Wow... what a memory this post brings up. "The Kite" wasn't much more than a deck with a couple of refrigerators that served cold beer and great drinks. I spent quite a few "happy" evenings there also about 20 or so years ago when I used to camp in Cinnamon Bay. It was actually on the road just a short distance from Cinnamon Bay towards Cruz Bay. I met a guy who played guitar there at night one year and saw him on a TV special about Mel Fisher the treasure hunter some years later. That place was so typical of the Caribbean then... thanks for the jarring that memmory loose!

Well what a coincidence, we were camping down the street too only at Maho when we went by there (never stopped, something to do with parking I think and always regretted not doing so) and my husband, who recently asked about it, is nicknamed Crickett. Anyway, I wonder where "they" are now?

We used to take a taxi from Cruz Bay after dinner and drinks to the Kite and then walk back to the campsites at Cinnamon. Are you saying YOUR husband's nickname is Crickett?? Now THAT is too much of a coincidence... scary almost.

I know! We used to get the shuttle from Maho Bay to get to town, (run by Hamilton who I think is still there) but just somehow never made it to the Kite- alas! Oh well, hopefully Woody's and the Beach Bar will be our kind of place in 30 days and counting!!!

I loved The Kite. We spent time there on our first couple trips to STJ in the mid-80s. Life didn't get much better than it did there. It was run by Victor Hall, who was also a musician and wrote "2000 Miles from Reality". We didn't get back to STJ for while and when we did, The Kite was history. It's was where Peter Bay is today. And for me, that's the clearest symbol of the changes I see on STJ: the difference between the Peter Bay of Victor Hall and the Peter Bay of Kenny Chesney.

Victor's family owned a great portion of Peter Bay. He was operating a camground of sorts there. His sister still resides there today. Have not seen him for awhile. He used to drive a safari for one of the tour groups and did a security gig at The Westin while spinning yarns about his medicinal bushes(actually bush medicine remedies passed down to him by his Grandmother). Wonder where he is?

RL

Ahhh, The Kite. I remember my first trip 20+ years ago and we looked all over for this place called “The Kite.” Of course, we were looking for a “real” bar and kept going right past it. A much different island then, the only place for groceries wasn’t much bigger than a 7-11.

So, all you old-time STJ barflies out there. Any of you recognize these slogans and what bars they were from?
“Good enough for who it’s for.”
“A sunny place for shady people.”

Now that you mention it, I remember Victor... vaguely as I seem to never have left there too sober... some interesting walks back to Cinnamon Bay. It was 20+ years ago, too. He used to rent boats too... I remember renting a hobie from him one time and having a great time on it out in Peter Bay.

Hi all! I am very much alive! Alas no Kite Bar. I am into medicinal plant medicine though.even have a remedy approved for clinical trials for aids, except no clinical trials have been done yet!
I have my own private home recording studio and have finished about 10 albums of calypso, reggae, rock, soul, techno, funk , christmas and country rock..plus the ORIGINAL SONGS from the KITE ERA......2000 MILES FROM REALITY ..check them out sometime...just did a revival of the Kite's 2000 MILES FROM REALITY t-shirts recently..the 1985 one with the plane flying into the World Trade Center.......who would have thunk? Me! Of Course!
The same t-shirt featured on ABC's GOOD MORNING AMERICA in 1986.....with the plane flying into the WORLD TRADE CENTER.....anyhoo....I just wanted to say HOWDY to ALL the GOOD FOLKS who remebered the GOOD TIMES we had there....! , Victor Hall

Victor!!!

What an absolute delight it is for me to find your post here. We spent some wonderful nights at The Kite on our first trips to the island. I remember hearing Paul Simon's Graceland album there for the first time. You'd stop serving so that you could play along with it. I miss it being there and it saddens me that the island has changed in the ways that it has. When time travel is perfected, I might like to go back to some night in '85 and hang out at The Kite one more time.

Wonderful to hear from you. Thanks for the memories.

And how did you suddenly come out of the blue to respond to a thread from 2005? Guess it shouldn't seem surprising. Moving along nicely on Island Time.

Victor, nice to hear from you as well! Have still not seen you in a while! Where do you hang? I am in St. John often still!

Ronnie Lockhart

I've got you on my mind today, Victor. It was such a surprise to see your post and it brought back a lot of memories. In one of the earlier posts in this thread it's mentioned

"And for me, that's the clearest symbol of the changes I see on STJ: the difference between the Peter Bay of Victor Hall and the Peter Bay of Kenny Chesney. "

All of this in less than 20 years. Must be really mind-blowiing for you, because it is somewhat mind-blowing for me. But then folks like you & Ronnie (not to mention Guy Benjamin), must be truly astonished by the change you've seen on STJ in your lifetimes.

Lex, it happens all over the place. 20 plus years is a long time.

Victor Hall
[email protected]
Hi all again!
I forgot to mention you can find my music here:
http://www.soundclick.com/victorhall

yes, we had GOOD fun...
AT THE KITE!!
AT THE KITE!!
AT THE PARTY TONITE AT THE KITE!!!
Hey Ronnie L. How goes....?
thanks all..

Victor--

Any chance that you have any photographs of The Kite? I never took any and I'd love to see some. i'm curious if it looked at all like I remember it looking.

Hi again! Sorry! All of my photos burned up in the fire. I sure would like to have any that anyone might have though. Thanks again! Victor

Hi all! I just came on to say that "THE KITE" is back! Yes, not in the same place, and NOT doing the same thing..... but, "THE KITE" is back, licensed to sell my famous miraculous traditional herbal medicine, t-shirts and Island music cds...
It's now a small stand that I open with a portable canopy across from the old "PICKLES' BAR" in Coral Bay <on the east end of the island.. I am featuring Virgin Island traditional herbal medicine, some of the same herbals used in my research for AIDS / HIV that was funded by the National Institutes of Health for investigation and invitro testing that was deemed safe for clinical trials My hours are from 10am to 2pm , Monday thru Friday.
By the way, the Old PICKLES bar has been taken over by LILY"S MARKET in Coral Bay, and it will be A GOURMET GROCERY... just thought you would like to know...
here are some extracts from an article on my herbal research published in the St John Tradewinds Newspaper in December 2005:

Local Bush Tea Man Cures Ills with Plants
Written by Jaime Elliott
Monday, 19 December 2005
Bush Tea Man Victor Hall cures everything from colds to arthritis, with the power of local plants.
St. Johnian Victor Hall has held numerous positions throughout his life—but his most impressive work revolves around curing ailments with local plants. Hall is now known as the “bush tea man,” but there was a time when even he didn’t believe in the healing power of local plants.
When North Shore Road was being paved in the early 1980s, a number of the paving company’s workers and executives ate barracuda at a party, and all contracted fish poisoning, the bush tea man explained.
“My friend, Anthony ‘Snoopy’ Toussaint, and I went to the Backyard one day, and all the men from the paving company stood up and cheered him— they told the bartender to give us whatever we wanted,” said Hall. “This went on all afternoon, and when were strolling out, Snoopy told me that he had cured them of fish poisoning.”
Curing a toothache is what finally got the young Hall to become a believer in the healing power of plants.
“I had an abscessed tooth with my jaw swollen up, and it was a three-day holiday weekend, so my dentist was off-island, and none of my friends had any pain pills,” said Hall. “So I said, ‘What the heck,’ and I drank a cup of bush tea. Within an hour I was eating a steak with the same tooth.”
Hall owned The Kite, a well known establishment, The Kite, at Peter Bay, before the area was developed. The bar and local hangout burned down in the late 1980s.
“I got second- and third-degree burns on my arms,” said Hall. “I drank a bush tea and had new skin and hair in 13 days. I started thinking that maybe this tea would even be good for people with AIDS.”
After an article about Hall and his herbal teas was printed in the St. John Tradewinds in the early 1990s, he was contacted by people who had AIDS.
“A resident had friends with AIDS in the states, so we sent them the tea, and in one month their T-cell counts doubled,” said the bush tea man.
All T-cell counts increased, particularly CD4, which is an indicator of healthy cells that doctors look for, Hall added. However, the treatment stopped working after about a month.
“Because of the Tradewinds article, I started getting letters from doctors, patients, hospices and magazines, and one important paper that I got had a theory that if you could cure the flu, you could cure AIDS,” said Hall.
The local bush tea man then dedicated himself to researching cures for the flu.
“So I set about learning flu cures, and 12 years later, with a combination of flu cures and close to 80 clinical blood tests, I submitted all of the data to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and they were impressed,” Hall said.
The NIH funded a research program on Hall’s teas at the University of Puerto Rico’s medical center.
“Although the results from the research showed that the tea didn’t stimulate the production of T cells in vitro, it was deemed safe for clinical trial based on the data that I submitted,” said Hall.
“The teas to work for everything, really,” he said. “I even treated someone who had hepatitis C and was given only a year to live. After the treatment, he is doing much better.”
Hall is now trying to revive interest in his bush teas and start nonclinical trial research.
“I am appealing to clinics, hospices and doctors to contact the University of Puerto Rico’s medical center,” said Hall. “After seven years, I am ready to get back to work.”
Hall has improved his herbal cures since the last studies were conducted.
“I’ve found more-effective plants since the last studies,” he said. “The teas have no side effects and work really quickly.”
Anyone interested in continuing research into the herbal tea remedies should contact the director of the University of Puerto Rico’s medical center, Dr. Mikhail Antoun, Hall added.

Victor, it's nice to hear from you. I do enjoy it when you pop up on a forum every rare once in a while. I don't know when we'll be on STJ next (we went to Virgin Gorda last fall and really enjoyed it), but when we do, we'll stop by.

I have such wonderful memories of The Kite. On my first trip to STJ, it was the first place we actually stopped. Friends met us at the ferry and were driving us to Maho where we were going to stay. We stopped at The Kite and just hung out for a while, letting it all sink in. We would return several times during our stays. Then we returned after not being on STJ for a few years to find it gone. When time travel is perfected, I'm going to go spend an evening at The Kite in 1985.

Hope all's well. Thanks for the memories.

Hi Lex. How goes? Yes, the memories....:) But now I am making new memories. I just got a good report from someone who has cancer who is using my tea..They say their cancer cell count in the blood has gone down after using my tea! So that is good news. I hope it really helps them. Yes, the quiet balmy nights of 1985 were the best. We could actually sit on the road at night, the traffic was so slow here back then. You can't do that now!
But, with gas prices so high here now, maybe traffic will slow down again. Nice hearing from you. Victor