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Ram Head Point, St. John US Virgin Islands (USVI)

Ram Head

The above photo was shot yesterday at sunset rounding Ram Head Point.  Ram Head, on the southeast of St. John is always a dramatic place, but at sunset it is particularly beautiful.

Sandcastle Hotel, White Bay, Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands
The founders of the Soggy Dollar Bar and Sandcastle Hotel are George and Marie Myrick. They first came to the Caribbean and cruised the island- on the Water Lily, a 53-foot motor-sailer, which they ran as a charter operation and for the owners. They then leased Little Thatch and ran a hotel there. They built the Sandcastle in 1970 and ran it for ten years after which they returned to the America and toured the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Belize. The couple, now in their 80s, live in Florida. They wrote a book about their experience called Incredible Virgin Island Adventure (Which I’m having trouble finding.) and have at least one post on their blog.

More Soggy Dollar Bar 40th Anniversary Party videos:

Lets Have a Party

Conga Line

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…

The Home of Dr. William Thornton, Little Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin islands

Home of Dr. William Thornton

Dr. William Thornton, the designer of the US Capitol Building, was born in Great Harbour Jost Van Dyke in 1759. In later years he lived on Little Jost Van Dyke.

The remains of the Thornton residence lie on a ridge on the Western side of the island overlooking Tortola to the south and Lost Van Dyke to the west.

The following photos illustrate the hike I took with Curtney “Ghost” Chinnery to Dr. Thornton’s home.

Ghost and I put in at the old dock that lies on Little Jost Van Dyke across Long Bay from Foxy’s Taboo. It’s a tough approach and you’ll need a shallow draft boat and some creativity to tie up here.

Once we accomplished that we hiked along the coast and picked up a trail of sorts leading to the remains of an old structure once destined to be a bar and restaurant on the western beach south of Dim Don Point. As we approached the old structure, we needed to keep alert for the numerous suckers that seemed to be just about everywhere.

From the old unfinished and crumpling, bar we bushwhacked up the hill to the ridge where we came upon the remains of the old Thornton residence.

Visit to the Home of Dr. William Thornton, Little Jost Van Dyke BVI

old dock	hillside	coconut grove
large rocks	abandoned bar	? Interior of the bar
Thornton ruin	view from thornton residence	baby goats

the following comes from some notes that I dug up last night:

Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands Notes
In 1980 there was only one vehicle on Jost Van Dyke, a Jeep. There were no paved roads, no electricity, save for a few solar panels and generators, no phone except a radio phone at customs. The ferry, The blue Atlantic, was a hand-made wooden craft capable of handling about 10 people, tops.

Electricity came to Jost Van Dyke in 1990.

My First Automobile Ride In Jost Van Dyke
Saturday, April 15, 1995

It was a beautiful evening. The moon was full, the seas were calm and the sky was clear.

We left Chocolate Hole, on St John just after sunset. The moon rose over the mountains in back of Cruz Bay as we rounded Lind Point on our way to Abe’s in Little Harbour, on Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands.

Abe's

Abe’s was fairly busy. Bareboaters from Germany, a woman with high heel sneakers and short shorts, a couple from Tortola with a 40 foot Hattaras and some others. Steve, Abe’s son, was tending bar.

We had a big dinner. Lobster, conch, rice and peas, corn and cole slaw.

During dinner I saw a Suzuki Jeep leave from in front of Abe’s house. It got my attention because I never had seen a vehicle on this beach before.

Later, just as we were finishing dinner, the vehicle returned. I saw the driver for the first time. It was Steve. I asked him where he got the jeep, and was it his and where he was going.

It turned out that Kendrick, one of my old friend’s Etien Chinnery’s sons, was now in the business of renting vehicles. Kendrick, who was a former customs officer and bar tender at the Sand Castle in White Harbour had also began Jost Van Dyke’s first ferry business. He had one jeep for rent, this automatic transmission Suzuki Jeep for rent for $35.00 a day. Steve had rented it for three days.

I asked Steve if he’d take us for a ride and being the nice guy that he is, he consented. We went over the mountain to Great Harbour, around the bottom in back of the beach at Great Harbour, passed Rudy’s and then along the waterfront and back to Foxy’s where there was music and dancing.

Foxy had left for the evening and Tessa was closing up the store. Ivan was playing guitar with a local trio. The bar was fairly crowded and everyone was in good spirits. I saw some of the regulars there,  Godwin and Nippy and Melvin were dancing with the tourists. My friends, Etien Chinnery and Junie, Abe’s brother from Little Harbour, were over by the band watching the scene.

We were in for a treat, another first for me. Dean, one of Foxy’s sons, was going to do his famous fire dance. It was a great show. Dean was in costume and made up like an African warrior. The sound of drums from the drum machine. He danced with his fire sticks and blew fire out of his mouth like a fire breathing dragon. Then he broke up some liquor bottles in a cardboard box and placed the broken shards on the floor. He danced on the glass and then  he danced holding up the biggest man in the house, a 250 pound Brit, in his arms. Dean was quite the showman and I was duly impressed.

After the Dean Spectacular we got back in our rent-a-car and drove back to Abe’s for the moonlight trip back home to St. John.

Thanks Steve. Thanks Dean. Thanks to all my very special Virgin Islands friends!

GS 4/15/95

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

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…