It’s swim practice time so I can (theoretically) compete in the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park “Beach to Beach Power Swim.”

With this aspiration in mind, I drove out to Trunk Bay yesterday afternoon for a the first practice swim.

For those interested, late afternoon and early morning are the best times to enjoy Trunk Bay. There’s no fee involved because the National Park people are either not there yet or have gone home already and you’ll find the beach relatively empty, devoid of the taxi van loads of cruise ship people, the way a beautiful Virgin Islands beach should be, according to me.

The only downside is the lack of facilities, which are only available during the day, the only one I miss being the showers or at least the running water to get the sand off your feet. In order to mitigate this relatively minor inconvenience, I bring a bottle of water with me to serve this purpose, the shower stalls, although without running water, providing privacy in which to change into dry clothes.

Anyway, it’s just before sunset and I’m completing my second lap my swim from one end of the beach to another.

They say “one picture is worth a thousand words,” but finding myself without a camera or the talent needed to draw, I’ll have to use the proverbial one thousand words this time.

I’m at the west end of the beach near the rocks and as a pick my head up to take a breath I see what looks like two deer walking along the beach.

I stop swimming and look out at the scene. What appeared to be two deer walking along the beach was, in fact, two deer walking along the beach.

The late afternoon sunlight brought a softness to the vivid colors of the sea, the sandy beach and the palms on the shoreline. At the other end of the beach, a wedding was in progress, beautiful people gathered together watching the bride in her flowing white dress and the groom also dressed in white running down the beach, barefoot, hand in hand.

I stay still for a minute or two taking in the scene before continuing my late afternoon swim.

the morning was crisp and clear

I just got back on island from a trip to America. A great visit. “Chirren dem” (kids) and lots of love and generally beautiful spring weather. Nonetheless, St John is a great place to come home to.

There were several big squalls last night, some with heavy rain and thunderclaps that would just about knock you out of bed, but the morning was crisp and clear.

The garden looked good. My prize mangoes were coming in nicely. The lime tree was in flower with baby limes forming out on all the branches. The “square foot garden” was overflowing with basil, mint and oregano.

mango

baby lime

oregano

The most interesting garden event, however was the flowering of some very special orchids. The orchid story goes like this:

The house I live in was built on the site where a another house once stood, that is until Hurricane Marilyn came along in 1995. The couple who lived here then told me that because the house was not really strongly constructed and lay exposed to the winds on the east, they choose not to stay there and spent the night safely at a friend’s home.

The next morning they drove out to survey the damage if any. About a block from the house they saw their refrigerator lying in the road.

“Not a good sign,” said the guy to his wife.

All that was left was the cistern and tile covered concrete slab that constituted the main floor. Wooden beams and furniture and roofing and all the other countless pieces and parts and wires and fixtures that make up a house lay strewn about the property.

Some years later I bought the land and the cistern and slab and built a new house on the site, this time out of bricks and mortar, like the third little pig who wanted some protection against the big bad wolf who huffed and puffed and blew houses down.

The property was also a mess. Most of the bigger trees were broken. Wild tamarind had sprouted up anywhere there was a light gap and over the years many had gotten quite large. In short, the yard was a mess.

Over time and, as the Beatles wrote, “with a little help from my friends,” the land was cleaned up and the result was a rather beautiful canopied native dry forest.

Below the deck I planted bananas, mostly from slips given to me by my friend Calis Sewer and in the tree branches I placed the first orchids of my growing collection, compliments of Trinidad Charlie.

Over the years the orchids spread through the trees becoming quite extensive in places. But for some reason, unlike many of the orchids purchased from various stores and nurseries,  Charlie’s orchids never bloomed. They grew and reproduced and spread and the leaves and stems were green and hearty, but no flowers bloomed, not for ten years, not, that is, until now.

This morning as I walked through the yard, there they were! All of Charlie’s orchids in bloom, beautiful little flowers, reaching through the leaves and foliage from the tree branches and trunks at the end of long spindly stalks.

Hempsted House, New London CT

I’ve been off island visiting family in America. One stop was to see my daughter and her kids in New London, Connecticut.

New London is a really scenic town with a lot of historical and nautical flavor, so on the first nice sunny day I grab my camera and walk around taking pictures, one of which is the house on the corner of my daughters block. The structure dates back to the seventeenth century and the man that built the house had left a diary detailing what everyday life was like for him back then.

Anyway, I’m taking a photo of the house when a man and a women pass by that turn out to be neighbors of my daughter.

“Did you know that that house is haunted,” says the man.

“No,” I say, “but I love stories so please go on.”

The story goes like this:

Apparently a women had died under mysterious circumstances on the second floor of the house. After that there have been numerous reports of strange goings on in the house.

For example, the August 22, 1908 edition of The Evening News, San Jose, California reported:
“The first antics noticed by the Hempsted family took place on Wednesday evening of this week when spools of thread began to tumble from the work basket on the second floor, down the stairs and sometimes apparently through the air at the feet of Mrs. Hempsted in the dining room below…” read full story

On May 4th 2009, paranormal investigators were summoned to the Hempsted House to investigate the many tales of strange goings on in the house. Read story.

But last summer, there was a car accident on the block. A women driving late at night swerved off the street crashing into the wooden fence bordering the property. When the police arrived on the scene, they encountered the extremely distraught driver who claimed that she had just run over a woman. According to the driver of the car a woman had appeared out of nowhere in front of the car. The driver said that she swerved to avoid hitting the lady, but thinks she ran her down. The car went off the road striking the fence and knocking it down.

“Right here,” said the storyteller, pointing to a section of fence that was obviously newer than the rest.

Anyway the police searched the area, but found neither body nor blood or any other evidence of anyone being struck by an automobile.

Suspecting that the driver had been drinking, the performed a breath test which came out negative. Neither did the woman appear to be high on drugs or crazy. The police asked her to describe the supposed victim and the lady described a blond woman in seventeenth century garb consistent with all the other sightings of the ghost of Hempsted House…