This was a great weekend for eating in St John. For the past two weeks, our guests, Bob and Betty at the villa and Angie and I have been inundated with bananas. When they come ripe on our trees, we end up with about 50 pounds at once. So we make banana bread, banana muffins, banana rum drinks, banana cakes… it just goes on and on because the whole bunch of them come ripe at about the same time. Once I couldn’t handle it so I traded them for a case of beer. But this time with the guests in the villa, we were able to tackle most of them. Still have plenty in the freezer for frozen drinks though. Our pineapples are also ready for harvest right now. They are by far the sweetest you will ever taste.
So with all of the sharing of fruit our guests at the villa felt like sharing back and invited me to go out on a fishing charter with them. I woke up early, mostly because the mango tree has heavy fruit outside our bedroom and when the wind blows, it knocks against the wall like an eager door-to-door salesman. I went outside to check the weather before preparing to go out on a boat and stared and stood in awe looking through the mangoes at the sunrise over the sea.
The day was mostly without fish (captain said because of the moon), but we did catch a nice tuna. Bob and Betty, and their son Ray are experienced fisher folks, and had a great time even without the bounty we all hoped. They gave me some of the fish, and we made plans to meet at the food fair and festival coronation the next day.
The carnival starts out with lots of different events, one of which is the food fair. It’s a lively scene, with steel pan bands, reggae bands and calypso bands playing between not so important speeches that are given the highest of importance.
(Just an example of how important carnival is down here; The Virgin Islands will be drafting it’s own constitution during the next year and a half. In a public service announcement about the election of the delegates, a high official told the masses “we need to take this as serious as carnival”) this years carnival theme was announced, “a mix of cultures”. Quite nice, as there are people living in St John are from all over the Caribbean and the United States. It definitely gives me a smile though as last years theme was “a cultural mix.” For a carnival committee that takes themselves so seriously… I just wish I was at that meeting when they decided on the new theme.
The food was amazing though; conch with butter sauce, whelks in stew, mutton curry, Caribbean bbq chicken and ribs, chicken, beef and salt fish pates, dove pork, Johnny cakes, pineapple pies, coconut tarts, passion fruit juice, tofu wraps with fried cauliflower, homemade ice cream, garlic fried chicken, and everything comes with rice and pigeon peas. Angie and wiggled our way through the crowd, trying to decide as all portions are big enough for a couple of meals, as the cool sounds of steel pan orchestra spread though the sky. Not too much though, I had fresh tuna to eat at home.
After a quick stop for a swim in the ocean and a nap, we went by Josephine’s organic gardens to get the rest of what we needed for dinner; fresh arugula and herbs. I picked a mango off of our tree and we were ready to go. We seared the tuna with the mango, fresh parsley, lemon, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and some local honey to just past rare. Sliced it thin to show the fresh ruby red pink meat and laid it over a locally grown arugula salad tossed with mango strips. I felt ultimately self sufficient (as an island) knowing that the whole day, nearly everything we ate was grown here or locally caught. Relaxing now, proud of our island for its bounty of beauty, culture, and all things fresh, we set in to prepare for a busy couple of weeks partying at carnival.

There is this guy Bode living here. I don’t know his last name, and its possible he doesn’t have one. In fact, no one has a last name here. It’s a sunny place for shady people if you know what I mean. Bode is friends with a guy named Buddy (see what I am saying). Bode is probably 55, 200 pounds with 25 lbs of that his beard. The only skin on his face that you see is when he puckers up for a rum drink. Buddy is typically covered in oil from working on engines. They are full-on pirates, with uncanny stereotypically jolly pirate behavior. That doesn’t mean I would call them seaworthy though. I like a captain who can… well …. Stand. And neither had a boat. But what every pirate needs is a boat, and Bode found just the one. For as long as I had lived here, there was this old powerboat on the beach in Cruz Bay. It couldn’t possibly float. It was painted in a graffiti style, had no engine and may have served as a home for someone who just couldn’t make it home some nights. On the side was painted her name in bright yellow with blue squiggly outlines, that had all now faded to some other color; “Yeowza.” It’s fun to say. We have all heard the expression, but how is it spelled? Some derivative of yikes and… I don’t even know. I got to say it again “Yeowza.”

But back to them in a minute.

So Angie and I had gathered our energies for a short vacation. Everyone always wants to know where we would vacation, being that we live in St John, a dream destination for just about anyone. This time we were going to Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. Short trip, but totally rehabilitating for us. There was going to be a party over there and a number of our friends were also going for the weekend. Which meant of course, that half the Island knew there was a party being that the coconut telegraph never sleeps. It took us a few hours to gather all of our necessities, and get to the boat to start sailing over. It is about a 7-mile sail, on a reach (an easy point of sail) typically, so we can make it from St John in about 2 hours with the right breeze. The seas were really rough that day though so it took a little longer. We settled in for the weekend party and found ourselves relieved to be Limin on the beach and happy to be with our friends. Some other friends had come by smaller boat and had a rougher time, but we all had made it. As evening fell we stargazed from the soft cool evening sand and laughed about the characters on St John.

Around midnight, out of the darkness we heard a commanding laughter and the weak sound of a 2-stroke engine running on one cylinder. Suddenly Voice recognition sets in, “I swear I hear Bode” I say to my friend Dave. “Not possible, he had his first rum this morning at about 9 (Dave is bartender), plus who would bring him on their boat?” As the laughter grew louder, the image appeared. He was epic in posture. One foot up on the bow, bottle of rum held out to the gods and that deep, deep gravel of a laugh. He looked like Washington crossing the Delaware, but it was Bode and Buddy in “Yeowza” at midnight through impossible seas with a boat that should be a planter and of course a bottle of rum. Without turning off the engine, they rammed ashore, Bode’s infectious laughter quickly sending us all rolling. And we all realized right there that you’ve got to believe in pirates and the power of rum.

The news on St John is not quite as important as in the states. Most of us don’t watch CNN or much TV at all for that matter. When we need news we turn to the Coconut Telegraph. An extremely low-tech network of HIGHLY efficient connections powered by the people. News travels fast on St John. There are only 5000 residents, and living on an Island is like living on your own planet, so there are 5000 people on our planet. It takes about 25-30 minutes to drive the 8 miles between Coral Bay and Cruz Bay, but news travels much faster. They say if you do something foolish in Coral Bay, then get in your car and drive to town (Cruz Bay), everyone will know about it when you get there. The good news is that in St John, someone will out trump your stupidity quickly enough, so the spotlight can shift away from you (at least until…).

Yep, nobody really cares what you do here, as long as they know what you are doing. They call this “the world’s largest open air asylum”, a place where “we are all here because we’re not all there”. The ultimate figurative and literal reality. When you live on an island, especially one like St John, surrounded by constant and unyielding natural beauty you have certain obligations to the rest of the world. You must be a master of laziness and hard work, you must find kindness in all of the most difficult situations, and you must demonstrate the reality of total freedom to the guests who come from so far to find it.

Welcome to the new Starlit Escape Villa blog. A place, where like St John itself, we will forget rules and refresh our sanity with healthy doses of insanity. Insane beauty, crazy love stories, absolutely nuts people and the best local advice about St John Villas, Virgin Islands beaches, nightlife, dining and experiences. Please check in often to get the latest St John and Virgin Island stories that will help you plan the best St John Vacation and help you remember it forever.

The Players (just to start)
J-goofy hairdo, blue eyes, jack of all trades
A- stunning, petite, fetching smile, fastidious attention to detail

Away from St John on a vacation to visit family makes me miss our beautiful home. Being here in Colorado reminds me how important water is to me. To live in a place completely surrounded by the clearest and most breathtaking waters is truly amazing. We are so fortunate to be able to return St John, the place we call home. Can’t wait to get back and hope to see you all there…