the Tektite Trail

Next we walk out to Cabritte Horn Point, passing by a deep gorge and an overlook with a dramatic view down onto a cove formed by large boulders just offshore of the rocky headland.

We walk along ridge to meet the Tektite Trail

gorge

Cabritte Horn Point

Leaving the Cabritte Horn Trail, we proceed to the Tektite Trail intersection, where we head out to a shaded overlook above the Tektite snorkel and dive area.

After a brief rest we backtrack to the trail intersection but this time follow the Tektite Trail to the trailhead at main road just above and to the west of greater Lameshur Bay and from there we walk back to the cars at Salt Pond.

Explorers at Cabritte Horn Point

View to the west from Cabritte Horn Point

rest stop above the Tektite snorkel area

I have some prior commitments to do so I don’t continue on with the explorers for the second part of their weekly get-together, which for today’s hike is lunch at Miss Lucy’s and if I heard right, lots of cold beers.

Ruin on Great Thatch, British Virgin Islands

Great Thatch

Great Thatch Island lies just to the north of St. John.  The approximately half-mile passage between Great Thatch and the St. John coast from the rocky cliffs of Mary Point and the steep tyre palm covered hillsides between there and Leinster Bay form “the Narrows,” characterized by gusty winds and strong tidal currents.

I’ve snorkeled there and once camped out on the beach, but I always thought of the interior of the island to be impenetrable bush on cliff-like hillsides, maybe suitable for goats, but not people. I was wrong.

Guided by a good friend and knowledgeable Virgin Islander, I took the opportunity to explore for the first time, the island’s interior.

We began our adventure at the site of an unfinished building on the far eastern corner of the long beach on the southern coast. Rumor has it that this was to be a built as a restaurant. Work started about 1997, but was plagued by misfortune. Supposedly a dump truck full of gravel arriving by barge got stuck in the sand and remained stuck for quite some time. It was eventually removed, but I never heard how. The same sand that the truck got stuck in, made the site look like a desirable beach location, but that was an anomaly, the natural state of that section of beach is gravel, to which it returned and is to this day. So much for rumor.

stone retaining wall on lower side of road

We headed straight up the hill in back of the building through a forest of mostly genip trees growing very close together. The vegetation was thick, but passable and we soon came to an old road bed running gradually up along the hillside. We followed the road until my friend inexplicably decided that we should leave the road and continue straight up again towards the ridge, which we did, and which led us to the first of a series of ruins.

Great Thatch, British Virgin Islands

outbuilding above the road	cook house	animal corral
cistern	cookhouse doorway	view from ruin

Smuggling and Great Thatch
I came across this little tidbit of historical information, which gives, among other things, a little picture of life on this island that I always thought to be either uninhabited or at least sparsely so.

“On being informed on November 24 (1856) that a boat belonging to an inhabitant of (Great) Thatch Island was trading without a license, the sub-treasurer of Tortola proceeded to seize it. He soon had to abandon the seizure, however, when he was assaulted and the crew of his boat badly beaten. Two days later, a force consisting of four constables was dispatched by the stipendiary magistrate to arrest the offenders. On landing they were obstructed by 40 or 50 people, and when the persevered and made their arrest were also severely beaten. On the following day, a larger force comprising 30 men, principally rural constables, 12 of whom were armed, was dispatched to quell the spirit of insubordination and to apprehend the offenders. Despite this show of force, it was only the assistance of the Wesleyan missionaries who were influential among the inhabitants, which enabled 16 arrests to be made without active opposition.” From “A History of the British Virgin islands” by Issac Dookhan

Great Thatch’s connection with smuggling may not be confined to the nineteenth century as rumors abound about bales of illicit drugs being found washed up on the shoreline there.

The name of the island itself suggests something nefarious. It is said that Thatch is a corruption of the name Teach and that the islands given the Thatch name, Thatch Cay in the US Virgins, and Great and Little Thatch in the British were named after the pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.

Bottles
On our walk we encountered many old bottles as well as other artifacts. It seems that this might help to date how recently people were still living on the island. Many of the bottles it turns out were manufactured by the Portobello bottle company in Edinburgh, Scotland after 1907.

One More T’ing
All during our walk we could hear the bleating of a goat, but we could never see him. Just as I was leaving a spotted him…