Late in the afternoon yesterday, I took a walk on the Lind Point Trail. It looked like a good day for sunset photos and it was. It has been raining lately so all the trees and plants were green and lush. I walked down to the beach at Salomon and over to the Lind Point Battery Overlook and was able to get some pretty nice photos.
The bad news was the mosquitoes. They were fierce. The day before I battled them at Maho Bay after a late afternoon swim and they were bad, but this was something else. A friendly couple came while I was photographing and offered me some mosquito repellent, which I gladly accepted, but I was afraid to put my camera down for fear that the mosquito dem would carry it off.
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.
Trunk Bay is the jewel of St. John’s Virgin Islands National Park. It’s got it all, incredible beauty, facilities, lifeguards, underwater snorkel trail. And if you would like to experience Trunk Bay, practically deserted and without paying a fee, just arrive early in the morning or late in the afternoon. See Trunk Bay – Google Map
Watching one of the last of the undeveloped sandy southwestern beaches go the way of the big money seems to have drawn me there lately; getting there while the getting is good, so to speak. Made me think of the archived photos I have of those pre-development days. when a rugged trail lead to the point and the eastern and western beaches.
Ditleff Point
This photo was on the cover of old editions of St. John Off the Beaten Track. To get here walk south along the coast from Ditleff beach.
Tide Pool
"the times they are a changing"
Native fishermen used to use Ditleff Beach for picking whelk, diving conch and inshore fishing. Before that the Tainos had established a settlement there.
Ditleff Beach Western Side
Ditleff Beach is a sand and coral rubble beach. Even if land access is closed the beach remains public and can be accessed by boat or by swimming or snorkeling from Klein Bay.
Beach Fish Bay Side
Rubble beach on the Fish Bay side.
View of the beach from the old trail
The previous owners, Dow Chemical heirs, I’m told, wanted to keep the Point as it was save for bulldozing a dirt track over the old narrow trail. When they passed the new owners decided to develop.
Overview
The Point as seen from the Fish Bay Road before development.
overview of Ditleff Point from the development road
Ditleff Point
Yesterday I was out early in the morning checking out the south side for some photos and when I came to Ditleff Point I noticed that although the gate controlling the vehicle traffic was closed a walk through gate remained open. Taking advantage of this access were dog walkers and joggers all of whom were familiar to me.
Passing through the open gate, I began to walk down the now bulldozed and paved road, which not long ago was a rugged dirt track. Along the way I met Miles Stair of Holiday Homes fame. He slowed his pace and waled with me.
a squall blows in from the east
Rainbow
On our way back to the main road a squall blew in from the east. The mist from the squall produced a beautiful rainbow that arched over the Point from east to west. I’m excited to come back here, shoot some photos, and take a few jogs, before, and hopefully this never happens, that access is closed off to St. John residents and visitors.
Gated Community
About Beach Access
“…While the coastlines and beaches of of the Virgin Islands are public domain the question of access has nor been formalized. In most jurisdictions which have public beach access laws the owners of properties adjacent to beaches are required to provide public access through the land. Here in the Virgin islands developers and landowners have taken the position that access is only necessary via the sea and providing land access is optional. This interpretation is not always so. For example, the Pond Bay Club on Chocolate Hole was required to provide land access to the beach, Ditleff point apparently not as the gate suggests.
“Historically, land access to Ditleff Point goes back to the first inhabitants of indigenous peoples who had a settlement there some two thousand years ago.
Poor whites abnd freed slaves lived there during colonial times. During substance farming days, a family lived in a house whose foundation still exists, lying just inland from the southern end of the beach.
After that Ditleff Beach was used primarily as access to the sea for fishing and the gathering of whelk and conch as well as recreationally for swimming, snorkeling, diving and fishing. Original trails were replaced by a bulldozed road when a group of mainlanders purchased the point declaring that they had no intention of developing it. For many years St. Johnians and visitors used this road as access to the beaches. When the mainlanders passed away and the property passed to their heirs, the land was cut up into parcels, developed and put on the market, with a gate at the entrance to control access.
Hawksnest Bay in the early morning with waves breaking over the reefs lying just offshore. It's a beautiful, quiet morning. There's nobody here but Habiba and I.
The pavillion offer venues for community events, birthday parties, family BBQs and other gatherings.
Just to the west of the popular Hawksnest Beach, lies a much smaller and far less visited stretch of soft coral sand known as Little Hawksnest.
I revisited this little beach yesterday and realized that it has been some time since I had been there. The tide was high and the surf was up (our St. John winter season is just about upon us) and there wasn’t much beach to speak of with waves washing up almost to the vegetation line.
It isn’t always this way and on more normal days one can find a quiet little beach just to the west of the public beach.
To get to Little Hawksnest, you’ll need to walk to the far western end of the public beach, take the trail through the woods that parallels the shore until you get to the rocky coastline separating the two beaches. A relativity easy scramble will bring you to the beach.
Thinking back (all the way to 1972) I remember attending the wedding of Charlie Deyalsingh (Trinidad Charlie) and Cathy Hartford on this very beach, where among other festivities we had a pig roast.
Remember I said relatively easy scramble, but thinking about it, setting up a pig roast on that beach must have been fairly challenging. I guess we all were a lot tougher in those days.
I try to get over to Trunk Bay in the late afternoons for a nice long swim. It’s especially inviting during these summer months when the water is good and warm, just the way I like it.
Trunk Bay Stamp
The view from the Trunk Bay overlook on the North Shore Road is probably one of the most photographed scenes anywhere.
There’s even an official United States Postal Service stamp featuring that world famous vista.
Trunk Bay is the favorite destination for cruise ship passengers and day-trippers from St. Thomas and tends to be fairly busy, at least by St. John standards,
As the sun sets over St. Thomas, however, the scene changes and the beach is often just about empty.
The late afternoon at Trunk now attracts lovers of all kinds, beach lovers, beauty lovers and young lovers of all ages.
I shot this video of a typical Trunk Bay sunset a few days ago.
I-Tal
The music is by our own St. John culture bearer, I-Tal Anthony from Salt Pond Bay, enjoy!
There’s that saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, here’s some photos taken yesterday, which was another incredibly clear day. St. Croix and the Puerto Rican islands of Vieques and Culebra were again visible as was the mountain, El Yunque, on Puerto Rico itself. And the sunset was spectacular.
Trunk Bay Afternoon
Ghost Crab
St. Croix as seen from Boatman Point - St. John USVI
On Sunday mornings Chelsea O’Brien and I meet at Maho Bay for our weekly Sunday morning swim.
We’re doing a nice long swim. It used to be three miles, but we’re presently down to two and working our way up again.
Just about every Sunday morning we see the same St. John characters either here at Maho or running along the roadside; familiar exercise addicts like ourselves; serious runners and swimmers and bike riders; people like Miles Stair, Hank Slodden, Moe Chabuz and Pat Mahoney.
There’s no Sunday morning sleeping in for this crowd.
At sea, like on land, it’s the same story, we see the same familiar characters, only here its fish and sea creatures instead of people.
There’s the one big turtle and the two little ones swimming over the seagrass in the middle of the bay, who I like to think of as the mama turtle and her two children.
There’s the schools of fry surrounded by jacks and Spanish mackerel in the shallow waters along the edge of the bay as we turn to swim towards the point between the two Mahos while pelicans await in the trees or circle above.
Green Turtle
When we reach the big rocks at the point, you can bet that we’re going to see those same schools of yellow French grunts hovering above some submerged boulder.
Then nothing much as we pass by Little Maho and the beach at Francis Bay, until we arrive at the northern end of the beach where the sand gives way to the rocky shoreline and there’s that same big barracuda claiming his territory.
Sunday morning Maho with its familiar cast of characters. Check it out. We’ll all probably be there, at least for now, being as we are – creatures of habit.
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