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Beautiful lady at Francis Bay, St. John USVI

Maho Morning

Francis Bay

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.

The Roseway sailing west out of Francis Bay under full sail 4/19/2009

This beautiful schooner, the Roseway out of St. Croix, USVI, was sure to capture the attention of anyone out at sea or on the beach along St. John’s north shore as she passed by under full sail Sunday morning, 4/19/2009, heading west out of Francis Bay.

The schooner, Roseway, belongs to the World Ocean School, “an internationally focused nonprofit, nonsectarian organization dedicated to providing challenging educational programs aboard the schooner Roseway.”

The Roseway is a registered U.S. National Historic Landmark operating in Boston and St. Croix, USVI.

History of the Schooner, Roseway
In the fall of 1920 a Halifax, Nova Scotia, newspaper challenged the fisherman of Gloucester, Massachusetts, to a race between the Halifax fishing schooners and the Gloucester fleet…. read more