Archive for the “St. John USVI” Category
Want to stay updated to Life on St. John - subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!  A Cruise Ship passes Chocolate Hole on St. John probably bound for St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands or San Juan, Puerto Rico Cruise ship arrivals to St. Thomas have decreased considerably compared to last year. May arrivals dropped 14.6%, June 12.1%, July 13.4% and 26.7% in August.
Hotel revenues in the Virgin Islands have have suffered a similar fate down 11.1% in May, 5.2% in June, 19.5% in July ad 25.1% in August compared to last summer’s revenues.
Hopefully we’ll see a turnaround in this trend soon.
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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.
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 Dawn  View into Fish Bay from the Ditleff Point Road  View of Ditleff Beach through Mampoo and Cactus  Rainbow  Sunset from the Ditleff Point Road
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 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.
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I found a message on my cell phone today that arrived quite late for some unknown reason. It was from a friend in New York who mentioned having read my name in the New York Times and that surely I already knew about it. But, in fact, I didn’t. So I looked up the Times on the internet; checked it out and sure enough there I was:
From an article by By BENJI LANYADO, Published: December 6, 2009, Sunday Travel Edition
“…Guests here (Maho Bay Campground on Little Maho Bay, St. John US Virgin Islands) often compare notes on what they’ve done. Have you seen the glass-blowing room yet? Did you try a ceramics lesson? Or make jewelry in the workshop? But on our first day, we decided to do very little. Down on Little Maho Bay, reached by a cascade of steps from the camp’s main walkway, we watched as a beachcomber trotted up and down the sand, pecking at the tiny fish that washed up in the surf.
“Little Maho Bay, reached by a cascade of steps from the camp’s main walkway, we watched as a beachcomber trotted up and down the sand, pecking at the tiny fish that washed up in the surf.
“Lying stationary on sarongs pinned down with driftwood on a brochure-perfect strip of Caribbean beach, we couldn’t believe our luck. In a guidebook I purchased at the port, the excellent “St. John Off the Beaten Track” (Sombrero Publishing Company) by Gerald Singer, I read of another visitor who was equally captivated by the bay. Sailing past the beach on a sloop bound for Tortola in 1947, Ethel McCully, a secretary vacationing from New York City, leapt from the deck to swim to the “small, perfect beach backdropped by emerald green mountain valleys.”
“She eventually bought some land, which would abut the campground when it arrived three decades later, and built a small house primarily through the labor of six donkeys. She wrote a book about her experience, which was eventually published as “Grandma Raised the Roof” in 1954, after the publishers insisted that she change her original title from “I Did It With Donkeys.”… read NYT Maho Bay article
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This morning I awoke to some distinctly unmelodious screeches. Checking out the source I found three parrots up in the telephone pole. They seemed to be playing with or perhaps talking to each other. Although there is species of parrots that is native to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, these birds are not that. They’re most likely visitors or escapees from some cage somewhere. Anyway they put on quite a show for me this morning and I was able to get a few good photos.
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Press Release: St John Film Society
Hello Film Society Friends
We’re kicking off the Season with a Party at Sputnik. Please join us Tuesday night(December 1) for a free Film, Pot Luck Dinner & Sing-a-Long Good time!
Our featured film is a Reggae classic with a soundtrack so good, you might feel like dancing.
Please visit our website for details
www.stjohnfilm.com
 The Harder They Come Tuesday, December 1
6:00 pm
Sputnik, Coral Bay
Pot Luck From 6:00pm
Movie Starts at 7:00pm
Raffle Tickets for sale all night
Bring a dish to share and a comfy chair!
Prizes awarded after the show
As always the film is free
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The stars of the Real Housewives of New York City, Alex McCord, Sonja Morgan, Kelly Bensimon and Ramona Singer have been on St. John filming scenes for an upcoming episode.
Read New York post article…
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 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.
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