Today is Saturday, our day of departure. We ask our villa rental agency Catered To (who I can’t recommend more highly) if we can leave a few hours after check out time. They say it’s OK but the “transition” team will be moving in as the villa will be rented that night. The day before I had gone down to Conrad Sutton’s to tell him of my plans. We had splurged on Dohm’s Water Taxi, and Chris’s Taxi (this is a great deal for larger groups, or message board users arriving on the same date, and flight, who want to to team up to defray the cost) for this trip. I tell him I would like a late check in for our return. He has no problem with this.

Pat, our maid, who we had seen twice already on Wednesday of both weeks, arrived about 10:00 AM, followed quite closely by the pool girl, and the handyman, a transplanted Bostonian, who did everything from change light bulbs to fix screens. It was quite a dance to behold. By the way, if your villa has maid service get to know this person and be sure to give them a ride back to town, as they often don’t have transportation of their own. Pat takes the ferry over from STT and walks up a significant hill to get to our villa. I wouldn’t change our daily plans to accomodate the maid, but we did suggest to her to call us after her first visit, to tell her that if we were there, what ferry she was taking over from STT and we would come get her, and we gave her a ride both times. In fact, if you don’t feel threatened, and you see someone hitchhiking, indicated by an index finger pointed straight out horizontally, give ‘em a ride. We gave kid’s returning from school rides almost daily. It’s not like in the states. But again use common sense. (Especially in light of recent events)

It is the hottest day of our trip and although it’s better to be on STJ than the Airport at STT, there still isn’t enough time to do anything much other than take final pictures. We have lunch at Rhumbalya at Wharfside, turn in our car and Conrad gives me a lift down to the NPS dock to meet the water taxi. We leave Cruz Bay, sad that we are leaving but grateful that we have had two great weeks in paradise. The water taxi soon arrives and we leave STJ in our wake...

When we travel as a family, everybody is in charge of carrying something. We get to Red Hook and Chris is snoozing in his van and we quickly load up. As we get to the airport, we quickly unload and get in the US Air line to get our boarding passes, and prepare for the customs/security thing. A few of you may recall from an ancient trip report, that I had bought a surprisingly sophisticated telescope from Wal Mart for $150. Hippolittle was in charge of carrying this in an old camera tripod case. When we get to security...it’s not there! To make a not-so-long story even shorter, Dohm’s tracked it down in Chris’s van and I got it back two weeks later, which obviated the extra expense of traveling this way!

The flight back was uneventful, and we are looking forward to our next visit.

I was thinking of a proper way to end this missive, and I should share with you why I have taken the time to write it in the detail. and style that I did, (other than sharing with all the wonderful people I have met here and elsewhere.) I am not a repressed closet literary wannabee. I kind of did it for my kids, or maybe even more importantly for their kids in future years.

[Now you’ll have to work with me on this.... Imagine the dream sequence in the movie “Raising Arizona”, (Which has nothing to do with what follows, it’s just it was a great dream sequence! like “It’s a Wonderful Life”) If you’ve seen the movie (Raising Arizona), I have probably revealed more about, where my sense of humor comes from, than I should. If not rent this movie.]

This is where the wavy part starts....Imagine Hippolita, her husband and their child Hippololitta, Hippolittle, his wife, and son Hippotiny, taking their kids on vacation to DISNEY’S PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN RESORT on STJ, staying at FOXY’S CASTLE on MAHO BAY, where they can take the monorail to CRUZ BAY CITY, or switch at the station at MOUNTAIN TOP, to TREASURE ISLANDLAND at CORAL BAY, (this all depends on whether you want to lunch at Miss Lucy’s Cafeteria, or Uncle Joe’s Food Court in Cruz Bay City), while their moms shop at the S T. THOMAS MALL, and the dads are playing one of the 24 TPC courses on STX.....and Hippolotta and me Hippolyte, (much older now) handing them the trip reports from the Summer trip to St. John from 2005........................ saying this was how it used to be.... NO STOP!!!!! OMG!!! (It’s only a dream...It’s only a dream....dream ...dream)or is it? My hope is that all things on STJ remain just so slightly behind the curve that this can’t ever occur. (But you just can’t be sure....can ya’)

I remember an Andy Griffin Show re-run where Howard (city official of some sort or other) (this re-run doesn’t run very often ‘cause it doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve been to the islands), where he throws in the towel of hectic city life (remember he lives in Mayberry, whose mythical roots are not far from where I type this) and moves to STT. (This episode appeared in 1966-67) and the end result, after sitting on the beach daily...doing nothing, was that the boredom of living in paradise far outweighed the joy of visiting it. Let’s hope the moral of that episode keeps STJ more the way it is, than the nightmare I’ve described above....but you never know!

Villa Review: We stayed at a wonderful four bedroom villa on Contant Point, overlooking Turner Bay, on the south side of STJ. We rented through Catered To, which as I have said before I can’t speak more highly of. For our family Watercliff,

http://www.cateredto.com/villas/Water_cliff/wcliff.php

was perhaps more villa than we needed for a family of 4, (we used two and one half bedrooms) but don’t get me wrong, I would stay there again in a minute, but the fact is there are so many awesome views on STJ, why settle for one! If I was going to STJ with three other couples I could not recommend it more highly. There is not as much breeze there as other spots on STJ, and when we first checked out the villa, I found enough insecticide, mosquito repellant,etc., to ward off the seventh plague! While we had no problems with bugs, it might be different at other times of year. There was a family of wild goats that lived nearby, which Hippolotta had an interesting encounter with one day, but otherwise they kept to their selves. What I liked the most was that there were no villas between us and the water, and it was fairly close to town, and it had a lived-in feel to it. (I hate places that make me feel like I’m in a time share model!) . And oh....there was a finishing touch at the pool....

This sculpture was titled “Rapture!” (Which is consistent with how I feel when I am there!

This photo is from the Catholic Church under construction at the time...note the sign!

I wanted to leave everybody with a couple of web sites to save you the time of looking, and one or two that are maybe not quite so obvious....

Here’s one for those of you that might need a visual fix....

http://www.skypic.com/virgin.htm#stj

For those of you considering the water taxi and/or Chris’s Taxi...

http://www.watertaxi-vi.com/Rates.htm

For those of you looking for “recipes”

http://www.beachbarstjohn.com/food_drinks.shtml

For the perfect daysail/snorkeling option....

http://www.waywardsailor.net/comments/index.htm

For those of you curious about the flora and fauna...(or just what was that noise keeping you awake last night, came from!)

http://www.smilinglizard.com/reptiles.htm

For those thinking about the Reef Bay Trail Hike with the NPS

http://www.nps.gov/viis/

If you are interested in the petroglyphs (click “Programs” the Archeology Home”)

http://www.friendsvinp.org/

Finally, as I have typed out these reports, and share them with you, and read your comments, it makes me wonder...what is it that draws us to a place that if a person viewed it from afar might get the obvious, beauty, tropical, warm and all of the obvious things that would attract anybody to a degree. But it would not explain the passion we all feel about the place. So what is it? I’m not sure what it is, but I plan to keep investigating ‘til I figure it out. But in the meantime I will share a simple child’s poem that, while it’s fairly obvious Rachel Field isn’t referring to our islands, the first and last lines...gets it exactly right.

If once you have slept on an Island"

If once you have slept on an Island,
You'll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked
And go by the same old name
You may hustle about in street and shop
You may sit at home and sew,
But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go,
You may chat with neighbors of this and that,
And close to the fire keep,
But you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep,
And you won't know why and you can't say how
Such a change upon you came,
But once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same!

Rachel Field

Ciao!