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Trip Report, Part I: Donkeys or bust
Trip Report, Part I: Donkeys or bust
I debated whether or not it was appropriate to start my trip report, what with Hurricane Omar setting St. John squarely in its crosshairs. However, I've decided that there is enough bad news on this forum and it might do us all some good to be reminded of St. John in all of its glory.
We truly had a perfect weather week - the type we all go to St. John to experience (minus the mosquitos). We were lucky. I've been in several hurricanes and I know the damage they bring.
I wish everyone there the best of luck. St. John (indeed the whole of the Virgins, both British and US) is truly a special place and I wish you all safety and well-being as you ride out the storm. I will not post my next installment until the storm has passed, but for now on with the show...
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St. John, Trip #2
October 3rd - 11th, 2008
Planning a trip to the Caribbean in October is a risky proposition. If luck is in your favor, you come out feeling like a favored son (sun?). If not, well, then you end up logging on to forums such as this one asking desperate questions like "what am I supposed to do here if it keeps raining?"
What can I say? I'm a gambler at heart. My gamble paid off this time in a big way, but it was close. Our last day was decidedly hairy, what with an earthquake and a tropical wave which turned into Hurricane Omar, but I'm getting ahead of myself before I even really started.
Understanding the risks (and also understanding that October was likely to be the only time we could redeem our Delta FF miles for SkySaver tickets), we pushed forward. Our first trip to St. John was in July 2007, and we stayed at the Westin in a $79/night Hotwire room. While we loved St. John, I didn't love the Westin. Since we'd stayed in villas on other islands, I vowed that our next trip to St. John would be a villa vacation.
Enter our cast of characters. We asked a gaggle of friends if they wanted to come with. Two other couples were foolish enough to accept, so we ended up with a party of six. I won't bother fake-naming anyone because I'd just forget their monikers by the time I'd finished this paragraph, so I'll just make it up as I go. We had custom koozies made for this trip, sort of as a joke but they ended up being a really good keepsake. We went through a company based out of Raleigh, NC called "Kustom Koozies," and they did a great job, except for shorting me one koozie. As well, there's $1.00 down the drain. That would have bought me 1/50th of my meal at Asolare. Anycheapskate, here's what we ended up with (and YES, I did rip off a forum group name. Where should I send the check?):
Before I start the madness of a trip report, I will remind everyone that I was the donkey crazy woman who never found them on her last trip. I was determined to see a donkey this time. As our bartender at Red Hook told me, "You know, they aren't special or anything. Just plain donkeys." Still, like when it comes to unavailable men, women always want that which they cannot have. And I wanted a donkey. (I swear, that is NOT meant to be any sort of double entendre. Oh lord, I'm moving on.)
Dave (my husband) and I went down one day before everyone else thanks to limited ticket availability. Our flights were direct on Delta out of Atlanta, and we arrived just a few minutes late, right after 2:00pm. We taxied to Red Hook in time for the 4:00 ferry. We pulled up and I was tempted to scream out "woowee!" The new ferry terminal at Red Hook is so shiny and fancy compared to the last time we were there. We killed a half hour at the bar with Caribs and Painkillers and decided there are worse places to be in this world.
I also quickly learned that my new, sleek bob was going to be a disaster in the Caribbean humidity. Case in point:
Climate-controlled plane ride:
By the time we'd boarded at Red Hook:
I'm in the Caribbean, mon. Time to forget about hair days entirely (whether good or bad) and break out the ponytail. Too bad I cut off all my hair and barely had enough for a ponytail. C'est la vie.
In no time we pulled up to Cruz Bay, and a rainbow was there to greet us:
GALLOWS POINT:
We spent our first night in a Harbor View Upper unit at Gallows Point. I'd always wanted to stay at Gallows as I've heard it's very nice. Our room was Unit 11D (sorry, no pics), and while it was adequate, I'd be pretty disappointed if I'd paid high season prices for this room. I did enjoy the grounds and found the staff at the hotel to be exceptionally friendly. It's not really fair for me to rate the hotel one way or another, as I'm not sure I stayed long enough to even get a feel for the place.
I can say that the groundskeepers were very busy early in the morning cleaning the pool and surrounding areas. There are a lot of low hanging trees at Gallows Point, and these tend to dump flowers and leaves all over the furniture. The groundskeepers were busy cleaning off the furniture and appeared to keep the place in top notch shape.
We snorkeled off of Gallows Point on Saturday, our first morning on the island. I'd heard the snorkeling here was good, but on our day, we found it to be merely okay. We were fighting quite a current and somewhat cloudy conditions (it was our only overcast morning of the trip), so perhaps we would have enjoyed it more on a different day.
Now for the obligatory picture, view from our Gallows Point balcony:
THE BEACH BAR:
I'll rewind and say that on our first night, we hit our favorite place, The Beach Bar. We ran into a guy named S. who we met on our cab ride to Red Hook and ferried with to St. John. He worked for Delta and used his flying-for-free privileges at every available opportunity. We hung out with him for a while, had some drinks, and then ordered dinner. We had the Tuna Down Now for the first time. I'm happy to report that it IS as good as everyone says it is. We also split some nachos.
LIND POINT TRAIL AND SALOMON: THE FEAST BEGINS
After we snorkeled at Gallows Point, we decided to spend our first morning hiking the trail to Salomon from Cruz Bay. We weren't scheduled to pick up our rental car until much later in the day, so we were on foot all day anyway. We left after a hearty breakfast at Deli Grotto and quickly found the trail head.
We were in the dense rainforests of Costa Rica in May, and had surprisingly few problems with bugs. We also live in Atlanta, so mosquitos are sort of a way of life where I'm from. So, I'll admit we were a little cocky entering the Lind Point trail. Mosquitos? I live in the South! I'll tell you about mosquitos!
Five minutes into the trail, we realized how foolish we were.
We were quickly overrun with mosquitos - everywhere. On my back, my knees, my ankles, our elbows. Any available joint where the skin might be just a tad bit thin, and those suckers were on us. One even had the stones to create a cruel smile-shaped arc on my right shoulder. B*stards! Luckily, we had our industrial strength DEET on us (98% from REI), and we promptly applied. It definitely worked, but the damage was done. We just didn't realize it at the time.
Within 24 hours, I had welts on the backs of my thighs, my shoulders, my elbows, my calves, etc... PTL for After Bite and DEET.
Moving along, after applying our DEET, we reached Salomon after a brief hike. We had the place to ourselves and I must say I was appropriately impressed.
By this time, the sun was out in full force and I took my first dip in the freakishly blue water:
Salomon, we will be back.
Next up: Villa Calicaribe and our check-in run around, the crew arrives, St. John is a ghost town in October... and will I find my donkeys?
We truly had a perfect weather week - the type we all go to St. John to experience (minus the mosquitos). We were lucky. I've been in several hurricanes and I know the damage they bring.
I wish everyone there the best of luck. St. John (indeed the whole of the Virgins, both British and US) is truly a special place and I wish you all safety and well-being as you ride out the storm. I will not post my next installment until the storm has passed, but for now on with the show...
-----------------------------------------------------
St. John, Trip #2
October 3rd - 11th, 2008
Planning a trip to the Caribbean in October is a risky proposition. If luck is in your favor, you come out feeling like a favored son (sun?). If not, well, then you end up logging on to forums such as this one asking desperate questions like "what am I supposed to do here if it keeps raining?"
What can I say? I'm a gambler at heart. My gamble paid off this time in a big way, but it was close. Our last day was decidedly hairy, what with an earthquake and a tropical wave which turned into Hurricane Omar, but I'm getting ahead of myself before I even really started.
Understanding the risks (and also understanding that October was likely to be the only time we could redeem our Delta FF miles for SkySaver tickets), we pushed forward. Our first trip to St. John was in July 2007, and we stayed at the Westin in a $79/night Hotwire room. While we loved St. John, I didn't love the Westin. Since we'd stayed in villas on other islands, I vowed that our next trip to St. John would be a villa vacation.
Enter our cast of characters. We asked a gaggle of friends if they wanted to come with. Two other couples were foolish enough to accept, so we ended up with a party of six. I won't bother fake-naming anyone because I'd just forget their monikers by the time I'd finished this paragraph, so I'll just make it up as I go. We had custom koozies made for this trip, sort of as a joke but they ended up being a really good keepsake. We went through a company based out of Raleigh, NC called "Kustom Koozies," and they did a great job, except for shorting me one koozie. As well, there's $1.00 down the drain. That would have bought me 1/50th of my meal at Asolare. Anycheapskate, here's what we ended up with (and YES, I did rip off a forum group name. Where should I send the check?):
Before I start the madness of a trip report, I will remind everyone that I was the donkey crazy woman who never found them on her last trip. I was determined to see a donkey this time. As our bartender at Red Hook told me, "You know, they aren't special or anything. Just plain donkeys." Still, like when it comes to unavailable men, women always want that which they cannot have. And I wanted a donkey. (I swear, that is NOT meant to be any sort of double entendre. Oh lord, I'm moving on.)
Dave (my husband) and I went down one day before everyone else thanks to limited ticket availability. Our flights were direct on Delta out of Atlanta, and we arrived just a few minutes late, right after 2:00pm. We taxied to Red Hook in time for the 4:00 ferry. We pulled up and I was tempted to scream out "woowee!" The new ferry terminal at Red Hook is so shiny and fancy compared to the last time we were there. We killed a half hour at the bar with Caribs and Painkillers and decided there are worse places to be in this world.
I also quickly learned that my new, sleek bob was going to be a disaster in the Caribbean humidity. Case in point:
Climate-controlled plane ride:
By the time we'd boarded at Red Hook:
I'm in the Caribbean, mon. Time to forget about hair days entirely (whether good or bad) and break out the ponytail. Too bad I cut off all my hair and barely had enough for a ponytail. C'est la vie.
In no time we pulled up to Cruz Bay, and a rainbow was there to greet us:
GALLOWS POINT:
We spent our first night in a Harbor View Upper unit at Gallows Point. I'd always wanted to stay at Gallows as I've heard it's very nice. Our room was Unit 11D (sorry, no pics), and while it was adequate, I'd be pretty disappointed if I'd paid high season prices for this room. I did enjoy the grounds and found the staff at the hotel to be exceptionally friendly. It's not really fair for me to rate the hotel one way or another, as I'm not sure I stayed long enough to even get a feel for the place.
I can say that the groundskeepers were very busy early in the morning cleaning the pool and surrounding areas. There are a lot of low hanging trees at Gallows Point, and these tend to dump flowers and leaves all over the furniture. The groundskeepers were busy cleaning off the furniture and appeared to keep the place in top notch shape.
We snorkeled off of Gallows Point on Saturday, our first morning on the island. I'd heard the snorkeling here was good, but on our day, we found it to be merely okay. We were fighting quite a current and somewhat cloudy conditions (it was our only overcast morning of the trip), so perhaps we would have enjoyed it more on a different day.
Now for the obligatory picture, view from our Gallows Point balcony:
THE BEACH BAR:
I'll rewind and say that on our first night, we hit our favorite place, The Beach Bar. We ran into a guy named S. who we met on our cab ride to Red Hook and ferried with to St. John. He worked for Delta and used his flying-for-free privileges at every available opportunity. We hung out with him for a while, had some drinks, and then ordered dinner. We had the Tuna Down Now for the first time. I'm happy to report that it IS as good as everyone says it is. We also split some nachos.
LIND POINT TRAIL AND SALOMON: THE FEAST BEGINS
After we snorkeled at Gallows Point, we decided to spend our first morning hiking the trail to Salomon from Cruz Bay. We weren't scheduled to pick up our rental car until much later in the day, so we were on foot all day anyway. We left after a hearty breakfast at Deli Grotto and quickly found the trail head.
We were in the dense rainforests of Costa Rica in May, and had surprisingly few problems with bugs. We also live in Atlanta, so mosquitos are sort of a way of life where I'm from. So, I'll admit we were a little cocky entering the Lind Point trail. Mosquitos? I live in the South! I'll tell you about mosquitos!
Five minutes into the trail, we realized how foolish we were.
We were quickly overrun with mosquitos - everywhere. On my back, my knees, my ankles, our elbows. Any available joint where the skin might be just a tad bit thin, and those suckers were on us. One even had the stones to create a cruel smile-shaped arc on my right shoulder. B*stards! Luckily, we had our industrial strength DEET on us (98% from REI), and we promptly applied. It definitely worked, but the damage was done. We just didn't realize it at the time.
Within 24 hours, I had welts on the backs of my thighs, my shoulders, my elbows, my calves, etc... PTL for After Bite and DEET.
Moving along, after applying our DEET, we reached Salomon after a brief hike. We had the place to ourselves and I must say I was appropriately impressed.
By this time, the sun was out in full force and I took my first dip in the freakishly blue water:
Salomon, we will be back.
Next up: Villa Calicaribe and our check-in run around, the crew arrives, St. John is a ghost town in October... and will I find my donkeys?
too funny!
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piscesgirl0314
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aroobagirl
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That's the thing about the mosquitos. I wasn't a total naysayer before we left. In fact, I told everyone to bring their bug repellant of choice from home. We had our industrial strength DEET, we just forgot to put it on before we hit the trail. Big mistake. Luckily, I'm not a big scratcher, so the welts went down quickly.
All the credit should really go to the creator, Ron_L though