A birthday not being spent on STJ.
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:48 pm
When I was responding to the thread about special moments, I recalled having written about those experiences of heaven in a trip report a few years ago. I dug it out and it was from 2005 and the occasion was an attempt to soften the impact of turning 60. Actually my birthday is tomorrow. No Caribbean birthday this year. We will spend a few days on Cape Cod (in Provincetown) at a B&B with a sauna and hot tub. Winter on the Cape can be real nice. I'm hoping for a little snow. The ocean in a snowstorm is otherworldly.
It was also interesting for me to reread the trip report to be reminded of where my head was at in regard to several things. So I thought I'd post it, more for me to acknowledge my birthday than anything else. I'm not usually too self-absorbed, but on my birthday I do reflect on myself and find it more interesting than anyone else would. I'm not totally clear why I want to post this, but I think I do. More about the birthday than the information.:
---- Back from 5 days on STJ. Wasn’t sure if it was worth going for such a short trip, but it was all the time my wife could manage off from work, First time I went to STJ, in the mid-80s, I stayed for 5 WEEKS (life was simple then), so could 5 days be anything more than a tease? It turned out fine. This trip was put together at relatively the last minute to divert me from my 60th birthday. Arrived Thursday, birthday was Sunday, left on Monday. It was a good strategy. Instead of dealing with my very mixed feelings about the birthday, for the past couple months my focus has been on escaping winter for the Caribbean. I think turning 60 on STJ was a much more gentle experience than it would have been in a frigid, snowy land. When I’m in the tropics, everything seems okay, including aging.
My wife and I have been to STJ often enough that we slip into Island mode quickly and smoothly. We flew into STT in the early afternoon and by the time we were having dinner at Maho that evening, it already felt like we’d been there for days. I changed into shorts and a t-shirt before leaving the plane so I could luxuriate in the feel of the air as I stepped out then walked to the terminal. Got a van to Red Hook and had a great driver who provided us with a narrated tour across STT. His info ranged from island history to golf courses to slavery to shoddy house construction to hurricanes to rum to the Home Depot. He earned his tip. I removed my watch en route. We had a good wait for the ferry, which I like, because it helps to slow me down and shift into Island time. No rush. Nowhere I have to be by any particular time for days. I sit, look at how beautiful it all is, appreciate how fortunate I am to be there. Just sit and enjoy paradise. In Cruz Bay we find Mr. Frett , who runs the shuttle to Maho. He's as I remember him, but we'd heard he'd been ill. I grimace at all of the construction and notice it's also going going on where the little block of businesses and the pub once stood. I liked those little places. A lot's different than it used to be.
I stayed at Maho on my first visit to STJ. I wanted to go back one more time after learning that the Maho lease isn’t going to be renewed. Much has changed on STJ since my first visit, and now Maho will enter history also. We wanted to reexperience the place and express appreciation. It’s pretty basic and, for what it is, pretty wonderful. We didn’t rent a vehicle this time, the stay being so short. Maho is one of those locations where you can do fine without your own. It’s an easy walk to several good snorkeling beaches and the Maho shuttle to Cruz Bay makes many other places easily reachable. We also have an old friends who live on STJ who willingly picked us up and hauled us around. Another old friend was also coming to STJ at the same time. These are some of the people that we first went to STJ with in the mid-80s, so the 5 days there were rich and deep in a multitude of ways. The island has come to mean a lot to all of us. Some of us live there, some just carry it around inside us.
The first night we settled in, had dinner at the pavilion restaurant at Maho. It’s a lovely location, sits on a hillside overlooking Little Maho and Francis Bays. The food is rarely great, but is usually okay, and it’s just a short walk from the tent. Eating my chicken enchilada, sitting there with my wife and watching the sun set, it struck me that I was in heaven. There was nothing that was missing, nothing that I would change. It was perfect. It wasn’t like heaven, it was heaven. It was the kind of moment that I might recall when I’m really old and on my death bed. And the grace was that I recognized it when I was there in the moment, rather than after it had passed. And there would be any number of other such moments during our stay there. So it seems that 5 days isn’t too short a stay to make going there worthwhile.
And then early to bed since we’d gotten up in the middle of the night in some snowy land far, far to the north.
We settle into a comfortable, familiar routine at Maho. I’m up around dawn, go down to the beach for a quick swim. At home, I like my sleep. On STJ I can’t wait to get up because the days have such promise. My wife sleeps in, but only a little, and is usually stirring and making coffee by the time I’m back from the beach. We bring some food with us, but not much. Mostly just for breakfast and lunch. We cook a little more if we we’re staying in a house rather than in the Maho tents. We set out some sugar water so we can have our coffee with the bananaquits. Then cereal, then get an early start snorkeling.
The first morning we snorkel Little Maho, then around to Big Maho. Not many people initially, but the beach begins to fill and a few dinghies pull in also. The coral’s in poor shape and we don’t see too many fish, and no big ones. Things are a bit better out around the point. Big Maho is a good beach for us to hang out on for a while. My wife likes to work on a tan while I like shade and there’s plenty of seagrapes for me to sit under. I gave up on tanning after the doctor hacked the last basal cell carcinoma out of my cheek. The ones they cut out my my back and arm didn’t stop me, nor did the first one on my face, but after the second one, I’d had enough. There was little remarkable about the snorkeling, but it was good to be back in the Caribbean,
Late afternoon a friend comes by to take us to her house in Upper Carolina where we hang out and have dinner. It’s a sweet night under the stars with dear friends. She’s lived there for 15 years and Coral Bay has changed significantly in that time, and even moreso in the 20 plus years since we first visited STJ. There are so many more houses on the hills, so much new construction underway, so much more development in Coral Bay. Not as many pirates around. New moon was Thursday so the nights were very dark. I remember how dark the hills used to be. A whole lot more lights now. I’m still very happy, but I’m starting to feel the occasional wave of nostalgia for how it used to be. There’s been a lot of change on STJ and I really don’t think of much of it as improvement.
We usually like to do at least one good hike, but with our short stay, that’s what seems will have to be cut out. I’d wanted to get up on the Johnny Horn trail again and finally take the cutoff down to Brown Bay. We’ve taken the trail from Waterlemon over to Coral Bay, but have never gone down to Brown Bay. Instead, our friends pick us up and we head for Haulover. Haulover has always been one of my very favorite snorkeling spots. We pulled up and see a LOT of vehicles. I was a bit disappointed because I’m not used to seeing many people there. When we walked over to the north beach, I was delighted and baffled to see that nobody was there. All of the people in all of those vehicles had plopped themselves down on the south beach. Mid-day on a Saturday in March and we have the beach to ourselves. I’m sure it was a different story on the north shore beaches. A few people did show up during the time we were there, but most seemed to opt for the south beach right off the road.
The water was very clear at Haulover and the coral is in much better shape than on our last visit, particularly the sea fans. Again, not a whole lot of fish. Did get to see some squid. I try not to look at the big villa that hangs above Haulover. I remember when it wasn’t there and there was nothing at all on those hills. I’m sure they have a fantastic view , but I resent that villa. We also notice that most of the agave seems to have been hit by some blight. We hung out on the beach for a while, remembering the last time the four of us had been there together, some 20 years earlier. Later we continued onto the East End and made a quick stop at Vie’s for cold drinks. I do love it over there. It’s really got a feel of the old Caribbean. It’s still a world and a culture away from Cruz Bay. 30 years ago the road didn’t reach this far. Seems that Coral Bay used to be more akin to the East End than it is now. More and more it’s going in the direction of Cruz Bay. If I hadn’t become so needful of comforts, I’d love to just bring a tent and camp on Vie’s beach. This is the world that I fell in love with on my first trip to STJ.
I don’t go back to work until next week, and I’m not ready to move out of the place that STJ brings me to. This report allows me to continue to steep myself in it. It also allows me to put off going outside where it is cold and there is still snow.
Saturday night we had dinner at a new restaurant, Sweet Plantains. They’ve done a really nice job renovating. It's no longer a dive filled with pirates. I'm happy it's there but it also means one less dive filled with pirates that I'll miss. We ate outside.You’re across the road, but still quite close to the water. Kind of upscale East and West indian food. For an appetizer we had tostones which were great. Our entrees were okay. They don’t take credit cards yet, which made it a bit tricky, given their prices. They seem like they’re trying to do a good thing and I hope they can make it work. The new Cocoloba complex looks pretty nice, but the nostalgia was creeping up on me again. When I first saw Coral Bay, there wasn’t much there and I liked it that way. Skinny’s was still in its Redbeard’s incarnation and the Kite still existed on the north shore road. Now Pickles is closed and a gourmet market is opening. I feel more comfortable in the Sputnik bar (the bar itself, not the breakfast restaurant) than I do in Mongoose Junction. Still, a pleasant night out under the stars at Sweet Plantains with dear friends. Doesn’t seem like I make friends like this anymore.
Sunday was my birthday. Up at dawn for my swim, took a little extra time on the beach to reflect, then had breakfast at the Maho restaurant. Another moment in heaven. I like breakfast food and Maho has a good breakfast menu. It’s one of the most wonderful places I can imagine to be sitting down to eat. And you don’t need to be staying there to eat there. Afterwards we head over to Francis Bay. We walk along the shore rather than take the road. Have to scramble over some rocks, but not really difficult. This avoids the hill from Maho Bay Camps down to Francis. Going in the other direction, to Big Maho, there’s a trail through the brush. We travel light for snorkeling. No chairs or coolers or blankets. We’re more backpacker snorkelers than RV snorkelers.
I was hoping to see a turtle. Francis is a good spot for turtles and, like most of us, I just love turtles. Whenever I do see one, I always take it as a gift from the turtle. Out there in their world, they can easily avoid me if they wish to. No birthday sighting, though. We snorkeled out toward the point. Water was very clear. The coral’s in pretty sad shape, but we did see the most fish of any of the spots we snorkeled, although no big ones. Did see a small barracuda. A number of morays. I miss the large schools of fish and I miss the occasional big fish. Jeez, I’d like to see one of those big comical parrotfish that used to be fairly common. Used to see rays much more frequently. I wondered how accurate my memory is, but had it confirmed by others: It used to be different. The coral really was is much better shape. There really were a whole lot more fish and a lot more big ones. I also came across this article about an oceanographer who was involved in the Tektite project returning to dive at Lameshur after 35 years:
http://www.onepaper.com/stthomasvi/?p=1105682495
I still very much enjoy STJ, but have a building nostalgia for how it used to be. And I remember meeting people 20 years ago who told me how they longed for how it was when they first got there some years earlier. Plus I’m trying to deal with turning 60. I’ve barely begun to grasp that I actually am middle-aged and now somehow I’m already on the far edge of it. Looking at successes, looking at failures and shortcomings. Taking stock. Glad I’m dealing with it on STJ rather than up in that frozen winter wasteland of my home. As a boy, I celebrated birthdays. I don’t celebrate them anymore. I’m not sure what the word is for how i deal with them now.
Later we head into Cruz Bay. Dinner in town, just my wife and I. We poke around looking at watercolors, prints and t-shirts. Can’t find any art in our price range that we’re both taken with. I can’t find the t-shirt. Not just any shirt will do. We head for the Beach Bar and the Sunday jazz session, but it’s too crowded and busy for us. End up having frozen drinks at Rumbalaya. Got a table where we can see both the harbor and have a good view of the comings and goings on the ferry dock. I have another moment when I recognize that I’m in heaven. We decide on dinner at Morgan’s Mango, an old favorite. We remember back to it’s previous incarnation when it was more of a bar with good bands. Different name---maybe World Headquarters? I remember one night going back and forth between there and Fred’s where Inner Visions was playing. Inner Visions still plays at Fred’s when they’re not touring. Hearing them at Fred’s is about as good as it gets. It’s always strange to walk past Fred’s in the daytime and try to grasp that it’s the same place where the magic happened the night before. Sweet memories of sweet tropical nights.
Dinner is good at Morgan’s Mango. They seem to get very mixed reviews, but we’ve always been pleased. They agree to give us coconut shrimp as an appetizer, my wife had the voodoo snapper and I had grilled mahi. And i locate my t-shirt. They sell the very shirts that the wait staff wear and my good wife sees that i have yet another birthday present. We make it back to Maho before the store closes, so I have a Ben&Jerry’s peace pop, it being my birthday. It was a good birthday, probably as painless as a 60th can be, full of wonderful moments.
Monday morning we’re up early, but I pass on my dawn swim. We have a 12:30 flight, so we’re gearing up to go. I put my watch back on. It was only 5 days, but they were so rich and full that it seemed longer. We wished we could stay longer, but it didn’t feel like we’d just gotten there. We gave the bananaquits a last bowl of sugar water and had coffee with them. Something spooked the birds and we just barely saw the mongoose as it scurried by. Frett’s shuttle got us to town in plenty of time to catch the CA ferry. The woman selling the tickets was pleasant. I always like to go back via the town ferry. We headed straight to the airport rather than poke around CA, but check-in and security turned out to be a breeze and we had a lot of time on our hands. We would have spent time in CA had we known. But I guess you never know. While waiting at the airport we saw the first rain of our entire stay, a brief shower, no rainbow that I could see. We had a direct flight down, but returning we changed in San Juan. It all went with out a hitch. Still a whole lot of snow around. It doesn’t look pretty to me. It looks kind of stupid. Spring’ll be here soon though and I turned 60 and hardly felt it.
I really love STJ. I’m so very comfortable there. My wife and I slip into our Island groove quickly, easily. I have so many special and sweet memories of being there. In some ways, I think I’m at my best there. Not my most productive, but my best. Friends introduced us to the island and we’ve introduced other friends to it. It healed me during one difficult time. But it”s changed and I miss much of what has been lost. I don’t find many of the changes to be improvements. This is the story not only on STJ, but in many places in the world. Yearning for a past, possibly romanticized, when things were simpler. More open space, fewer people. Population grows, people need space. The Columbo truck is my favorite thing that wasn’t there on my first trip. I most miss the Kite. If I lived there I would welcome some of the changes more than I do being a visitor. Our friends who live on STJ look at many of the changes quite differently than I do. My wife and I have talked about trying other islands. We were on Maui and Kauai and I do love Kauai and hope to get back. We’re east coasters, though, so Hawaii is a lot of travelling. My favorite island ever is Ko Samed in the Gulf of Thailand, but I was there a long time ago and I expect that it’s very different today. We do have a Caribbean list: Bequia, Nevis, Dominica, Virgin Gorda. We’ve talked about a change, but then put it off for another year and head back to STJ.
I’ve started researching Virgin Gorda and I actually believe that we’ll give it a try for our next trip to the Caribbean. Possibly this summer, more likely next year. I’m hoping that it may still have more of what I first fell in love with on STJ. I continue to enjoy STJ greatly, but I feel a deep nostalgia for how it was. Too much development, too many cars, too many people, too few pirates. Too little coral, too few fish, too few big fish. And Maho will join the list of places that no longer exist. I took for granted so much of what I now miss. That’s part of why we wanted to get back to Maho: to enjoy and appreciate it while recognizing that it won’t last.
So we’ll try a place that’s fresh and new to us, where we don’t have a sense of history or nostalgia. A place where we can only see how it presently is--and it’ll be beautiful--and not know how it was. We met folks who were on STJ for the first timeand were absolutely stoned on the beauty of it all. We want to be those folks again and not have the experience tempered by a degree of loss, by a remembrance of how it used to be. This is perhaps the mid-life crisis in our relationship with STJ. We have a comfortable but no longer exciting marriage with the island. We think we miss the thrill of a new love affair. But we’ll also be back to STJ again. It has a place in my heart always.
It was also interesting for me to reread the trip report to be reminded of where my head was at in regard to several things. So I thought I'd post it, more for me to acknowledge my birthday than anything else. I'm not usually too self-absorbed, but on my birthday I do reflect on myself and find it more interesting than anyone else would. I'm not totally clear why I want to post this, but I think I do. More about the birthday than the information.:
---- Back from 5 days on STJ. Wasn’t sure if it was worth going for such a short trip, but it was all the time my wife could manage off from work, First time I went to STJ, in the mid-80s, I stayed for 5 WEEKS (life was simple then), so could 5 days be anything more than a tease? It turned out fine. This trip was put together at relatively the last minute to divert me from my 60th birthday. Arrived Thursday, birthday was Sunday, left on Monday. It was a good strategy. Instead of dealing with my very mixed feelings about the birthday, for the past couple months my focus has been on escaping winter for the Caribbean. I think turning 60 on STJ was a much more gentle experience than it would have been in a frigid, snowy land. When I’m in the tropics, everything seems okay, including aging.
My wife and I have been to STJ often enough that we slip into Island mode quickly and smoothly. We flew into STT in the early afternoon and by the time we were having dinner at Maho that evening, it already felt like we’d been there for days. I changed into shorts and a t-shirt before leaving the plane so I could luxuriate in the feel of the air as I stepped out then walked to the terminal. Got a van to Red Hook and had a great driver who provided us with a narrated tour across STT. His info ranged from island history to golf courses to slavery to shoddy house construction to hurricanes to rum to the Home Depot. He earned his tip. I removed my watch en route. We had a good wait for the ferry, which I like, because it helps to slow me down and shift into Island time. No rush. Nowhere I have to be by any particular time for days. I sit, look at how beautiful it all is, appreciate how fortunate I am to be there. Just sit and enjoy paradise. In Cruz Bay we find Mr. Frett , who runs the shuttle to Maho. He's as I remember him, but we'd heard he'd been ill. I grimace at all of the construction and notice it's also going going on where the little block of businesses and the pub once stood. I liked those little places. A lot's different than it used to be.
I stayed at Maho on my first visit to STJ. I wanted to go back one more time after learning that the Maho lease isn’t going to be renewed. Much has changed on STJ since my first visit, and now Maho will enter history also. We wanted to reexperience the place and express appreciation. It’s pretty basic and, for what it is, pretty wonderful. We didn’t rent a vehicle this time, the stay being so short. Maho is one of those locations where you can do fine without your own. It’s an easy walk to several good snorkeling beaches and the Maho shuttle to Cruz Bay makes many other places easily reachable. We also have an old friends who live on STJ who willingly picked us up and hauled us around. Another old friend was also coming to STJ at the same time. These are some of the people that we first went to STJ with in the mid-80s, so the 5 days there were rich and deep in a multitude of ways. The island has come to mean a lot to all of us. Some of us live there, some just carry it around inside us.
The first night we settled in, had dinner at the pavilion restaurant at Maho. It’s a lovely location, sits on a hillside overlooking Little Maho and Francis Bays. The food is rarely great, but is usually okay, and it’s just a short walk from the tent. Eating my chicken enchilada, sitting there with my wife and watching the sun set, it struck me that I was in heaven. There was nothing that was missing, nothing that I would change. It was perfect. It wasn’t like heaven, it was heaven. It was the kind of moment that I might recall when I’m really old and on my death bed. And the grace was that I recognized it when I was there in the moment, rather than after it had passed. And there would be any number of other such moments during our stay there. So it seems that 5 days isn’t too short a stay to make going there worthwhile.
And then early to bed since we’d gotten up in the middle of the night in some snowy land far, far to the north.
We settle into a comfortable, familiar routine at Maho. I’m up around dawn, go down to the beach for a quick swim. At home, I like my sleep. On STJ I can’t wait to get up because the days have such promise. My wife sleeps in, but only a little, and is usually stirring and making coffee by the time I’m back from the beach. We bring some food with us, but not much. Mostly just for breakfast and lunch. We cook a little more if we we’re staying in a house rather than in the Maho tents. We set out some sugar water so we can have our coffee with the bananaquits. Then cereal, then get an early start snorkeling.
The first morning we snorkel Little Maho, then around to Big Maho. Not many people initially, but the beach begins to fill and a few dinghies pull in also. The coral’s in poor shape and we don’t see too many fish, and no big ones. Things are a bit better out around the point. Big Maho is a good beach for us to hang out on for a while. My wife likes to work on a tan while I like shade and there’s plenty of seagrapes for me to sit under. I gave up on tanning after the doctor hacked the last basal cell carcinoma out of my cheek. The ones they cut out my my back and arm didn’t stop me, nor did the first one on my face, but after the second one, I’d had enough. There was little remarkable about the snorkeling, but it was good to be back in the Caribbean,
Late afternoon a friend comes by to take us to her house in Upper Carolina where we hang out and have dinner. It’s a sweet night under the stars with dear friends. She’s lived there for 15 years and Coral Bay has changed significantly in that time, and even moreso in the 20 plus years since we first visited STJ. There are so many more houses on the hills, so much new construction underway, so much more development in Coral Bay. Not as many pirates around. New moon was Thursday so the nights were very dark. I remember how dark the hills used to be. A whole lot more lights now. I’m still very happy, but I’m starting to feel the occasional wave of nostalgia for how it used to be. There’s been a lot of change on STJ and I really don’t think of much of it as improvement.
We usually like to do at least one good hike, but with our short stay, that’s what seems will have to be cut out. I’d wanted to get up on the Johnny Horn trail again and finally take the cutoff down to Brown Bay. We’ve taken the trail from Waterlemon over to Coral Bay, but have never gone down to Brown Bay. Instead, our friends pick us up and we head for Haulover. Haulover has always been one of my very favorite snorkeling spots. We pulled up and see a LOT of vehicles. I was a bit disappointed because I’m not used to seeing many people there. When we walked over to the north beach, I was delighted and baffled to see that nobody was there. All of the people in all of those vehicles had plopped themselves down on the south beach. Mid-day on a Saturday in March and we have the beach to ourselves. I’m sure it was a different story on the north shore beaches. A few people did show up during the time we were there, but most seemed to opt for the south beach right off the road.
The water was very clear at Haulover and the coral is in much better shape than on our last visit, particularly the sea fans. Again, not a whole lot of fish. Did get to see some squid. I try not to look at the big villa that hangs above Haulover. I remember when it wasn’t there and there was nothing at all on those hills. I’m sure they have a fantastic view , but I resent that villa. We also notice that most of the agave seems to have been hit by some blight. We hung out on the beach for a while, remembering the last time the four of us had been there together, some 20 years earlier. Later we continued onto the East End and made a quick stop at Vie’s for cold drinks. I do love it over there. It’s really got a feel of the old Caribbean. It’s still a world and a culture away from Cruz Bay. 30 years ago the road didn’t reach this far. Seems that Coral Bay used to be more akin to the East End than it is now. More and more it’s going in the direction of Cruz Bay. If I hadn’t become so needful of comforts, I’d love to just bring a tent and camp on Vie’s beach. This is the world that I fell in love with on my first trip to STJ.
I don’t go back to work until next week, and I’m not ready to move out of the place that STJ brings me to. This report allows me to continue to steep myself in it. It also allows me to put off going outside where it is cold and there is still snow.
Saturday night we had dinner at a new restaurant, Sweet Plantains. They’ve done a really nice job renovating. It's no longer a dive filled with pirates. I'm happy it's there but it also means one less dive filled with pirates that I'll miss. We ate outside.You’re across the road, but still quite close to the water. Kind of upscale East and West indian food. For an appetizer we had tostones which were great. Our entrees were okay. They don’t take credit cards yet, which made it a bit tricky, given their prices. They seem like they’re trying to do a good thing and I hope they can make it work. The new Cocoloba complex looks pretty nice, but the nostalgia was creeping up on me again. When I first saw Coral Bay, there wasn’t much there and I liked it that way. Skinny’s was still in its Redbeard’s incarnation and the Kite still existed on the north shore road. Now Pickles is closed and a gourmet market is opening. I feel more comfortable in the Sputnik bar (the bar itself, not the breakfast restaurant) than I do in Mongoose Junction. Still, a pleasant night out under the stars at Sweet Plantains with dear friends. Doesn’t seem like I make friends like this anymore.
Sunday was my birthday. Up at dawn for my swim, took a little extra time on the beach to reflect, then had breakfast at the Maho restaurant. Another moment in heaven. I like breakfast food and Maho has a good breakfast menu. It’s one of the most wonderful places I can imagine to be sitting down to eat. And you don’t need to be staying there to eat there. Afterwards we head over to Francis Bay. We walk along the shore rather than take the road. Have to scramble over some rocks, but not really difficult. This avoids the hill from Maho Bay Camps down to Francis. Going in the other direction, to Big Maho, there’s a trail through the brush. We travel light for snorkeling. No chairs or coolers or blankets. We’re more backpacker snorkelers than RV snorkelers.
I was hoping to see a turtle. Francis is a good spot for turtles and, like most of us, I just love turtles. Whenever I do see one, I always take it as a gift from the turtle. Out there in their world, they can easily avoid me if they wish to. No birthday sighting, though. We snorkeled out toward the point. Water was very clear. The coral’s in pretty sad shape, but we did see the most fish of any of the spots we snorkeled, although no big ones. Did see a small barracuda. A number of morays. I miss the large schools of fish and I miss the occasional big fish. Jeez, I’d like to see one of those big comical parrotfish that used to be fairly common. Used to see rays much more frequently. I wondered how accurate my memory is, but had it confirmed by others: It used to be different. The coral really was is much better shape. There really were a whole lot more fish and a lot more big ones. I also came across this article about an oceanographer who was involved in the Tektite project returning to dive at Lameshur after 35 years:
http://www.onepaper.com/stthomasvi/?p=1105682495
I still very much enjoy STJ, but have a building nostalgia for how it used to be. And I remember meeting people 20 years ago who told me how they longed for how it was when they first got there some years earlier. Plus I’m trying to deal with turning 60. I’ve barely begun to grasp that I actually am middle-aged and now somehow I’m already on the far edge of it. Looking at successes, looking at failures and shortcomings. Taking stock. Glad I’m dealing with it on STJ rather than up in that frozen winter wasteland of my home. As a boy, I celebrated birthdays. I don’t celebrate them anymore. I’m not sure what the word is for how i deal with them now.
Later we head into Cruz Bay. Dinner in town, just my wife and I. We poke around looking at watercolors, prints and t-shirts. Can’t find any art in our price range that we’re both taken with. I can’t find the t-shirt. Not just any shirt will do. We head for the Beach Bar and the Sunday jazz session, but it’s too crowded and busy for us. End up having frozen drinks at Rumbalaya. Got a table where we can see both the harbor and have a good view of the comings and goings on the ferry dock. I have another moment when I recognize that I’m in heaven. We decide on dinner at Morgan’s Mango, an old favorite. We remember back to it’s previous incarnation when it was more of a bar with good bands. Different name---maybe World Headquarters? I remember one night going back and forth between there and Fred’s where Inner Visions was playing. Inner Visions still plays at Fred’s when they’re not touring. Hearing them at Fred’s is about as good as it gets. It’s always strange to walk past Fred’s in the daytime and try to grasp that it’s the same place where the magic happened the night before. Sweet memories of sweet tropical nights.
Dinner is good at Morgan’s Mango. They seem to get very mixed reviews, but we’ve always been pleased. They agree to give us coconut shrimp as an appetizer, my wife had the voodoo snapper and I had grilled mahi. And i locate my t-shirt. They sell the very shirts that the wait staff wear and my good wife sees that i have yet another birthday present. We make it back to Maho before the store closes, so I have a Ben&Jerry’s peace pop, it being my birthday. It was a good birthday, probably as painless as a 60th can be, full of wonderful moments.
Monday morning we’re up early, but I pass on my dawn swim. We have a 12:30 flight, so we’re gearing up to go. I put my watch back on. It was only 5 days, but they were so rich and full that it seemed longer. We wished we could stay longer, but it didn’t feel like we’d just gotten there. We gave the bananaquits a last bowl of sugar water and had coffee with them. Something spooked the birds and we just barely saw the mongoose as it scurried by. Frett’s shuttle got us to town in plenty of time to catch the CA ferry. The woman selling the tickets was pleasant. I always like to go back via the town ferry. We headed straight to the airport rather than poke around CA, but check-in and security turned out to be a breeze and we had a lot of time on our hands. We would have spent time in CA had we known. But I guess you never know. While waiting at the airport we saw the first rain of our entire stay, a brief shower, no rainbow that I could see. We had a direct flight down, but returning we changed in San Juan. It all went with out a hitch. Still a whole lot of snow around. It doesn’t look pretty to me. It looks kind of stupid. Spring’ll be here soon though and I turned 60 and hardly felt it.
I really love STJ. I’m so very comfortable there. My wife and I slip into our Island groove quickly, easily. I have so many special and sweet memories of being there. In some ways, I think I’m at my best there. Not my most productive, but my best. Friends introduced us to the island and we’ve introduced other friends to it. It healed me during one difficult time. But it”s changed and I miss much of what has been lost. I don’t find many of the changes to be improvements. This is the story not only on STJ, but in many places in the world. Yearning for a past, possibly romanticized, when things were simpler. More open space, fewer people. Population grows, people need space. The Columbo truck is my favorite thing that wasn’t there on my first trip. I most miss the Kite. If I lived there I would welcome some of the changes more than I do being a visitor. Our friends who live on STJ look at many of the changes quite differently than I do. My wife and I have talked about trying other islands. We were on Maui and Kauai and I do love Kauai and hope to get back. We’re east coasters, though, so Hawaii is a lot of travelling. My favorite island ever is Ko Samed in the Gulf of Thailand, but I was there a long time ago and I expect that it’s very different today. We do have a Caribbean list: Bequia, Nevis, Dominica, Virgin Gorda. We’ve talked about a change, but then put it off for another year and head back to STJ.
I’ve started researching Virgin Gorda and I actually believe that we’ll give it a try for our next trip to the Caribbean. Possibly this summer, more likely next year. I’m hoping that it may still have more of what I first fell in love with on STJ. I continue to enjoy STJ greatly, but I feel a deep nostalgia for how it was. Too much development, too many cars, too many people, too few pirates. Too little coral, too few fish, too few big fish. And Maho will join the list of places that no longer exist. I took for granted so much of what I now miss. That’s part of why we wanted to get back to Maho: to enjoy and appreciate it while recognizing that it won’t last.
So we’ll try a place that’s fresh and new to us, where we don’t have a sense of history or nostalgia. A place where we can only see how it presently is--and it’ll be beautiful--and not know how it was. We met folks who were on STJ for the first timeand were absolutely stoned on the beauty of it all. We want to be those folks again and not have the experience tempered by a degree of loss, by a remembrance of how it used to be. This is perhaps the mid-life crisis in our relationship with STJ. We have a comfortable but no longer exciting marriage with the island. We think we miss the thrill of a new love affair. But we’ll also be back to STJ again. It has a place in my heart always.
