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Why Did We Wait So Long? Trip Report 10/15-10/22 Part VII
Why Did We Wait So Long? Trip Report 10/15-10/22 Part VII
Time Is Running Out...
Our last full day (this trip) on St. John!
We had not been to any of the south shore beaches yet - you know, the ones that we were closest to. So after breakfast we loaded up and headed toward Chocolate Hole. It was less than five minutes between starting the jeep at the villa and parking it on the road by Chocolate Hole.
We were a little uncertain about this place at first glance, it was mostly a small harbour with a lot of boats moored in it. But we've had some great snorkeling experiences in places that didn't neccesarily pass the topside look test, so we walked towards the right side of the beach, geared up, and waded in.
We first swam over some sparse grass beds where there wasn't too much going on, then made our way towards the rocks along the shoreline. The tide was high enough, and surge low enough that we could get fairly close to shore without being dashed into, or impaled upon the rocks - always a good thing!
We saw a lot of little creatures - little lobsters, little crabs, little shrimp (OK - so the banded coral shrimp I saw was actually pretty big as far as those go, but why spoil the theme?), little moon jellies, and the smallest butterfly fish we've ever seen. There were also trunkfish, lizardfish, trumpetfish, squirrelfish, parrotfish, and of course, grunts. This was the only place that we didn't encounter a large school of (small) fry!
We went out until we got close enough to the point that the current and surge was picking up, then turned around and made our way back. For the second day in a row we got out of the water, and were just amazed that we were the only ones enjoying this place the whole time we were there! It was kind of sad going back to the villa and rinsing the gear for what would be the final time this trip - I sure could get used to that routine!
We spent some time just limin' at the villa - we floated in the pool in our water hammocks, took a catnap in the hammock chairs, read a little, started organizing our mess in preparation for tomorrow's departure, basically just relaxing.
When we started feeling hungry we decided we'd do something different, so we headed to Centerline and took that road east toward the Bordeaux Mountain overlook. One of the books we had said that the restaurant there served an informal lunch on the terrace, and that sounded perfect to us!
When we got there, there was a tour trolley/taxi just leaving. Apparently they had all gone up there to see the gift shop! I told the gal working there that we had been led to believe that there was an open restaurant serving lunch, but from the boarded up look of the place, that was dated information, which she confirmed to be true.
We went onto the deck/terrace anyway, to take a picture from the "most scenic view on the island". From there, you could see into the restaurant, and unlike the view from the front, which suggested it had been closed for years, looking in the windows you could see tablecloths on tables and bottles of wine in the wine rack. So maybe it was just closed for the season (if I had paid better attention to and/or printed out the list of closings posted on the forum I guess i would have known).
We took the requisite pictures and I stopped to talk to a guy that had shown up in a truck to do some work. By this time, the gift shop was closed and the lady running it was gone - I guess they just opened up for the folks on the taxi (maybe from a cruise ship or tour group from STT). I asked the guy if there was anything worth seeing on the drive up Bordeaux Mountain Road. it sounded like it might be a nice scenic drive, but our grumbling bellies overruled, so we headed to get some lunch.
The jeep headed east on Centerline and drove us back to Skinny Leg's, so who were we to argue? There was a table open right in front of the bar, so we made ourselves at home and sat down. When leslie went to look at t-shirts I noticed Howie's bell. I got a little choked up reading the poem, and must have still "had something in my eye" when Leslie got back. So I started to tell her what I knew about it, but choked on some dust or something and had trouble talking, so I just let her read it. She teared up like a little girl - what a wimp!
Les had a burger, and I had the mahi sandwich, both were good - especially when washed down with island beverages! Folks were showing up to watch the Sunday NFL games, some were wearing team jerseys, one guy had a sheet and seemed to be exchanging money with quite a few folks - we dubbed him "bookie guy".
I took a picture of Les in front of the bell,
and the guy at the next table kind of smirked and asked his wife if she wanted him to take a picture of her. Leslie thought it was funny and told me that the guy was making fun of me. I told her that I thought that they looked like island "veterans" and probably already had such a picture in their collection. While I don't know about that last part, after talking to them it turns out that the guy is a builder from the Boston area, that has been coming to St. John, for business and pleasure, for the last twenty five years or so. He mentioned the names of some of the places he built, and I recognized some of them, but can't remember what they were.
He asked how we got that table, as it was in a section usually reserved for Patriot fans on gamedays, and I told him we had been early enough to beat the football crowd, and weren't planning to stick around for the game, so they'd be able to have some of their comPATRIOTS sit next to them.
I noticed a couple at another nearby table that had just walked in. He was taking her picture sitting at their table. No - I didn't make fun of him, but I did ask if he'd like me to take on of them together. Just as I was snapping the picture, the owner of the place, who was walking behind their table, stopped and made a peace sign behind them. It was perfect timing on his part, I wonder if he's done that before?...
After lunch we headed back to the villa, getting a final look at the beautiful east end(ish) of the island.
We took some pictures of things that had become landmarks for us;
Lew Henley's sign, that we thought our boys would get a kick out of.
The fork in the road on Gift Hill Rd. that let us know we were almost home.
At the villa we just kind of hung out, started some packing, reading, etc. for a few hours, until it was time to head to the Beach Bar for the Sunday Jazz Jam, and hopefully, to meet up with a forum member or two.
The first loop I made in town didn't reveal any open parking places near Wharfside, so I decided to go ahead and brave the St. John Car Rental lot. It was a tight squeeze, but we managed to back in to a space between two other jeeps, then walked towards the music we heard coming from the Wharfside/Beach Bar area.
As we walked around the bar, we noticed people waving at us. It was the couple whose picture I had taken earlier in the day at Skinny Leg's. There were two seats next to them at the bar that had just been vacated and they were offering them to us - talk about good timing!
The couple's names were Sandra and Dwayne, from Dallas, who had just arrived the day before and were staying at the Westin for a week to celebrate Sandra's 50th birthday. They hung out for the first hour or so that we were there, then, feeling the effects of a long day, decided to walk back "home".
I was a little hesitant to drink very much. I had gotten a lot more comfortable driving during the course of the week, but I had not driven at night, and most of our drinking had been done at the villa after we were through venturing out for the day. I didn't plan on getting trashed anyway, but the drive up Gift Hill Road in the dark still had me a little intimidated.
So while I nursed a couple of Virgin Island Summer Ales, Leslie dutifully obeyed the sign above the bar that read "Try a Pain Killer".
The band was very good, and we enjoyed listening to them very much. The bar area was full, and there were some folks at the tables on the beach, and even some overflow crowd at Joe's Rum Hut, but I was the only geek with a forum t-shirt in sight.
We ate at the bar - the Tuna Bites were incredible! Les really enjoyed her grilled mahi sandwich, and the jerk chicken sandwich I had was flavorful, but a little dry to my taste. I've been cooking jerk chicken and pork for years, so I'm picky about how I like that stuff - I guess I'm a jerk snob!
Conrad, who was playing the flute with the band, stopped by to talk to us during one of their breaks. He's a carpenter by trade, originally from the Chicago area, and has been on island for about five years. it was interesting to talk to him not only about the music, but to hear his views on STJ, how it was, where it's headed, and so forth. Really a nice and easy to talk to gentleman.
Doug, who was our bartender, is also from central Florida, more specifically Orlando. From talking to him I found out that we had frequented a lot of the same surf spots (although mostly quite a few years apart!) near where I grew up and live. It gave us something to talk about when he wasn't too busy to do so, and just about the time I was going to suggest to Leslie that we leave, he informed us that the next round was on him! Well...we couldn't be rude, right?
We missed our nightly attempt to photpgraph the perfect sunset from the villa, but Leslie was on the ball enough to ensure that we didn't miss it entirely.
Eventually we bade the bar, the bartenders, the bar, and the beach good night, and, drinks in hand (Doug: there's no open container law on St. John, bro!) walked back to get the jeep for the harrowing drive back home in the dark.
Of course the drive back was anticlimatic. There were streetlights, which meant that I could see where the curves in the road were. Not being able to see those hairpin curves due to total pitch blackness was my biggest concern. Once I realized that was no cause for concern, it was a piece of cake. One more dragon slain!
Once we got back to the villa we realized the following: It was still fairly early. It would not take us very long to do what we needed to when leaving the villa the next day. There was still a fair amount of rum and mixers left. Not enough to deal with bringing it back with us, but more than we would want to leave behind.
Leslie had seen a painkiller recipe somewhere at the Beach Bar, so she set to work. As a defense mechanism against feeling too sad about leaving STJ the next day, we had assured ourselves that we would be back, and concentrated on the things we'd look forward to about going home. You know - the boys, the pets, the pile of unread mail - OK - scratch the last one. But it worked - we were able to sit on the deck, drinking our painkillers and SO enjoying living in the moment.
The view, the frogs, the time-challenged roosters, the cars negotiating Gift Hill Rd., the pool, the painkillers - it was all good. We were going to miss this place. But we had such a great week, that the sadness of leaving was still swamped by the joy of finally experiencing it. And now we felt confident that next time, the awe of seeing it all for the first time will be compensated by knowing how to get around well enough that we'll be able to experience even more of it.
If we want to.
Our last full day (this trip) on St. John!
We had not been to any of the south shore beaches yet - you know, the ones that we were closest to. So after breakfast we loaded up and headed toward Chocolate Hole. It was less than five minutes between starting the jeep at the villa and parking it on the road by Chocolate Hole.
We were a little uncertain about this place at first glance, it was mostly a small harbour with a lot of boats moored in it. But we've had some great snorkeling experiences in places that didn't neccesarily pass the topside look test, so we walked towards the right side of the beach, geared up, and waded in.
We first swam over some sparse grass beds where there wasn't too much going on, then made our way towards the rocks along the shoreline. The tide was high enough, and surge low enough that we could get fairly close to shore without being dashed into, or impaled upon the rocks - always a good thing!
We saw a lot of little creatures - little lobsters, little crabs, little shrimp (OK - so the banded coral shrimp I saw was actually pretty big as far as those go, but why spoil the theme?), little moon jellies, and the smallest butterfly fish we've ever seen. There were also trunkfish, lizardfish, trumpetfish, squirrelfish, parrotfish, and of course, grunts. This was the only place that we didn't encounter a large school of (small) fry!
We went out until we got close enough to the point that the current and surge was picking up, then turned around and made our way back. For the second day in a row we got out of the water, and were just amazed that we were the only ones enjoying this place the whole time we were there! It was kind of sad going back to the villa and rinsing the gear for what would be the final time this trip - I sure could get used to that routine!
We spent some time just limin' at the villa - we floated in the pool in our water hammocks, took a catnap in the hammock chairs, read a little, started organizing our mess in preparation for tomorrow's departure, basically just relaxing.
When we started feeling hungry we decided we'd do something different, so we headed to Centerline and took that road east toward the Bordeaux Mountain overlook. One of the books we had said that the restaurant there served an informal lunch on the terrace, and that sounded perfect to us!
When we got there, there was a tour trolley/taxi just leaving. Apparently they had all gone up there to see the gift shop! I told the gal working there that we had been led to believe that there was an open restaurant serving lunch, but from the boarded up look of the place, that was dated information, which she confirmed to be true.
We went onto the deck/terrace anyway, to take a picture from the "most scenic view on the island". From there, you could see into the restaurant, and unlike the view from the front, which suggested it had been closed for years, looking in the windows you could see tablecloths on tables and bottles of wine in the wine rack. So maybe it was just closed for the season (if I had paid better attention to and/or printed out the list of closings posted on the forum I guess i would have known).
We took the requisite pictures and I stopped to talk to a guy that had shown up in a truck to do some work. By this time, the gift shop was closed and the lady running it was gone - I guess they just opened up for the folks on the taxi (maybe from a cruise ship or tour group from STT). I asked the guy if there was anything worth seeing on the drive up Bordeaux Mountain Road. it sounded like it might be a nice scenic drive, but our grumbling bellies overruled, so we headed to get some lunch.
The jeep headed east on Centerline and drove us back to Skinny Leg's, so who were we to argue? There was a table open right in front of the bar, so we made ourselves at home and sat down. When leslie went to look at t-shirts I noticed Howie's bell. I got a little choked up reading the poem, and must have still "had something in my eye" when Leslie got back. So I started to tell her what I knew about it, but choked on some dust or something and had trouble talking, so I just let her read it. She teared up like a little girl - what a wimp!
Les had a burger, and I had the mahi sandwich, both were good - especially when washed down with island beverages! Folks were showing up to watch the Sunday NFL games, some were wearing team jerseys, one guy had a sheet and seemed to be exchanging money with quite a few folks - we dubbed him "bookie guy".
I took a picture of Les in front of the bell,
and the guy at the next table kind of smirked and asked his wife if she wanted him to take a picture of her. Leslie thought it was funny and told me that the guy was making fun of me. I told her that I thought that they looked like island "veterans" and probably already had such a picture in their collection. While I don't know about that last part, after talking to them it turns out that the guy is a builder from the Boston area, that has been coming to St. John, for business and pleasure, for the last twenty five years or so. He mentioned the names of some of the places he built, and I recognized some of them, but can't remember what they were.
He asked how we got that table, as it was in a section usually reserved for Patriot fans on gamedays, and I told him we had been early enough to beat the football crowd, and weren't planning to stick around for the game, so they'd be able to have some of their comPATRIOTS sit next to them.
I noticed a couple at another nearby table that had just walked in. He was taking her picture sitting at their table. No - I didn't make fun of him, but I did ask if he'd like me to take on of them together. Just as I was snapping the picture, the owner of the place, who was walking behind their table, stopped and made a peace sign behind them. It was perfect timing on his part, I wonder if he's done that before?...
After lunch we headed back to the villa, getting a final look at the beautiful east end(ish) of the island.
We took some pictures of things that had become landmarks for us;
Lew Henley's sign, that we thought our boys would get a kick out of.
The fork in the road on Gift Hill Rd. that let us know we were almost home.
At the villa we just kind of hung out, started some packing, reading, etc. for a few hours, until it was time to head to the Beach Bar for the Sunday Jazz Jam, and hopefully, to meet up with a forum member or two.
The first loop I made in town didn't reveal any open parking places near Wharfside, so I decided to go ahead and brave the St. John Car Rental lot. It was a tight squeeze, but we managed to back in to a space between two other jeeps, then walked towards the music we heard coming from the Wharfside/Beach Bar area.
As we walked around the bar, we noticed people waving at us. It was the couple whose picture I had taken earlier in the day at Skinny Leg's. There were two seats next to them at the bar that had just been vacated and they were offering them to us - talk about good timing!
The couple's names were Sandra and Dwayne, from Dallas, who had just arrived the day before and were staying at the Westin for a week to celebrate Sandra's 50th birthday. They hung out for the first hour or so that we were there, then, feeling the effects of a long day, decided to walk back "home".
I was a little hesitant to drink very much. I had gotten a lot more comfortable driving during the course of the week, but I had not driven at night, and most of our drinking had been done at the villa after we were through venturing out for the day. I didn't plan on getting trashed anyway, but the drive up Gift Hill Road in the dark still had me a little intimidated.
So while I nursed a couple of Virgin Island Summer Ales, Leslie dutifully obeyed the sign above the bar that read "Try a Pain Killer".
The band was very good, and we enjoyed listening to them very much. The bar area was full, and there were some folks at the tables on the beach, and even some overflow crowd at Joe's Rum Hut, but I was the only geek with a forum t-shirt in sight.
We ate at the bar - the Tuna Bites were incredible! Les really enjoyed her grilled mahi sandwich, and the jerk chicken sandwich I had was flavorful, but a little dry to my taste. I've been cooking jerk chicken and pork for years, so I'm picky about how I like that stuff - I guess I'm a jerk snob!
Conrad, who was playing the flute with the band, stopped by to talk to us during one of their breaks. He's a carpenter by trade, originally from the Chicago area, and has been on island for about five years. it was interesting to talk to him not only about the music, but to hear his views on STJ, how it was, where it's headed, and so forth. Really a nice and easy to talk to gentleman.
Doug, who was our bartender, is also from central Florida, more specifically Orlando. From talking to him I found out that we had frequented a lot of the same surf spots (although mostly quite a few years apart!) near where I grew up and live. It gave us something to talk about when he wasn't too busy to do so, and just about the time I was going to suggest to Leslie that we leave, he informed us that the next round was on him! Well...we couldn't be rude, right?
We missed our nightly attempt to photpgraph the perfect sunset from the villa, but Leslie was on the ball enough to ensure that we didn't miss it entirely.
Eventually we bade the bar, the bartenders, the bar, and the beach good night, and, drinks in hand (Doug: there's no open container law on St. John, bro!) walked back to get the jeep for the harrowing drive back home in the dark.
Of course the drive back was anticlimatic. There were streetlights, which meant that I could see where the curves in the road were. Not being able to see those hairpin curves due to total pitch blackness was my biggest concern. Once I realized that was no cause for concern, it was a piece of cake. One more dragon slain!
Once we got back to the villa we realized the following: It was still fairly early. It would not take us very long to do what we needed to when leaving the villa the next day. There was still a fair amount of rum and mixers left. Not enough to deal with bringing it back with us, but more than we would want to leave behind.
Leslie had seen a painkiller recipe somewhere at the Beach Bar, so she set to work. As a defense mechanism against feeling too sad about leaving STJ the next day, we had assured ourselves that we would be back, and concentrated on the things we'd look forward to about going home. You know - the boys, the pets, the pile of unread mail - OK - scratch the last one. But it worked - we were able to sit on the deck, drinking our painkillers and SO enjoying living in the moment.
The view, the frogs, the time-challenged roosters, the cars negotiating Gift Hill Rd., the pool, the painkillers - it was all good. We were going to miss this place. But we had such a great week, that the sadness of leaving was still swamped by the joy of finally experiencing it. And now we felt confident that next time, the awe of seeing it all for the first time will be compensated by knowing how to get around well enough that we'll be able to experience even more of it.
If we want to.
Come see us!
Chateau Bordeaux does not serve lunch anymore 
but I think there is something in the works (I think hubby told me of something but most of the time nowadays info seems to go in one ear and out the other, or gets sucked into a black hole that is there instead of my brain) I'll post when he lets me know 
Pia
but I think there is something in the works (I think hubby told me of something but most of the time nowadays info seems to go in one ear and out the other, or gets sucked into a black hole that is there instead of my brain) I'll post when he lets me know Pia
Great trip reporting! Thanks for taking the time to post all the stories and pix!
I hate to tell you this, but, we've been to the Islands for 9 or 7 times now (like Pia, the brain is fried)and I still have a check list of things left to do. So don't think that "just" a second trip is gonna do it for your list!! You gotta lot more trippin to do!
Thanks again for the report! Good job!
-Bert
I hate to tell you this, but, we've been to the Islands for 9 or 7 times now (like Pia, the brain is fried)and I still have a check list of things left to do. So don't think that "just" a second trip is gonna do it for your list!! You gotta lot more trippin to do!
Thanks again for the report! Good job!
-Bert
The liver is evil, it must be punished!
I was hopin' someone would tell me that!CariBert wrote:
I hate to tell you this, but, we've been to the Islands for 9 or 7 times now (like Pia, the brain is fried)and I still have a check list of things left to do. So don't think that "just" a second trip is gonna do it for your list!! You gotta lot more trippin to do!
-Bert
Come see us!