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St.Thomas Dockside Scuttlebutt
I rent a little dock space over at Sapphire Marina on St. Thomas and today I noticed that the marina was just about full. This is unusual for this time of year, when many of the boats take leave of the Virgin Islands during the dread Atlantic Hurricane Season. The other thing I noticed was that most of the formerly empty slips were now occupied by a fleet of top of the line sport-fishing boats.

I was told that most of these newly arrived vessels were refugees from the Gulf oil spill.

The sport fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico is in big trouble. Really big, like it’s just about not happening at all, not now and probably not for a long time to come. Consequently, those in the sport fishing industry and who want to continue doing what they love to be doing are relocating, and many of them have chosen to come here to the Virgin islands, which some say is the sport fishing capitol of the world.

A captain from the Gulf Coast, who had arrived here on his sport fisherman described coming upon part of the spill.

Being someone who has never seen an oil spill, I had imagined it to be a shimmering film of oil floating on top of the water, making rainbow like colors in the sunshine, but something you could drive a boat through. Not even close.  The captain described it as an extremely large floating mass of thick gooey oil some 100 yards wide and an incredible six feet deep, a disgusting, impassable, mess that gets bigger every day.

It’s good to have new business come to the Virgin Islands, but not like this.

If you’re spending time in the Virgin Islands and have kids, the Butterfly Garden is a visit well worth taking. The kids will love it. There are excellent guides who will answer all their questions.

Below are some photos taken at the Butterfly Garden during a St. John Gifft Hill School Pre-Kindergarten class trip.

Butterfly Garden St. Thomas USVI

Virgin Islands View August 1966

click to enlarge

Maureen Anderson, who worked at the Virgin Islands Hotel in 1966 was kind enough to lend me this edition of the Virgin Islands View Magazine published in August of 1966. The photo on the left was taken in 1966 during an Air France promotion at the Virgin Islands Hotel on St. Thomas.  The cute young lady in the first row is Maureen and the black man in the last row is Tiger Haynes.

“Tiger Haynes (December 13, 1914 – February 14, 1994) was an American actor and musical performer. He was born as George Haynes in Frederiksted, St. Croix, and moved to New York when he was a boy. An ex-boxer, Haynes played guitar with The Three Flames from 1945 to 1956, a group which had its own NBC radio show in the mid-1940s and a television show on NBC television in 1949. He made his mainstream Broadway debut in Leonard Sillman’s musical revue New Faces of 1956.[3] He is best known for his portrayal of the Tin Man in the original Broadway cast of the the Wiz. He also made several television appearances on programs such as The Cosby Show (1989) and In the Heat of the Night (1989), as well as numerous minor film appearances in films such as All That Jazz (1979) and Ratboy (1986)” From the Wikipedia website.

Virgin Islands View

A.H. Riise, St. Thomas 1966

Scott Hotel St. Thomas Virgin islands 1966

Scooter Rental

A lot has changed since 1966., one of the most the most obvious being prices. Check it out.

At A.H. Riise offered Johnie walker Red Label Scotch for $2.75/bottle, Mateus Rose wine for $1.50/bottle.

At the Scott Hotel off season rates were as low as $9.00/night for a single and $16.00/night for a double. High season rates were $14.00 to $18.00/night for a single and $22.00 to $28.00/night for a double. Swimming pool and a shower in every room!

And a Honda 90 could be rented for $7.00/day or $38.00 for the whole week.

Parachute Jumpers, St. Thomas 1966

Frenchman's Bay St. Thomas 1966

Here’s some more images. On the left were the parachute jumpers who jumped every Sunday. The instructor in the center is Don Dewerd from Hull Bay. On the right is the view from Frenchman’s Bay before development

Press Release:

St. Thomas Blues Festival

FRIDAY – JANUARY 22nd – 8:00 pm
At the Reichhold Center at the University of the Virgin Islands

Starring
Curtis Salgado, Trampled Under Foot & Eden Brent

Tickets for the 1st Annual Johnnie Walker St. Thomas Blues Festival are now available at the following locations:

Reichhold Center Box Office
VI Bridal & Tuxedo – Tutu Park Mall
Home Again – Red Hook Plaza
Eccentric Shoe Boutique – Town
Urban Threadz – Buccaneer Mall @ Havensight
Connections – St. John

Please note that tickets are going quite fast so make sure you get yours.

For further information go to stthomasbluesfestival.com
or contact Steve Simon at stevesimonlive@yahoo.com or at 340-643-6475

Ice on St. Thomas, Danish West Indies 1856
“The use of ice in St. Thomas, as in all large tropical towns, has become so common that ice is considered an indispensable article in daily housekeeping; every day all reasonably prosperous families receive certain quantity of ice from the Ice House. Only he who has felt the burning rays of the the tropical sun is able to comprehend the refreshing and invigorating experience of enjoying ice chilled beverages, it is generally agreed among doctors that the large consumption of ice has contributed greatly towards improving health conditions. But how is it possible to procure such large quantities of ice when the temperature rarely goes below 25 degrees C., (77 degrees F.) or to keep water frozen here when it so readily evaporates?

“In order to understand this, we must request that the reader accompany us to Wenham Lake near Boston. It has been freezing hard for several days and hundreds of people are busily working on the thick, glacial surface of the ice. Some are engaged in sweeping away the snow, others in sawing six inch deep furrows in the ice into regular blocks. After receiving a strong blow, they fall apart and are transported by horses to the large ice storage house by the shore. When spring arrives, these large blocks of ice are transported in railroad cars to dispatch terminals in Boston. The ships carrying ice are lined with hay or sawdust, and into these are loaded one block right next to another so that the entire cargo forms one large connected mass of ice. In St. Thomas, the ice is kept in local ice houses, large wooden structures with double or triple layered walls, the intervening space filled with ashes or sawdust, which protect completely against the effect of the burning sun rays. In this manner, over 200,00 tons of ice are exported annually from Wenham to the West Indies, Calcutta, Manila, Canton and other places. In Calcutta, a cargo of ice is paid for with a corresponding weight in cotton. There is hardly any place able to compete with Boston over this export commodity, as the ice of this lake resists to an unusual degree the effect of heat. The reason is that the lake receives no effluence of rivers but only that of springs; therefore, the water is extraordinarily clean, and moreover holds a lot of cold as it freezes at a very low temperature. This supply of ice has also brought along another advantage  for the inhabitants of St. Thomas. The prosperous merchant can now, in addition to the produce of the tropics, also provide for his table North American vegetable, fruits. oysters, newly churned butter, etc.”

From: Islands of Beauty and Bounty Translated by Nina York from the publication, “Dansk Vestindien,” 1856

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas DWI 1856

Soon after coming to the Virgin Islands in 1969, I made two major purchases, a 1954 Mercedes Benz with running boards and a four speed shift on the steering column and a 16-foot fiberglass runabout with a 35-horsepower Johnson engine.

I have loved boats for as long as I can remember, which goes back to being about four years old, with my mom and dad, who had a small boat named after me, which they kept on City Island in the Bronx.

But now, I was in boat heaven, the Virgin Islands, venturing farther and farther from the home port, Charlotte Amalie Harbor on St. Thomas.

One day I met a nice young couple who suggested a camping trip to one of the many “deserted tropical islands,” which beckoned to be savored and explored. Sounded like a great idea to me!

Let me say, that although I had a great deal of experience with small boats, it was all on the American mainland. Tropical-island-wise and camping-wise, I was a complete novice. However, my new friends expressed a proficiency with camping out, needing only bare bones equipment and supplies, and we soon resolved to put together an overnight camp on a deserted tropical Virgin Island.

We headed out one morning not long afterward. For a reason that I can’t remember, probably no real reason at all, we chose the island of Great Thatch as our camping venue, ignorant of the fact that it was in the British and not the American Virgins, but in those days it hardly mattered.

We made it in to the beach through the shallow reef that extends the full length of the beach on the island’s south coast without incident (to this day I don’t know how) and set up a rudimentary camp, which consisted of a lean-to covered by a piece of canvas. We spent the day snorkeling, fishing, picnicking and walking around the beach, the interior of the island being for the most part inaccessible to us either because of the thick bush or the steep hillsides. At night we made a fire, cooked up a fish and some potatoes and retired for a night that I remember as being somewhat uncomfortable, due to lack of a soft mattress, the occasional rats that boldly approached wherever there was any food and the not so occasional mosquitoes and sand flies against which chemical warfare was declared.

On the positive side, the night sky on that moonless night, which in those days was almost completely unchallenged by the loom of electric lights from Tortola, St. John, or the east end of St. Thomas, provided us with a sky that contained more stars than I had ever seen before or have ever seen since.

Virgin Islands Scorpion

I awoke early in the morning to a powerful stinging sensation on my leg. Looking down I saw that I had been stung by a rather large and evil-looking scorpion. I had never even seen a scorpion before and I was, shall we say, “concerned.”

I didn’t know what to do, if anything, and I woke up my new friends hoping that they would know something.

The guy was like me, clueless, but his girlfriend seemed to know something about scorpions.

“They’re poisonous,” she explained, “very poisonous!

“Are you sure?” I asked the girl.

“Absolutely,” she answered.

“Oh great,” I thought to myself. “This is one hell of a place to get stung by a poisonous scorpion.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“You need to get to a hospital right away or you’ll die,” she answered.

On the one hand, I don’t feel like I’m dying, but on the other, I’m staring to feel panicky.

“OK, lets go!” I say.

We loaded the boat and hastily head back to St. Thomas where supposedly, doctors would give me some rare anti venom and save my life. But by the time we reach Caneel Bay on the north shore of St. John, I’m feeling fine. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that I’m not poisoned and “every little thing is gonna be all right.”

“Let’s stop on St. John,” I announce, “I really feel fine. I want to talk with someone there, someone who knows what to do.”

Well on St. John, I found out a bit about scorpions, which is that unlike some other varieties found in the desserts, Virgin Islands scorpions, do sting, (haa’d me son) but, unless you are allergic to them, don’t cause much harm, let alone kill you.

That was that. I was out of the woods. Nonetheless, even though it was still morning, I knocked down a shot of rum, to cool out.

We hung around Cruz Bay for the rest of the morning, had lunch at Eric’s Hilltop (now the Virgin Islands legislature offices) and returned to St. Thomas in the afternoon, my supposedly fatal scorpion sting reduced to a small red bump on my leg that maybe itched a little.

And so ended my first experience with camping out. All in all, good memories.

St. Thomas Harbor (photo from Ron Lockhart collection)

The above photo is from the collection of Ron Lockhart of St. Thomas who has a veritable treasure chest of old post cards and photographs going back to the days when it wasn’t “St. Thomas USVI (United States Virgin Islands),” but rather, “St. Thomas, DWI “(Danish West Indies).”

If you look closely you can see that what is now Veterans Drive did not exist. It was built on fill in the 1950s. The long rectangular warehouses separated by narrow alleyways, now used as shops and pubs and restaurants, ran right into the harbor each with their own private wharf.

Charlotte Amalie Waterfront (Ron Lockhart collection)

The following is excerpted from the book “St. Thomas, USVI”

The Waterfront
As the importance of St. Thomas and its maritime economy grew, so did the town. Harbor frontage became very expensive and as a result, building lots tended to be long and narrow with just enough exposure to the harbor as would permit the implementation of piers and boat slips.

For the same reason, wide streets were not employed to connect the waterfront to Main Street. Instead there were a series of narrow alleyways, which is evident to this day.

Private residences were built on the other, less expensive, landward side of the street and eventually on the valleys and hillsides adjacent to the harbor.

The 20th century brought automobiles to the island and soon traffic on the steep, narrow streets of Charlotte Amalie became so congested that beginning in the 1940s, the harbor was filled in in front of the commercial warehouses, and by 1950, a new modern  road, Veterans Highway, was constructed south of Main Street running alongside the waterfront.

Charlotte Amalie has maintained much of its old character, as both a bustling Caribbean seaport, hosting cruise ships, pleasure yachts and cargo vessels from all around the world, and as a shopping Mecca, offering millions of visitors every year a treasure trove of duty-free shopping delights.

Miss Val's Preschool Class on Last Day of the School Year

Well, it’s that time of the year again. School is out and the kids are either home or going to camp and perhaps you’re looking for something to do with the kids (or without them.) Here’s a suggestion if you don’t mind the trip over to St. Thomas:

Jacob

Pierce

Check out the Butterfly Farm at the Havensight Cruise Ship dock.

There’s waterfalls and ponds and tropical flowers and friendly guides to explain the fascinating facts about butterflies, caterpillars and their life cycles and metamorphoses.

(Jacob met his classmate, Pierce, at the Butterfly Farm and the two of them just loved it and so will kids of all ages, even grown up ones.)

When we first moved into this house some eight years ago, I bought a small mango tree from Cliff Bryan who has a nursery on St. Thomas. I’m sure I agonized over my choice of grafted trees, but I soon forgot the name of the one I choose.

Where we live in Chocolate Hole is not an ideal spot for a mango tree. The soil is clay. The rainfall here is less than on other parts of the island and the land, facing east,  is exposed to the drying effects of the trades.

To mitigate these adverse conditions, we dug a big hole, filled it with good soil and plenty of organic fertilizers and planted the little tree just below our deck.

Most mango trees bear at least one or two mangos fairly soon after they’re planted and become established. Ours, although it grew larger rapidly did not bear at all the first year or the second, or the third, or the forth or the fifth year. Not one flower, not one mango. I became angry at the tree. It was so big and lush, but no mangoes.

On the sixth year we harvested a giant crop of five mangoes. What that tree lacked in quantity, however, it made up in quality; the mangoes were delicious, big, juicy and without a hint of fiber. The next year was better than that, but this year looks really promising.

Our mango tree with lots of flowers

One never knows with mangoes. Anything can happen. A strong wind can easily blow off all the flowers or small fruits before they set. Too much or too little rain at the wrong times can also decimate the harvest. Nonetheless, I want to document this years flowering our mango tree, so here a photo to remember it by. Hopefully it will be followed by more photos of a tree full of big ripe mangoes.

About the name
As I wrote before, I had forgotten the name of our variety. We had a mango book, but we couldn’t be sure and none of the names rung a bell. Various mango experts from around St. John offered their opinions, but I wasn’t convinced by anyone.

One day we met our friend Rajni at Honeymoon Bay. Her father, mother and sister from the Philippines were visiting and it turns out that her dad is an agronomist for the United Nations and is a big plant expert.

We took him to see our tree. One look and he had it – it is a malika – it came back to me – that was it! And we got a history and fact list to go along with it. Not bad. That’s St. John for you – somebody usually come along when you need them.

If we get enough mangoes this year, maybe I won’t be so selfish with them. Stay tuned…