Welcome back!

Queens NY

As you can plainly see, this isn’t the Virgin Islands. This morning finds me enjoying the wonderful world of an American blizzard, in the home of my son,  Sean, Astoria, Queens, New York. All in all I have to say that the weather is better on St. John.

Curtney Chinnery aka The Ghost From Jost recites his poem, “Your Counterpart”

Maria Hope Trail

In the last few years, the Maria Hope Trail has become a popular hiking venue. Passing through shady lush tropical forest, this old Danish Road provides Maho and Cinnamon Bay campers with convenient access to the Reef Bay Trail, historically significant ruins and a scenic overlook with bird’s eye views of Maho and Francis Bays and vistas extending eastward to West End Tortola and beyond.

There have been some complaints, however, about the fact that the trail runs over private land at the lower elevations. There is now a cure for that. Down on the lower section, just before the wire fence that crosses the trail, there is a nice trail that switchbacks down the hill and comes out at Maho Beach, just east of the green building on the beach.

Alternate entrance to the Maria Hope Trail

There is a road sign (West  RT. 20) where it comes out.

This new section of trail passes through the flats just inland from Maho Beach before the it begins its steep uphill climb.

Maho Bay Flats

The low lying flats present a unique forested environment without thick or thorny undergrowth making it easy to pass though and enjoy.

Overlook on the Maria Hope Trail

The 1966 copy of VI View, lent to me by Maureen Anderson contained one of the chapters of Erva Boulon’s  book My Island Kitchen, which was published in its complete form in 1969..

In her blog, Random Thoughts, Bish Denham, Erva’s grand daughter, who grew up on St. John writes about her grandmother.

“…After World War II Grammy ran Trunk Bay as a guest house. She did it without electricity, cooking three meals a day for her guests. John Dos Passos, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife were among some of her more well-known guests. She gained the reputation for being a superior hostess and an excellent cook. Using local foods, she learned how to prepare them in ways that would please American taste buds. An article was written about her in the cooking section of the New York Times and she wrote a cook-book call My Island Kitchen. I loved having breakfast at her table because she would toast your bread on a charcoal pot set on a small table next to her chair….”

When Trunk Bay was sold to the Virgin Islands National Park, Erva moved over to Maho Bay with a new husband, Bill Thorp, and built another small guest house called “Lille Maho” next to the present Maho Campground, which she operated through the 1960s.

Better late than never, Chin and I drove over to the Wesselhoft home last night to photograph what was to be last time this season for the magnificent display of Christmas decorations jsut above Cruz Bay on Centerline Road.

The Wesselhoft Christmas lights has been a family tradition for many years. When Miss Alma passed away, the family put up the display the following Christmas, but for the next two years the house remained dark on Christmas time. This year Raffy and Carmen, Miss Alma and Mr. Wesselhoft’s children, renewed the tradition. They began a full time workday, on December 8 with the goal of finishing the project in time for Miss Alma’s birthday on December 15th.

Carmen came over on the 8:00 am ferry every morning for that week. She and Raffy worked all day with the help of various volunteers finally calling it a day and returning to St. Thomas on the 9:00 pm boat.

On the night of December 15th, honoring Miss Alma on her birthday, the Wesselhoft family Christmas lights lit up the night with colors and Santas and angels and familiar Christmas scenes.

		st john virgin islands three kings

*The Children’s and Adult Parade Days are days when administrative leave is granted, although they are not legal holidays

Information from the Virgin Islands Department of Education website

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.

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.

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