St John Photo of the Day
The Roanoke
Car Ferries
Running Between Cruz Bay, St. John and Red Hook, St. Thomas

Live Music on St. John Tuesday, March 1

Castaways – Steve & Friends – 7:30 – 777-3316
High Tide – T-Bird and Kenny – 7:00 – 10:00 – 714-6169
Island Blues – Bo & Lauren – 7:00 – 10:00 – 776-6800
Larry’s Landing – Classic Rock with John – 10:00 – 1:00 – 693-8802
Morgan’s Mango - Greg Kinslow – 6:30 – 9:30 – 693-8141
Shipwreck Landing – Chris Carsel – 7:00 – 10:00 – 693-5640

A word of caution to my visitors: I’m doing the best I can to present an accurate music schedule, but to be sure, it would be a great idea to call the restaurant or bar beforehand to confirm.

Weekly Music Schedule

Virgin Islands Photo of the Day

Shopping on St. Thomas
Photo by Yelena Rogers

Live Music on St. John Sunday, February 27

Aqua Bistro – Lauren – 3:30 – 6:30 – 776-5336
Beach Bar – Inner Visions – 4:00 – 8:00 – 777-4220
Concordia – Bo – 4:00 – 8:00 – 777-4220
Miss Lucy’s – Sambacombo – 10:00 am – 2:00 pm – 693-5244
Ocean Grill – David Laabs – 6:00 – 9:00 – 693 3304
Rhumb Lines – T-Bird – 7:00 – 10:00
Shipwreck – Hot Club of Coral Bay – 7:00 – 10:00 – 693-5640

A word of caution to my visitors: I’m doing the best I can to present an accurate music schedule, but to be sure, it would be a great idea to call the restaurant or bar beforehand to confirm.

Weekly Music Schedule

St. John Photo of the Day

8 Tuff Miles

One thousand runners (550 women and 450 men) competed today in St. John’s popular 8 Tuff Miles Road Race. In addition to Virgin Islanders, participants came from 38 states and six foreign countries. The race began after the singing of the National Anthem and a Coast Guard helicopter flyover. The above photo was shot as the front runners rounded the turn at Mongoose Junction.

That’s Jeremy Zuber in the yellow shorts looking to break a new course record. Behind him looks like Ruthie David from St. Thomas favorite to win the woman’s division.

Live Music on St. John Saturday, February 26

Castaways – Kenny Floyd – 8:00 – 11:00 – 777-3316
Morgan’s Mango – Luba – Piano & Vocals – 6:30 – 9:30 – 693-8141
Rhumb Lines – Lauren – 7:00 – 10:00
Skinnylegs – Hot Club of Coral Bay – 6:00 – 9:00 – 779-4982
Westin, Cruz Bay Prime – James Cobb - 6:30 – 10:00 – 693-8802

A word of caution to my visitors: I’m doing the best I can to present an accurate music schedule, but to be sure, it would be a great idea to call the restaurant or bar beforehand to confirm.

Weekly Music Schedule

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.