Disclosure: I exchanged photographic work for a 5-day stay at the Island Cottage mentioned in the following blog posts. Blog entries or any other social media amplification were not included in the exchange.   I was and am free to say and show anything I want about the trip.  All opinions are my own.

Rain? Who cares!

Our first full day on St. John had a forecast of rain, but that didn’t dissuade us.  We hung around the cottage taking it easy in the morning, reading, drawing, taking photos.  We had breakfast fixings and that made for a very relaxing and stress free start to the day.  

The rain held off most of the day, just sprinkled here and there and, while it wasn’t a beach day, we found great things to do. We found that, like Hawaii, it often will rain for 5 minutes and be done. It’s a warm and easy rain that doesn’t really stop anyone from doing anything they want.

 

We decided we could go check out renting a kayak and snorkel gear at Crabby’s. We didn’t rent then but made plans for later in the week.  Crabby himself wasn’t there that day so we were excited to come back a few days later and finally meet the legend! 

 

We grabbed some lunch at a restaurant, Aqua Bistro, we had heard was pretty good and it was.  Plus, you gotta love a Caribbean bar with a bartender who has a Betty Ford Clinic Visor on.  Most everyone we met was a transplant from the mainland US or from other islands in the Caribbean.  Many came from the east coast; NY, NJ, Penn.  They came on a vacation, loved it so much they came back to live permanently.  It’s a tempting life of relaxation, easy going rules, camaraderie and friendships.  Making a living isn’t always that easy but they find a way.

 

While there I drew two women at the bar having an interesting conversation.  They were regulars from the interactions they were having, enjoying  a rare cloudy, rainy day by hanging out under cover with friends.

 

And then there was shopping. Linda got excited at the prospect!  Linda is the type of person who the second she arrives somewhere on vacation she starts thinking about what she needs to buy as gifts for her friends and co-workers back home.  She is also looking for Christmas presents.

 

While Linda went shopping I walked around taking photos. I found a siren calling sailors to her rocky shore.

 

And I found a fishwife waiting for her sailor to come home.

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The East End

After lunch we decided to take a drive up what is called ‘The East End’, a peninsula that heads south out into the Atlantic at the far eastern end of St. John.

The donkeys came out to greet us as we entered their domain.

We missed Vie’s Snack Shack being open by 5 minutes but the donkey said hello to us anyway.

 

We took a very steep road, incredibly well paved and lined with an impressive stone wall, all the way up until it just stopped.  Their were huge mansions on cliffs overlooking the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean along the way.  Then we arrived at a point where the road narrowed to one lane, the stone wall trailed off and collapsed and the brush was overgrown well into the roadway.  Goats greeted us then ran off before I could get a photo.  We learned later that when the recession hit the islands they just ran out of money for the road, people stopped building and that was that.  Turning around was a challenge because it was one lane and the drop off looked like this:

 

What an amazing view but the amount of effort it would take to build and live here has to be astronomical.  We saw a lot of buildings half done and were told the combination of the recession hitting hard and bids being unrealistic to start made some people unable to finish homes.   Some finished part but had to cut back plans for more grandiose versions.

 You might notice that it seems a bit hazy.  We thought it was just because it was an overcast day but we were later told that it was actually dust from the Sahara desert across the Atlantic Ocean that had come over.  It gets blown across the sea in the same pattern that tropical storms form but actually help to diminish storm severity because it reduces heat due to refraction of light.  

 

We came back down the mountain and stopped at a little stone and coral beach.  We walked along it, finding this young honeymooning couple enjoying a picnic and skipping stones.  She did as good or better than he did.  

 

We also came across these two grave markers right at the edge of the beach. Who they are we had no idea, Maybe they were trucks or donkeys for all we know, but we thought it was sweet that they were buried together.  That is if ‘Finetuning’ actually died.  It looks like they died, someone put the final date, then they thought better of it and decided being alive was better and had the date wiped out.  They do seem to be confident they will kick the bucket by 2019 or they will have to wipe out the 1 as well.

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The Cottage Retreat

We were pretty tired by that point and really were looking forward to getting back to Island Cottage.  It just has a really calm comfortable feel to it, great to retreat back to after a long day.  We decided to cook at the cottage so we went to the gourmet market and picked out some shrimp, bamboo rice and  fruit.  Turned out to be a wonderful meal on the deck as the sun went down.

You can buy groceries in Cruz Bay when you get off the ferry but many items you can get either at ‘Love City Mini Mart’ or at ‘Lily’s Gourmet Market’ in the Coccoloba Shops, both in Coral Bay. Everything is pretty expensive but you don’t need much.  Some veteran vacationers bring their own dry goods from the states and just buy the perishable foodstuff on the island.

 

I can’t tell you how nice it was to come back to a cottage where we could relax, watch the sunset, listen to music and enjoy the night together. It’s an amazing and relaxing place!

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Part 1 – St. Thomas
Part 2 – The Island Cottage
Part 3 – Exploring Coral Bay
Part 4 – Clean Beaches and Dirty Pictures
Part 5 – Hiking Above, Snorkeling Below
Part 6 – Kayaks and Mermaids
Part 7 – The End – the Native and the Screamer

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I enjoy the Island Cottage deck as the sun rises, visit an incredible artist’s studio in the morning, take pictures of dirty women in bikinis and ruin some ‘perfectly fine’ sandals in the afternoon and have my favorite meal of the vacation in the evening.  There might be a spider in there somewhere as well.  You will regret it if you don’t come back to read and see all about it!

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