USVI-On-Line

Day 7

It wouldn't be a trip report without a bananaquit picture. I mean, I start my day with a cup of java, some fruit, a bowl of cereal, and sit 3 feet from the railing to watch what I consider St. John morning TV. Today's show was a rare, backlit, mid-flight shot. This turned out to be my favorite.

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Today everyone wanted a break from the beach, and eventually went off to the Westin for the day. I wanted to tackle another hike.
My wife, one of my nieces and I went to Satyamuna to eat before they dropped me off at Annaberg to start the Johnny Horn trail hike. I'm telling you, if you're a vegetarian, or a vegan like myself... this amazing little vegetarian/vegan deli rocks! ... and the owners are really nice people This was my second lunch here so far. They're located on the 2nd floor that the Starfish Market is at.(Sorry, I don't do food porn)

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I kind of planned on doing the Johnny horn one way, and that would be starting along the Leinster bay trail to connect to the Johnny Horn, then up and over to Coral bay to be picked up in about 2 hours. While at the Annaberg Ruins parking lot, we came across the local bush cats. The "injured" one is named Whoofer

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I later learned who Whoofer was and her name from an employee of the Caravan Gallery in Mongoose Junction, I learned that Whoofer has a bad skin disease that looks bad, but has had this condition for a few years. We fed her as another came around to join in on the free food.

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All the while a few mongoose got a whiff of this free food and thought they would try to get in on the action, but they were way to skiddish to even try.
It had looked like it was going to rain, the clouds were dark grey and didn't want to go away. I started the hike regardless; I was actually looking forward to a break in the humidity.

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Just as I started the Lienster trail, I came across a local who was about to windsurf and spoke with him for about 15 minutes. An interesting fellow who has lived on the other 2 US islands, and Puerto Rico, and said St. John was the best.
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I came across a small set of ruins at the end of the Lienster trail just as I had to turn onto the Johnny Horn.

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The Johnny horn was just a mediocre trail, not to hard, not to easy, if it wasn't so damn dry on St John right now the foliage would probably be a bit more pleasing. I came across a lot of Donkey poo, but no Donkey's. I ran into a hermit crab who refused to stay completely still for a photo op.

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I found these leaves interesting as the sun hit it just right.
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I did come across a nice little surprise at the end of the Johnny Horn trail with the use of my trailbandit map, which a short jaunt up to Boss hill. There was no signage, but an obvious trail. I think this was the highlight of the hike, which took me to a spectacular view into Hurricane hole which is north of Coral Bay

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This big guy somehow got on my hand when I wasn't looking. Don't ask, I have no idea, he just wanted to be my friend

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Down into Coral bay I ended my hike on route 10 near the Emmaus Moravian Church which has a beautiful Flamboyant in full bloom

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After a short walk to the Donkey diner to look a it ( I have never been there), the owner was super energetic and told me that he was mostly out of everything, and the computers were down, I told him that was fine and I was just passing through.

Now I just wait for my wife to pick me up, so I did a picture of myself with the infamous...

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Everyone was still at the Westin after my wife picked me up, we headed there for something to eat before going back to the villa. I did some partaking of Lime-in-da-coconut, make it two.
Later that night, I went out to the Lind point trail for a small night hike, and to set up my audio recording gear to record the frogs and bugs in the wild. I recorded for an hour, the only bad thing about this location was that I was picking up sounds from across Cruz bay, like boat motors. Oh well, still came out good.

No Survivor challenge tonight, there was a small but intense family breakout that I had nothing to do with me, let's say it sort of made a few of the group not communicate with the rest. Trouble in paradise

Dave your pictures are beautiful. Your trip video was great too! Thanks for the STJ fix.

mrsb wrote:Dave your pictures are beautiful. Your trip video was great too! Thanks for the STJ fix.

Fun stuff!

MrsB, are you up for a night hike to Lindt Point overlook? That could be a Bubba Keg moment.

Cheers, RickG

As long as I have the Bubba Keg, I can do anything Did you buy some?

Great reporting and pictures, Dave. Thanks for sharing!

DELETED

Dave, you and I are so completely different in what we like to do on St. John, but it's been a real pleasure reading your accounts and seeing your pictures. So there's, like, nature and stuff away from the beaches. Huh. Who knew?

Robin

In June we were parked at Annaberg and I saw that cat. I was completely heartbroken by her appearance. She was so sweet and meowed to me and rubbed up against me. I gave her some egg yolk from my egg salad, as it was all I had. We started up the stairs to Annaberg but I had to turn around and go back to the cat…I just couldn’t stand the thought of the poor thing. Then a black cat emerged from the trees. After a little while a man (I can’t remember his name) showed up to feed them, and then a third cat emerged, one that looked just like the one with the skin condition.

He told me all of their names, and I don’t remember Woofy being one of them (but maybe I’m having a memory lapse). He said that he comes every day and feeds the 3 cats there…it is his “gym fee” because he walks for exercise when he comes to feed them. They are all fixed and the feeding program on STJ only feeds fixed cats. The two that look alike are twin sisters, except that one has the skin condition and the other doesn’t. He said that they’ve tried all sorts of things for her skin condition…she’s gotten shots from the vet and nothing has really helped. He said that she eats a lot but is still so thin because it takes a lot of food for her to barely survive.

He also told me that the cat population on STJ was pretty much brought under control by the work of one woman (I can’t remember her name either). He said that it has gotten slightly worse lately though.

I asked if I could give him a donation and he told me that I could go to the Animal Care Center and make a donation. So I did just that and now I’m a member of the STJ ACC

She looks better in your picture than she did in late June:


The mongooses cleaned up once the cats were done eating:

You all might be interested to know that the man who feeds the cats at Annaberg is Glenn Speer, St. John's legendary designer and builder---most notably of Mongoose Junction--one of the most talented and thoughtful mainlanders to ever settle on the island.

Hey Dave a roni,

Very interesting day for you and great photo ops! Love the banaquits...again and I love that you give the island cats some nurturing.

I sense a very good soul here

Take care and thanks for sharing!

Sorry to hear about the family thing, boy
I hope the 10 of us next Feb get along
the entire time

Kathy

Dave-the photo of the bananaquits is awesome! Enjoyed the report!

hugo wrote:You all might be interested to know that the man who feeds the cats at Annaberg is Glenn Speer, St. John's legendary designer and builder---most notably of Mongoose Junction--one of the most talented and thoughtful mainlanders to ever settle on the island.

Did he used to be married to the owner of Caravan Gallery? Or are they still married? Radha said something about her ex-husband when I was there in June, but I also seem to remember her saying that her husband (or ex maybe) designed Mongoose Junction.

Bravo Dave your doin great The bananaquit pic is awesome. Not a cat peson really but I seem to become one on St John. I can't help myself to give them a little help while we are there.

Teresa_Rae wrote:[
]
Did he used to be married to the owner of Caravan Gallery? Or are they still married? Radha said something about her ex-husband when I was there in June, but I also seem to remember her saying that her husband (or ex maybe) designed Mongoose Junction.

Glenn and Radha are still married, and own Caravan together. She was maybe referring to a previous husband.