The part one post was about having a publishing business on St. John. I had divided the steps of producing a St. John guidebook into these categories: (1) research, (2)writing, editing and design, (3) printing and shipping and (4) distribution and sales.

On that post I covered the research category, doing what we love to do on St. John, like going to the beach, hiking the trails, snorkeling, boating and kayaking and then recording the experience.

Now the writing, editing, design, printing and shipping aspects of the business, I imagine would be just about the same anywhere, except that, and this is a big exception, you’re doing these things on St. John, where the weather is fine, the skies are clear, the living is easy.

With the resarch done on the many enjoyable days at the beach, hiking, snorkeling and talking to people, we concentrate on written and web based information and then put it all together. Generally we work with a designer to help us lay out the book. Here lies another advantage of publishing on St. John, you’re very often working with friends and neighbors. We try to work with St. John locals as much as possible. For example, the photographer from whom we’ve gotten so many of our incomparable photos is Steve Simonsen – he and his lovely and very helpful wife, Janet, live just a five minute walk from our house.

The last category, distribution and sales, is a different animal altogether when the book that you’re publishing is about St. John. Here you can distribute the book yourself on island and use the internet effectively to market off island.

No dealing with uptight reps, big publishing houses or full of themselves people. No you just go to the various stores on the island and place your books. The owners and managers are generally island people like yourself, be they ex pats or natives. You’re among friends. It’s actually fun to get out, see people and talk to friends while at the same time, delivering books around the island.

There are rarely any problems. Collections are a breeze. We’ve never been stiffed once, even with more than 10 years in the business.

So there you have it. A perfect niche for me. You can get to do the things that brought you to St. John in the first place and make a business out of it to boot. Couldn’t ask for more…

A Hard Day at the Beach, St. John USVI

A St. John USVI Book Business
As many of you already know, Habiba and I own, operate and manage our own St. John publishing business called Sombrero Publishing Company.

I’m sure that having a publishing business on St. John is quite a bit different than doing the same thing anywhere else, and I’d venture to guess that the St. John experience is quite a bit more enjoyable although quite a bit less profitable. I imagine the same could be said for most other St. John, Virgin Islands, or Caribbean island endeavors.

Categories
I’ve broken down the business into the following categories: (1) research, (2)writing, editing and design, (3) printing and shipping and (4) distribution and sales.

Research
Today, I’d like to talk about the first category, which is research for the book. Each book we write demands a different strategy. For now I’ll use the example of our best seller, “St. John Off The Beaten Track.” Guide books need to be updated from time and this book is no exception.

The first edition of “St. John Off The Beaten Track” hit the St. John scene in 1996. Since then there have been two subsequent editions and four printings. I imagine that in 2010 we’ll be ready to present edition four, the preparations for which will begin shortly.

Here’s how we do it. Let’s say we’re doing beaches. First step is to go to the beach, not bad for a day a at work, wouldn’t you say. We’ll try to bring everything we’ll need, which will probably be little different than what any tourist on St. John brings to the beach, picnic stuff, beach blanket or beach chairs, snorkel gear, picnic stuff, sun block and for recording the experience, a land and an underwater camera, a tape recorder and a pad and pencil.

Next we spend some time on the beach and lying there on the sand think of everything about that beach. To help us think, we stroll along the sand, take a swim, go snorkeling, sit back and contemplate our surrounding – things like that. I know you’re thinking: “wow, that sounds tough, I had no idea that book writing on St. John would entail such arduous work.”

We’ll very likely return another day to try to make sure we didn’t miss anything and we’ll also make other trips by boat or kayak for more photos and another angle on the beach experience.

At home we’ll arrange our notes listing what we experienced, and what we thought about. We’ll do the same for all the beaches that we want to write about, as well as the hiking trails, and cool places to visit on St. John and eventually will sit down to put it all together for the book. That’s it. And believe me it’s the best part.

Next: writing, editing and design

A friend visits St. John
A friend of mine, who used to live on St. John, but has since moved was on ialnd and invited me for dinner at Morgan’s Mango. He was in the Virgin Islands to build communications tower on St. Thomas.

“How are things,” I asked.

“It has been a horrible week,” he answered.

It seems he had completed all the permitting processes needed to construct the tower, historical, archeological and environmental studies, approval by the various agencies, DPNR, CZM, etc. and was finally ready to actually begin construction. A job that was supposed to be completed before the end of the year.

The first step was the clearing of the site. He hired an excavator, and because he has had problems in the past and because he didn’t hadn’t worked with the excavator previously, he wanted to make doubly sure that nothing would go wrong.

In that vain, he hired a surveyor to stake out the site and he instructed the excavator, to run lines around the entire site before beginning.

The best laid plans
For some reason, the excavator marked off only three of the four border lines of the site, maybe that last line seemed obvious, no one knows. But it wasn’t obvious as it turned out and the excavator cleared off 80 feet of someone else’s land.

The owner was irate, understandably, and my friend was mortified. He honestly felt terrible. The short term outcome was that there was a fine levied and my friend was instructed to hire a civil engineer to come up with a plan to restore the mistakenly cleared land. This he did, but his goal of finishing the project in a timely fashion was no longer possible.

Not in my backyard
We got into a discussion about the not in my back yard philosophy, which is that people want amenities such as in this case cell phone access, high speed G3 internet access and emergency services, but they don’t want the tower in their back yard.

I said that I could understand the homeowners position. The lowering of property values, the degrading of the view and the perceived health risks. My friend said that it was a case of the greater good, a relatively small sacrifice for the individual, for the greater good of the community at large.

A case in point
My friend told me of an e-mail he received, thanking his for the placement of a tower, in the vicinity of which there previously had been no reception. A man had an accident near the tower and there was no one around. Because the newly built tower was there, he had cell phone reception and was able to call for help. He surely would have perished otherwise. So in this case, a man’s (a father’s, a husband’s, a friend’s) life was saved because of a communication tower.

The conversation continued to go back and forth, but I had to concede that he had a point.

Yesterday’s Virgin Islands daily News reported that, partly in response to the land clearing fiasco, there will now be a six month moritorium on the building of communications towers. Read article.

(By the way, our dinner at Morgan’s Mango was really delicious)

Rainbow over Chocolate Hole

Gerald Singer www.SeeStJohn.com
Like I was saying yesterday, St. John is really a beautiful place to be. The above photo was taken yesterday afternoon from my deck overlooking Chocolate Hole Harbor.

Winter is here. On St. John the change of seasons is subtle. It’s definitely cooler than during the summer and the sultry days of the hurricane season, when often there is hardly a breeze. No more need for air conditioning, but no need for sweaters either.

The water is colder also. Probably something that visiting tourists wouldn’t notice, but for native St. Johnians and long time residents whose “blood has thinned,” the water seems cold and those that like to “take a soak” in the late afternoon, don’t stay in the water nearly as long as they would during the summer.

The trade winds are stronger than any other time of year, as the jet stream dips to the south. We call these brisk winds the Christmas Winds, and they’ve been piping up over this last week. Whitecaps dominate even inland waters and here on St. John people say, “the sheep are in the meadow,” when describing the rough state of the usually more tranquil Caribbean and Atlantic waters.

Also during this last week, we’ve experienced ground seas, large swells generated from North Atlantic storms and low pressure systems, that come ashore on the north side of St. John and break on the exposed coastlines. Not so great for swimming, but great for surfers, who head out to the surfing beaches of Tortola and St. Thomas.

(For those of you who would prefer gentler seas, I suggest visiting some of our south shore beaches like Lameshur and Salt Pond Bays.)

Also during the winter, bird watchers can find species that come down from the north and pass the winter on St. John and people watchers can find a species of human beings called snowbirds doing the same thing.

During the slow months of the Hurricane Season, mid July to mid November, I seem to know just about everyone I see in Cruz Bay. The restaurants and bars, the ones that remain open are often nearly empty and town is quiet. As the Chritmas and New Years season approaches, Cruz Bay and St. John are transformed. Town is bustling with (comparatively) well dressed tourists. Restaurants are full, and excitment is in the air.

Another season, another day in Paradise – St. John US Virgin Islands.

View of St. John from a Helicopter

This photo was taken on a beautiful day when we were preparing our book, St. Thomas. The photographer for the book, Don Hebert, called me and said that if I could make it over to the airport in one hour I could go up in the helicopter with him. He was shooting photos for a client of his and there was room for one more. Being that I had my trusty dinghy ready to go, and a dock space and a car on St. Thomas, this was a possibility. I dropped everything and ran out the door. With luck, and an intelligent route to avoid traffic, I made it to St. Thomas on time and rode with Don.

View of St. John from Sapphire Beach on St. Thomas

This photo was taken from Pettyklip Point, which juts out from Sapphire Beach, a popular wedding venue on St. Thomas. From the point you get incredible views of St. John, the islands of Pillsbury Sound and out to Jost Van Dyke and Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.

Sunset View of St. John from Jost Van Dyke BVI

This photo was taken from the dock at Abe’s Restaurant in Little Harbour, Jost Van Dyke as the sun was setting in the west.

Guinea Gut

Guinea Gut runs from St. John’s main east-west mountain ridge (Centerline Road) in the vicinity of the dump, south (on the west side of Gifft Hill Road) to Great Cruz Bay in the vicinity of the Westin Hotel.

The above photo was taken where the gut passes through Trindad Charlie’s (of Trinidad Charlie’s Hot Sauce fame) property. Just down from here there is a government water monitoring station. Further down the gut passes by Power Boyd and then under the South Shore Road before emptying into Great Cruz Bay.

Years ago on St. John this gut (sometimes spelled “ghut”) which even today has running water most of the year and even more in days gone by, was a popular place for women to do their washing.

Fresh water shrimp and fish can be found in the pools. Large mango trees and other beautiful moist forest vegetation abound along the banks of the gut.

The bad part is that if you walk all the way up the gut as far as you can, you’ll come to a twenty foot high wall of garbage – the dump, which, I believe it’s safe to assume, leaches all kinds of yucky stuff into the water.

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.

It has been said as well as written that the stone structure on Whistling Cay served as a customs house. As far I know this is supported by the supposition that the cay got is name from the Dutch word “wissel” meaning change. Actually I find it difficult to believe that this tiny cay ever served the function of Customs House.

Whistling Cay Aerial View – St. John USVI

Whistling Cay is a small island located just off Mary Point on St. John. If you’ve ever approached Whistling Cay on a small boat you would know how difficult of an entry it is. The shoreline is rocky and scattered with reef. The small gravel beach on the southeastern part of the island is the only possible landing point and there is no evidence that there was ever a dock there.

Stone Structure on Whistling Cay

If this were a customs house, than it would have to be manned by officials, who would need to be supplied with there food, water, and office supplies. There would have to have been communication with St. John or St. Thomas only accessible by boat. Arriving vessels would have to find a convenient place to anchor and then arrive in dinghies, fill out the forms and have their vessels inspected by the officials on the cay.

It seems very unlikely that this little stone structure on this hardly approachable island would serve such a purpose. Why not head over to Cruz Bay, Red Hook or Charlotte Amalie and clear customs there?

My guess is that the structure was constructed during that period between 1834 and 1848 when slavery was abolished in the British Virgin Islands, but continued on in the Danish West Indies, creating a temptation for slaves on St. John’s north coast to run away to Tortola lying just a few miles away. The building would supply some shelter for soldiers guarding the passage into the Narrows and the Sir Francis Drake Channel, discouraging escape attempts.

A similar guard house, equipped with cannons, can be found on the Johnny Horn Trail overlooking the Sir Francis Drake Channel.

So in my opinion, it makes a lot more sense for the building to have been constructed and served as a guardhouse and not a customs house. What do you think?

More information about Whistling Cay

By Gerald Singer www.SeeStJohn.com
Well it’s great to be back online after ten frustrating days of no internet connection and daily phone calls to the provider, who out of respect for our many years of acquaintanceship will remain nameless, and who every day said something like, “We’re working on the problem. It should be fixed later on today, but worse case by tomorrow.”

It was really amazing to realize how dependent I’ve become on the internet. Like somehow I forgot how to use the mail and the phone and how did I ever survive without it. But we’re back and it feels good.

Mr. B bound for St John USVI

A few days ago Habiba, Jacob and I headed out to sea on our little beloved Carib 15 in the late afternoon, mostly just for fun, but specifically to wave at our good friend, the beautiful princess, Rajni who we knew to be aboard the Mr. B on its way from Red Hook on St. Thomas to St. John.

The seas were flat calm, the moon was almost full and the skies were crystal clear, and it was such a joy to be out on the water on such a spectacular Caribbean evening that we invited Rajni, utilizing the vehicle of cell phone technology, to join us.

Habiba and Rajni

Rajni exited the barge and drove to our little floating dock on Great Cruz Bay where she joined Habiba, Jacob and I. The sun had set by then and we began our moonlight cruise.

Cruz Bay,St John USVI at night

St. John takes on a different feeling at night and this is especially so when the island is viewed from the sea. We pulled into the harbor at Cruz Bay approached the dinghy dock and turned off the engine.

From there we cruised over to Honeymoon Bay where there was only one sailboat on a mooring. We could smell the aroma of a barbecue being prepared on the fantail of the sailboat. We came in fairly close to the beach and cut the engine. With so little breeze it was almost like being at anchor. The water was so clear and the moon so bright that you could easily see the sand and scattered coral on the sea bottom. We played with a flashlight in the water for a while to amuse ourselves and the fish below.

The plan was to pick up Rajni’s husband, Sean at Caneel Bay, when he got off work and then head on to Red Hook in St. Thomas for dinner at Molly Molone’s.

But Jacob fell asleep and we nixed that idea and just continued our moonlight cruise back to Great Cruz Bay and home.

Nothing much. Just another day in Paradise.

It’s another beautiful morning here on St. John in the beautiful Virgin Islands, even more appreciated than usual after what some St. Johnians have called “the lost week,” the rains, preparations and return to normal after Hurricane Omar.

The seas on the north have been rough the last few days, with large swells breaking over Johnson’s Reef and on the beaches of the north shore, a fairly rare condition for this time of the year. These waves, which St. John residents call ground seas, are generally a condition that occurs in the winter.

Wednesday at Trunk Bay, visitors were warned about the dangerous surf conditions and were encouraged to leave upsetting taxi drivers, who spend long hours on line at Trunk waiting for fares and who are generally just squeaking by during this particularly slow, slow season.

Skim Boarding Cinnamon Bay

By yesterday afternoon, the waves were diminishing and at Cinnamon Bay skimboarders were taking advantage of the shore breaks to get some nice rides. The Cinnamon Bay Campground was nearly deserted and besides the skim boarders and us, there were only two other people on the beach.

Great Cruz Bay Sunset

On the way home, Habiba, Jacob and I, took a short walk up to Peace Hill and later we were treated to a spectacular sunset, which we watched from the Great Cruz Bay Road.

Dan Silber Blog
My friend, Dan Silber, has started a new blog and his latest entry, which deals with his experiences on St. John in the 1970s may be of interest to some readers.

Danny writes,” I first came to St. John in 1972 for a 2 week visit and stayed for 5 years! A good friend of mine from college, Gerry Singer was living there with his family. He had a successful commercial fishing business and offered me and another friend Dave Isenberg a job as working partners.

We thought about it for about five seconds and said, “sure, why not?” … read more

In the News
On another note, today is the 25th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of the Caribbean nation of Greneda. Peter Espeut, a Roman Catholic deacon and yesterday, sociologist wrote an interesting article for the Jamaica Gleaner concerning that historical event. Click here to read the article