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St. John Virgin Islands Beaches

Caneel Bay	Cinnamon Bay	Ditleff Beach
Salomon Bay	Hwksnest	Honeymoon
Lameshur		Francis

For many of the white continentals who had the good fortune to experience St. John in the 1970s, that time and place holds a special place in their hearts and souls. The St. John continentals of those days immersed themselves in the physical beauty and simple life style of St. John and became incorporated into the very fabric of St. John culture.

The fact that the uniqueness of this small subculture was something real and not just a satisfying self-perception was shared by none other than Edward A. O’Neill who wrote the book “The Rape of the American Virgins” in 1972.

This is a book was highly critical of greedy continental business interests and corrupt Virgin Islands government officials, resulting in a short-sighted development of the islands having unhealthy economic, ecological and social  consequences.

Moreover, Mr. O’Neill’s overall assessment of the Virgin Islands’ white continental residents  was, shall we say, unsympathetic.

Nonetheless, when the theme turned to the continentals of St. John his tone changed dramatically. In the chapter dealing with St. John, the author wrote:

“Up to now, development (on St. John) has produced little change in the island’s society. The small continental population, about 175 of the island’s present 1,700 residents, has had to become a real part of st. Johnian life – a not too difficult adjustment since the kind of people from the mainland who have settled on St. John came exactly because of the island’s isolation and simplicity, which they strongly want to preserve. Despite their small number, these relative newcomers (few have been here for more than twenty years) play an important local role. Unlike their fellow continentals on St. Thomas and St. Croix, whose attitude generally is “leave it to the natives,” these people, in their shorts and tennis shoes and shifts over bikinis, have been  vigorously working to preserve the unspoiled birthright St. John….”

The other day I wrote a blog entry about getting stung by a scorpion on the Island of Great Thatch in the British Virgin islands. That reminded me of another incident that occurred there, similar in nature to the scorpion incident.

When we first arrived on Great Thatch for our camping expedition, we spent the day snorkeling and exploring, mostly snorkeling, because our land exploration was limited by thick bush and steep mountainsides.

Between the two mountains that make up the island, there is a low-lying area with a large salt pond, which is about the only place on the island apart from the shoreline that invites exploration. On the southern side (facing St. John) there is a large calm and well protected bay, which is the recipient of a great deal of flotsam, washed up along the shore by the prevailing winds and currents.

(Hillside photo by Don Hebert from the Book St. Thomas USVI)

Exploring that shoreline, you’ll see all kinds of interesting drift plastic with some bearing labels or other indications of their world wide origins. Rumor has it that bales of illicit drugs have been found here.

The bay itself is very shallow in places and full of reef with some coral heads even extending above the surface at times of low tide. At the time, reef was extremely colorful and very much alive.

On the seaward side of the very shallow area, we could see what appeared to be the top of a mast, which came up almost to the water’s surface. We anchored, the boat, donned our gear and dove in to investigate.

As we approached the wreck we were joined by not one, but by some very large barracudas, most with open mouths exposing big sharp teeth. They were big! When seen though a dive mask, which magnifies what you see,  these villainous looking denizens of the deep looked even bigger! And when seen are through a dive mask by someone who never saw a barracuda underwater before they looked even BIGGER.  The three or four cudas that had come by, no doubt simply to satisfy their curiosity, became a giant school of potential attackers. Needless to say I, and my equally unsophisticated partners were chased out of the water and back aboard the boat.

I didn’t go back to dive that cove for many years and when I did, I could no longer find the wreck.

Now, of course, I now know that I was never in any real danger from the barracudas, (Read my barracuda blog entry)

Nonetheless, I, to this day, I can’t seem to completely get rid of that feeling of menace brought about by the barracudas of Great Thatch. Moreover, it seems that this unexplainable, in the sunshine of logic, trepidation that I have about Great Thatch barracuda is shared to some extent by two friends of mine who are both experienced spear fishermen and who I respect for their confidence and abilities in the underwater realm. These two guys, Ed Gibney and Paul Schneider, aren’t even afraid of sharks and they will even dispute ownership of a speared fish with a hungry predator – up to a point, that is.

When relating the incident to Ed, he remarked that the barracudas in that particular bay were unusually large and quite plentiful and that at times they made him feel uneasy. My friend, Paul, who often kayaks and dives with Ed, said basically the same thing and admitted that there is something ominous about those big barracudas that almost always meets when diving that particular reef.

When I first arrived in the Virgin islands some 40 years ago, I lived on St. Thomas. I had just graduated SUNY at Buffalo with a degree in psychology, something which I had no intention of ever using professionally. Not to mention that I had had more than enough of four years of Buffalo winters.

I had put together a few bucks and upon arriving in the islands, I purchased a very old black Mercedes Benz with a four speed shift on the steering column and  running boards like you’d see in old gangster movies. More importantly, I acquired a 16-foot fiberglass runabout powered by a Johnson 35 hp engine that left a little to be desired as a smooth running engine, but sufficed to begin an exploration of the marine world around St. Thomas.

One day on the St. Thomas waterfront I met an interesting guy, a little bit older than I, whose 30 foot wooden sloop was tied up next to my little boat. He lived on St. John and was the part time captain of the St. John Express, the ferry that ran between Red Hook on St. Thomas and Cruz Bay on St. John. He had been married to a local St. Johnian woman from the Marsh family, but was separated. His name was Eddie Johnson and he was,as I was soon to learn, like many St. John expatriates, myself included, a little crazy.

Now you have to realize that I was a boy who came out of Yonkers, New York. I had grown up around small boats, which my family kept on City island in the Bronx, New York, but I really knew next to nothing about life in the Caribbean as opposed to Eddie, a hundred ton Captain and a sailboat owner.

Eddie took me aboard his boat and we began a long conversation about who we were and where we came from. In the course of our conversation, Eddie confided that he had an idea to make some good money, which he shared with me.

It went like this. He would sail his boat to Anegada and anchor it in the Anegada Horseshoe Reef, which is the largest barrier reef in the Caribbean. He would then set fish pots, fish with line and dive for conch and lobsters. I would go back and forth between Anegada and St. Thomas to sell the catch.

It sounded like a good idea, although I now see the obvious flaws and omissions, like getting licenses and permission to fish British Virgin Islands waters or the utter unsuitability of my 16-foot runabout to make the 70 mile generally rough water voyage on a regular basis, but what did I know, I had to defer to Eddie’s experience.

The plan was this. Eddie and I would make an exploratory trip to Anegada on my boat and we’d check out the situation. We filled up my six gallon tank, brought along a five gallon Jerry Jug of gas, some water, some food, and headed out to Anegada at about 3:00 in the afternoon. (Another mistake, we really should have left earlier, but arriving at late afternoon when you couldn’t see the reef so well or worse yet at night; that didn’t bother Eddie.

We set out from Charlotte Amalie, and proceeded east along the south shore of St. Thomas. The seas were rough. The boat was small. The engine was, shall we say. temperamental.

We crossed Pillsbury Sound and ran north of St. John. When we neared the BVI we didn’t bother to check in.

“No need,” said Eddie.

There are two general ways of getting to Anegada. One is to stay within the archepelago, making your way to North Sound on Virgin Gorda and then heading due north to Anegada. Longer, but generally calmer seas and the advantage of a shorter haul to Anegada, which unlike the rest of the Virgins is flat and can’t be seen from very far away. The other option is the direct route, shorter rougher and scarier, in that you just headed out to the open sea carrying you pretty far north of the rest of the islands, and with no view of your destination until you just a few miles away.

I’ve done both these routes now, and I realize that neither one is so hard, but it would have been nice if we at least had a compass.

With Jost behind us and Tortola on our left, looking pretty far away, we headed upwind into the choppy seas, which sent spray over the bow soaking us with just about every wave. It was clod and we took turns at the wheel. One drove while the other lay down on the deck covered by a tarp to keep fairly dry and fairly warm.

A school of dolphins played in our wake, until I stopped to see them better, offering them some of our canned sardines. this must have pissed them off because they swam over to the oily canned fish, disdainfully pushed them away with their noses, turned around, swam off and didn’t return to play in our wake.

I was starting to get worried. The sun was setting. No Anegada in sight. The engine was stating to sputter. “Errrr putt, putt, putt, putt, Errrr,” it sounded, threatening, it seemed to want cut out entirely leaving us adrift out here so far from dry land. I was wet and cold.

I expressed my concerns to Eddie.

“Almost there,” he said, “don’t worry.”

But I did worry. Doubts about Eddie’s sanity assailed my thoughts. Thinking it through, I told myself that the cutoff for me would be when our fuel was half gone. If we couldn’t see Anegada up ahead at that point, I was calling it quits.

And so it came to pass, half way on the gas. No land in sight.

“Eddie, that’s it, I’m turning around, I said.

“just a little more, said Eddie, “We’re almost there.”

In retrospect, he was probably right, but I had had enough. It was getting dark. There was no destination in sight, and the consequences of Eddie being wrong seemed too dire.

“No that’s it for me, Eddie, I’m turning around,” and this time, I was adamant.

When I took the wheel and actually turned around, Eddie copped an attitude. He proceeded to lay down on the deck, pulling the tarp over his head, absolutely refusing to speak to me.

“What do I do now?” I asked, “Where should I be headed? It’s getting dark.”

No answer, he just lay there with the tarp pulled over his head.

So there I was, basically on my own, sun setting, the nearest land, which I now know to be Tortola, looking small in the distance, no local knowledge and never having navigated at night before in my life.

I made a beeline for the island. It was easier going down wind, the spray was not nearly as bad.

It got dark, I could no longer see the islands. This was 1969. There were hardly any lights, but when I saw what seemed to be the nearest one, I went for for it.

Eddie continued sulking under the tarp.

I finally made it to the light, which turned out to be on Caret Bay on Tortola’s north coast. It was a bay full of reefs.

Luck was with me that night. it was summer, there were no ground seas, and like Mr. Magoo, I motored safely right into the bay totally oblivious to the dangers on every side and just inches below us.

Near shore. I dropped anchor. Exhausted, I fell asleep within minutes, I fell asleep wrestling a piece of the tarp away from Eddie.

Morning came, roosters cock a doodle do’ d. I could see the little settlement with some activity beginning in the soft light of the early Caribbean morning.

I checked out our gas supply. Very, very low. We needed gas.

Eddie woke up. His attitude had improved. He was talking to me again.Friends once more.

When I saw the coral all around us, I was utterly astonished that we had gotten so far inshore, in the dark, without hitting anything, We went ashore and found an old man walking by the rocks on the shore.

“Morning,” he called out to us.

“Morning sir,” we answered.

We asked him were we could get gas.

“Roadtown,” he answered.

“Too far” we said. No where closer.

Eddie said we could get gas in Cruz Bay, but we were really low and he didn’t think we’d make it.

After a while the man called to us.

“Wait,” he said, “I’ll be back shortly.”

Some fifteen minutes later, he returned with a Clorox bottle filled with gasoline. It would easily get us to Cruz Bay, where, Eddie, knew just about everybody, and we could get gas enough to get us back to St. Thomas.

We paid the man for the gas, thanked him profusely and pulled anchor, wove through the maze of coral heads and headed for Cruz Bay. Passing through the Narrows between St. John and Great Thatch, the engine really started to sputter, cutting out at times and becoming more and more difficult to start up again, but never totally giving up the ghost.

About a half hour of this drama and we limped into Cruz Bay for gas and repairs.

The outboard mechanic on St. John in those days was a Trinidadian named Frank Estwick, who was later to become a close friend. Frank got us going, using a hammer to pop off the power head and putting the engine back into some kind of reasonable shape, hardly charging us anything.

We had breakfast at Oscar’s (James) Beanery.

It was my first trip to St. John. the island was so peaceful. The people were so nice. I knew I would have to come back and spend more time there.

Eddie and I returned to St. Thomas. We became better friends. He showed me around.  He took me to Lovango Cay, where I met Rudy de Windt and his wife, who, when their child became very ill from exposure to sand flies, moved offshore to Lovango, where, for some reason, there weren’t any.

We went to Jost Van Dyke. Met Foxy, Albert Chinnery, Ethein Chinnery and some of the other residents. We explored St. John, dove lobsters and conch, speared fish and cooked them on a coal pot.

It was a different world back then, for better or for worse.

On one hand, services were poor. Electricity and communications were sketchy. Pickings at the small shops were slim, and you really had to learn how to improvise to get even simple things done.

On the other hand, life was slow and easy. People were friendly and helpful, the corals were healthy, the fish and lobsters and conch were plentiful.

St. John has changed considerably since then, but still maintains, at least for those that seek it out, some of that old time charm

Ah, nostalgia. “The good ol’ days!

G

St. John’s 8 Tuff Miles road race has become quite the famous event. The rugged, hilly run across the spine of St. Johns central mountains from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay was well attended by participants, spectators, organizers and volunteers and was every bit a genuine world class event. Our man, Jeremy Zuber, took first place once again – the pressure had to be on.

I was able to get some video, and, luckily Jude Woodcock agreed to handle my still camera and came away with some great photos. (And it wasn’t easy to get Jude to do this either. She had some picture taking phobia at first)

Here’s some 8 Tuff Miles video links:
The Start
Featured Runner
A collection of clips including, the Heather Gracie, the womens first place winner, my neighbor Adam, the incredible kid, Joel Kim, Jody, Hank the masochist, the lovely Chelsea O’Brien, the determined and unstoppable, Patti Mahoney, Miles Stair, Richard Penn and our featured runner, Eileen

8 Tuff Miles Photos by Jude Woodcock

Jeremy Zuber - 1st Place Overall	Heather Gracie - 1st Place Women	Eileen
Chelsea	Joel	Miles

By John Gibney
In ninth grade, one of my schoolmates, we called Dr. Loveless. His real name was Alvin. He was slick. Slicker than a conger eel slipping through the chickenwire mesh of a fishpot. Conger will send the bait back up to slide through the mesh and escape. If you hook him, he will climb your fishing line and put it in a tangle. If you spear him, he will make your steel spear like a boiled spaghetti noodle.

Dr. Loveless was a charmer alright. Bright-eyed and little escaped his gaze.

One afternoon in February after school, “Gibney, could you help me?”

I asked him, “What Loveless?”

He handed me a hastily typed script. It was well written, asking for a cash donation for the Boy Scouts of America. It was signed and sealed with an official looking seal.

He said Gibney, Susstain Smith and I are going to Caneel Bay to ask for donations for the Boy Scouts. Could you come?”

He said, “Please.” And I had to water my horses anyway.

As we reached the big tamarind tree where Rollie and I had caught “the ghost,” he reached in his schoolbag and took out two Boy Scouts of America uniforms with badges and neckties and hats to match. He handed me to Susstain0 and stripped to his drawers. In no time, the two of them were as preened and straight as arrows. He was- prepared.

We ate some tamarind and then he said, “Gibney, come.”

We walked around the hill where the white employees lived. This was still Caneel Bay Plantation or as the George Harrison song went, “crackerbox palace”.

The native employees lived in the “village” on the other side of the ghut, a part-time riverbed.

Most of the employees were from Tortola and only stayed at Caneel Bay Plantation Monday through Friday.

They had a fleet of beautiful Tortola hand built wooden boats with Johnson forty horsepower “sea horse” motors. Six am Monday morning, they would pull them up on rollers at Caneel Bay’s Hawksnest- “sheep dock” beach to us then. It was only bush and guinea grass.

Past the tennis courts we walked, right to cottage Number 7, Laurance Rockefeller’s own luxury home. A knock at the door, “Gibney, so you white?” I had no fear. This is where Henry Kissenger and all the Nixon clan stayed. I saluted. My sidekicks clicked their heels. The green bills began to bulge in Loveless’ bookbag.

“If you are a Boy Scout, where is your uniform?”

“Oh, I fell in the mud,” I replied, handing the stern man the prepared solicitation papers.

“It’s okay honey,” the old geezer told his bathrobed wife, “it’s just the Boy Scouts.”

What a haul we pulled in that day. The green bills with Benny Franklin, George, Andrew and Thomas Jefferson faces on them were stacked under the tamarind tree.

Loveless kept most of the hundreds, but generously passed out the fifties and twenties to Susstain and I.

They stripped to their drawers and back into the school uniforms. Conger went home fat. Loveless went into politics and has gone far.

My horses got Purina horse chow and *******it was dry season.

Shipwreck Landing
One of the places I lived during the St. John, when I first arrived there in the early 1970s was an apartment on the property which is now known as Shipwreck Landing. he owners at the time were Tony and Anesta Sewer.

There used to be a gas station there, St. John’s first, I believe, but it was closed before I got there. Tony still ran a small general store there, but it was hardly ever stocked with anything.

Tony and Anesta were an unlikely couple. Tony was a hard drinking, retired sailor, who had been all over the place during his days at sea. Miss Anesta was a quiet, polite and hard working woman and a devout church goer.

Their nephew, Dennis Whitehead, lived in the main house with the Sewers and helped them a great deal. The venerable old fisherman, Walter Dalmida, also lived on the property in a tiny apartment .

Miss Anesta had a wonderful fenced-in flower garden, and all over the property, she had planted and tended to a variety of fruit trees, coconuts, papayas, sugar apples and soursops. Tony had single a pig and a small herd of fine sheep. By the time I moved on, there were no more animals there.

The pig
I remember the pig very well because he really had a bad smell. I know pigs aren’t supposed to smell like perfume, but I mean this pig really stank. I would get a whiff of his particularly foul oder every time he would pass by an open window. Stinky pig!

In late December of that year, I noticed that the bad smell that was a daily experience just stopped, went away. Shortly after this realization, Dennis invited me for dinner. I put two and two together and declined.

The sheep
That spring, Miss Anesta left island. If memory serves me well, she went to Europe. While she was gone, Mr. Tony took advantage of her absence to increase his alcohol intake, which was normally quite high, the result of which was that he became somewhat careless. And in that carelessness, he neglected to keep the sheep out of Miss Anesta’s flower garden.

Miss Anesta returned to a completely ruined garden. I don’t believe she so much as mentioned a word about it, but, the next day a large flat bed truck arrived to the house. Neither Tony nor Miss Anesta were anywhere to be seen. The driver methodically rounded up every last sheep and loaded them aboard the truck. When his work was done, he got into the truck and drove off. As far as I know the sheep were never replaced.

Don’t smoke in bed
“Don’t smoke in bed, ” is very good advice. Even better is, “don’t smoke at all,” but back then I did both and one night I dozed off with a lit cigarette and the bedding caught fire. It didn’t actually go up in flames, it sort of smoldered, but it didn’t go out easily, even after pouring glasses of water on it.

There was a hose outside, so I decided to haul the bedding outside and squirt it with the hose. Unfortunately on the porch were cans of fiberglass resin and other flammable stuff, I kept for my boat. These did go up in flames. It was fairly dramatic, but we were able to extinguish the fire before too much damage was done.

While we were cleaning up Mr. Tony came out of the house, shouting, “Dennis, get my gun!” He was angry with me, justifiably so, but the gun was a little extreme.

Luckily Dennis was not blindly obedient and he relied, “No uncle Tony.”

“Get my gun!” Tony demanded again

“No, Uncle Tony,” Dennis pleaded.

Realizing, finally that the situation was not as bad as it may have seemed, Tony relented. He gave up the idea of shooting me and instead returned to bed. By the next morning, everything was cleaned up and all forgiven.

by Gerald Singer www.SeeStJohn.com
One day back in what some refer to as the “good ol’ days” on St. John back in the 1970s. Our little gang happened to be walking past Caneel Bay. In those days it was called the Caneel Bay Plantation, changed now due to the negative political and social connotations of the word “plantation.”

(Rumor has it that the new designation,”Resort,” may have negative implications in today’s rough economic climate with the word, “Hotel,” having a less expensive connotation.

With us that day was Trinidad Charlie. Charlie had come to St. John around the same time as I did, in the late 1960s, me from America, Charlie from Trinidad. Charlie had a new girlfriend at the time who was shortly thereafter to become his wife, in a memorable ceremony including a traditional native style pig roast on Little Hawksnest Beach. Her name was Cathy Hartford.

Anyway, as we were passing Caneel Bay, we just happened to be bemoaning the state of our finances, which better put, were practically no finances at all, when Cathy spoke up and said, “I can get us some money. Nixon is staying right here at the hotel and he’s a good friend of my father’s. I can ask him for some money.”

Cathy’s father was the multi millionaire, Huntington Hartford.

President Nixon, was in fact on the island at the time and was staying at Caneel Bay, as did, and still do, many other giants of politics, industry and entertainment.

Well you can imagine our skepticism. Like, “yeah sure, Cathy.”

“No it’s true, I can do it,” Cathy maintained.

She then walked over to the guard at the gate and spoke with him. The guard picked up his radio and we all stood there wondering. Next an employee of the Plantation picked up Cathy in a Caneel Bay golf cart and they took off down the driveway.

We still couldn’t believe it, but it was getting interesting. About fifteen minutes passed and Kathy returned on the golf cart. She was smiling and holding a one hundred dollar bill!

Trinidad Charlie still lives on St. John where he makes Trindad Charlie’s Hot Sauce, which if you haven’t tried, you really should.

More of a condiment than a hot sauce, Charlie makes liberal use of the Indian and Caribbean spices and tastes of multi-ethnic Trinidad where he grew up. The mildly “hot” hot sauce is used by the top chefs in several of the finest restaurants on St. John. It goes good with just about everything, meats, fish vegetables, rice – I use it on pancakes.

Trinidad Charlie mentioned in a new Kenny Chesney song:
Nowhere to go and nowhere to be,
“Trinidad Charlie” on a stool next to me,
Readin’ his book ’bout the “haves” and “have-nots,”
In between chapters we take another shot.And one by one we slide from reality,
With nowhere to go, and nowhere to be…Kenny Chesney

Read Kenny Chesney Interview in Caribbean Travel & Life

Art and Janis

By Bob Tis
© 2000
Excerpted from Tales of St. John and the Caribbean

I come for the stories. And, of course, for the companionship. Cartoon large blue eyes roll in acceptance, as Art fingers a slice of a mango I just picked from his jungle yard and sliced up with my Swiss Army knife. We are out in the bush. A steep dirt road winds downhill to a locked gate. Unlocked, the gate reveals a footpath through a jungle crowded with trash-picked treasures. The path leads to a living museum for the last remaining hippie.

Art’s museum is a home built partly in cooperation with Mother Nature, Robinson-Crusoe style, employing two large turpentine trees. It is constructed from thick beams salvaged from the wreckage of 30 years of hurricanes and boatloads of memories. The walls are strewn with block and tackle from long-sunk schooners and smuggling ships. Bad art and hurricane lamps are everywhere; giant candles, Mardi Gras beads, a collection of colorful shirts and the assorted claptrap of 30 years on St. John decorate this un-electrified museum.

The mango sliced, I set my sights on a bucket of congealed floor wax, which I cut loose and feed to a homemade tiki torch. In the gloaming, the first Cuban tree frogs start to croak and Art eggs them on.

“Rrrbiit, rrribbbit.” St. John’s first hippie is clearly amused with the idea of talking to the frogs and his eyes grow even wider, reflecting their seasoned madness in the candlelight. The frogs, mistakenly imported from Castro’s Cuba by some researchers in the 1970s, take up Art’s gauntlet. We are met with a thunderous cacophony of croaks in the Caribbean night.

I go for the transistor radio to tune out the frogs. I pop another warmish Heineken and get Art a non-alcoholic Budweiser. No electricity means no fridge and ice melts too quickly for it to be economical. There could be thousands of dollars buried on the property from various Caribbean adventures but Art makes do on beans and rice and maybe an O’Douls if I bring some up to his museum.

I like to get out of Cruz Bay, where the noisy beach bars have a way of filling up with sunburned tourists in the winter. Tonight I’ll camp out at the museum. Art and I will watch the still, moonless sky for satellites and rehash the business of the day.

The battery-powered rock ‘n’ roll radio brings us a nugget from the sixties and I coax Art into one of his favorite stories of how he met Janis Joplin in St. Thomas well over thirty years ago. It is a story I love. I am continually astounded by the attention to detail in my friend’s storytelling. In Art’s stories, the details never change, and I have learned first-hand that nothing varies from the original event.

“I missed the last bus,” Art explains, talking about a night over thirty years ago like it was last week. “I was drinking in the waterfront bars and my boat was on the other side of the island in Red Hook.

“In those days, there were no cars going in that direction in the middle of the night and bars stayed open all night. It was about three in the morning, so I had a few hours to kill before I could hitch a ride home.”

Art’s hands begin to move and his eyes widen as he launches into this memoir. I easily picture him thirty years ago sitting on a barstool in an empty Charlotte Amalie watering hole, sipping on a draft beer and waiting for the sun.

“She walked in and went right for the jukebox. It was only the bartender and I and maybe some other rummy in the whole place. She didn’t play her song, she played something else.

“She sat down next to me and ordered a shot of Southern Comfort. I was speechless. This was 1968 and Janis Joplin was a very big deal. I was trying hard to be cool and not to spook her.

“‘You look familiar,’ I told her.

“‘Oh yeah, well just who do you think I look like?’ Janis asked.

“‘Frank Zappa’ I told her.
“Janis loved it. She slapped me on the back and bought me a whiskey. Before I knew it she was gone, pushing her way out through the swinging doors just as fast as she came in. All of a sudden her music was playing on the jukebox.

“Word spread like wildfire that Janis was on St. Thomas. Two days later this guy I knew was telling me all about it. I didn’t let on that I had already seen her. He said Janis wanted to go for a sailboat ride, but she didn’t want to go with just anyone. She wanted to go with someone who was cool. I told the guy I would take Janis out the next day.

“At the time I had a nice wooden double-ender, about 30 feet long, with beautiful lines. The boat didn’t have an engine but I didn’t really need one. It was a nice sailing boat.

“There was a guy named Todd living on the boat with me. He was a real freak with hair down to his waist. He was a real ladies’ man, too. I remember telling him we were going to take Janis out sailing and I know he didn’t believe me.

“The day came and it was a little overcast and kind of blustery. It wasn’t the best day, but it was a good day for sailing. The morning went by and Janis never showed up. I kept telling Todd to watch the dock with the binoculars so he could row in and get Janis. He still thought I was kidding.

“She showed up around 3 p.m., with a whole entourage of record company hangers-on. I was yelling to Todd that she was at the dock. When he finally saw her through the glasses, his jaw dropped. It took Todd three trips to get Janis and all her groupies out to the boat. When Janis got on board, she recognized me immediately.
“‘I should have known it would be you,’ she told me.

“They brought all sorts of food, chips, dips, olives, booze, all sorts of stuff you couldn’t get in the Virgin Islands at the time. We put up the sails and it was obvious that most of them had never been on a boat before.

“Janis was scared at first, but after I explained to her the physics of the boat, the fact that the keel was so heavy it wouldn’t allow us to capsize, she felt better. She just didn’t want to tip over.

“Everybody else though, except Todd and myself, were ter­rified. We were slogging through some good chop, really sailing. Janis started to get into it and I let her hold the wheel. She took off her shirt and showed everybody her giant nipples.

“The guys in the record company crew were still griping. Some of them were throwing up. I think they had eaten some Quaaludes.

“After sailing for about twenty minutes, I came about and explained that everybody who wanted to go ashore had one chance, one chance only. I was sailing for the beach and when I said, ‘Jump,’ they could get off or spend the rest of the afternoon on the boat.

When I got to the beach, most everybody jumped off. A few guys wanted to stay but Todd and I just started tossing them into the ocean. After we pried the grip of the last guy off the starboard stay, we chucked him in the water and turned out to sea. Me, Todd and Janis.
“We slipped into a real nice reach and really started having fun. Janis loved sailing. Todd got naked and told Janis that he had always wanted to have sex with her, and how about now?

‘“No thanks,’ Janis said. ‘But if you want to have me after one of my shows, you can. After I’ve made love to the whole audience for two hours, then you can have me.’

Art’s wild eyes radiate when he gets to that part, his smile betraying just how vividly he remembers the day’s events.

Art goes on to explain how he got to be friends with Janis over the next few weeks. He retells the story of listening to the first recording of her new album on the hotel room bed at Bluebeard’s Castle Hotel. He retells the story of having dinner with Janis and a friend at Escargot, which was, at the time, the best restaurant in the Caribbean.

Art finishes this rock star story by retelling Janis’s very tempting invitation, which resulted from his missed bus ride.

‘“Janis said, you’re from New York, come to Woodstock with me this summer, you can be my guest, I’ll fly you up there.’

“I told her I had read in the paper that Woodstock wasn’t going to happen, that they couldn’t find a place for the concert.

“Janis said, ‘Baby, I’m going to Woodstock this summer and so are a lot other people, you can bet that it’s going to happen.’

“I didn’t want to go back to New York. I had just bought the boat, so I stayed in the Virgin Islands,” Art says ruefully.
So like time itself, Woodstock just sort of passed Art by in the Caribbean. In his museum, the cover from the very album that they listened to over three decades earlier is still tacked to a wall. In the photograph, you can see through Janis’s oversized spectacles and look into her equally wide eyes. When you stare at the picture closely you can’t help but think that Janis could have been Art’s sister.

The album cover is faded and wilting, but her wide eyes are still clear behind the Hollywood glasses.

© 2000 Bob Tis

Bob Tis is also the author of Down Island

Coconuts
I was first introduced to green coconuts when I arrived in the Virgin Islands in 1969. At that time there were always several vendors on the Charlotte Amalie waterfront who would set up alongside the seawall with their piles of coconuts, chopping block and sharp machete offering the general public this refreshing treat for the modest price of between 25 cents and a dollar each.

These were not the dark brown, fuzzy, three-eyed, hard-shelled coconuts that I was accustomed to seeing in stateside markets. These were the green slightly immature coconuts that were picked early, before they hardened, turned brown and fell to the ground.

There is a big difference between eating a hard-shelled coconut and a green one. When you crack open a fully mature coconut, you’ll find some concentrated coconut water and a hard white pulp adhering to the shell.

The green nut is quite different. The husk is softer and less fibrous. The water inside is less concentrated and and there is more of it and the meat is soft and sweet like jelly accounting for the popular name, “jelly nut.”

So for a small amount of money, you got a nice drink of coconut water and if you so desired a bit of coconut jelly to boot. Jelly nuts are a very popular item and vendors on St. Thomas had no problem selling out just about as fast as they could open them up and collect the money. Also, the commonly accepted notion that coconut water, especially when mixed with gin, has aphrodisiac qualities, certainly didn’t hurt sales.

Personally, I not only loved coconut water and coconut jelly, but I also loved the cultural experience; the coconut man wielding his sharp machete seemingly without effort, confidently and precisely while holding the coconut in his hand. (At first I was afraid to watch, for fear of the man cutting up more than the coconut if you know what I mean.)

The Process
The first cut would be to slice a thin piece of the outer green husk about two or three inches wide and four or five inches long, to make a spoon used later to eat the coconut jelly. Then the husk on the top of the nut would be cut away exposing the thin shell beneath. The next cut would expertly take off just the tip of the shell leaving only the coconut meat itself to close off the hole in the nut. At this point the coconut could be carried away and the drunk later by simply cutting off the top piece of pulp or this could be done on site and you could drink the coconut water right then and there.

After finishing the water, you could ask the coconut man to cut open the nut so you could eat the jelly. In which case he would either lay the nut on a chopping block or hold it in the palm of his hand, and in one swift motion pass the machete through the nut, chopping it in two. The spoon would be removed from the nut and used to scoop the jelly off of the shell.

Going into Business with John Gibney
I found the whole process to be quite impressive and one day, while eating jelly nuts with my friend John Gibney, I mentioned my fascination with coconuts as a business enterprise. John knew all about it, and said that we could easily do it ourselves and so was launched our one-day foray into the jelly nut business.

We started bright and  early one morning getting our coconuts from the coco palms growing along the beach on John’s property. They were full-size trees, not the dwarf variety that are so prevalent nowadays. This meant that the coconuts were high up above the ground and not so easy to get at.

I had heard that on the island of Dominica, they used trained monkeys to climb the tall coconut palms and throw them down to gatherers waiting safely below. Safe, that, is if one avoided getting hit by falling coconuts. We didn’t have access to trained monkeys, but this wasn’t a problem, because John could probably out-climb the ablest Dominican simian.

John tossed the coconuts down to me, and I chased them and gathered them up. We then brought my 16-foot fiberglass outboard-powered runabout close to the beach and started to load the coconuts aboard. We filled the boat as much as we could, and John and I had to climbed over the coconuts to take our positions aboard. We motored out of Hawksnest Bay headed east to Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas.

I guess we may have let greed overcome common sense because we had put way too many coconuts inside this small craft. The boat was overloaded, we were left with only about twelve inches of free board. That is, the weight of the coconuts made the boat so heavy that we were riding way too low in the water. The run from St. John to St. Thomas can be a bit rough and between the big seas and the small free board we began to take on water. Luckily we were going downwind, so the effects of the waves were moderated, and we were able to control the situation by John baling out water with a calabash while I manned the wheel. We reached the St. Thomas waterfront safe and sound, with no more than a few good scares and a crash course in having respect for the sea.

We set up shop on the waterfront. John was the coconut man. I collected the money.

Now John, notwithstanding the lightness of his skin color, was every bit as good with a machete as any other West Indian. With his long blond hair and tall stature, many native St. Johnians referred to him as Tarzan. But, he was virtually unknown on St. Thomas and the sight of a white boy cutting open coconuts on the Charlotte Amalie harborfront was a little more than some local people were ready for. You could see the nervousness in their eyes as John, albeit skillfully, cut open the jelly nuts with his machete. Sometimes customers even refused to let him do his job, and instead insisted on opening their own coconuts. Nonetheless, we sold out our supply of jelly nuts in good time and motored back home to St. John with some good money in our pockets. But for me, much more than the money, the overall experience was something that to this day brings a big smile to my face when I think about that Virgin Islands morning some forty years ago.

Gerald Singer
www.SeeStJohn.com