One of my favorite events is happening in St. John this weekend, and you all are invited to get in on the action!
The Chaotic Kayak race is scheduled for Sunday, July 30th at 11 a.m. on the beach in Cruz Bay. The Chaotic Kayak is an event that supports Team River Runner, an adventure and adaptive paddling program for wounded and disabled veterans. Team River Runner has been bringing veterans to St. John for a week-long leadership clinic since 2007. One hundred percent of the money raised at this event will be used to bring veterans to St. John this October.
Chaotic Kayak is a zany race in which teams kayak around an obstacle course in Cruz Bay. They do so while getting doused by buckets of water from boaters moored out in the bay. Each team also tries to get a child to sit in the middle, and this teammate’s job may be one of the most important of the day. His or her job is to use a super soaker to throw off nearby teams. It’s seriously a very fun event.
Hudson Boudreau (center) helped bring his team to victory last year! Pictured with Connor Masterson and Marty Bruckner. Hudson’s parents own Bonvi Hospitality.
Teams receive a five-second head start for every $100 raised. Five seconds may not seem like a lot, but it is when you’re in a race!
The Beach Bar plans to donate all tips this Friday to Team River Runner. The Windmill Bar plans to donate all of its tips this Saturday to Team River Runner. So be sure to stop by each of those great spots.
Hello everyone, and happy Monday! I have some good news to share with you all today. It’s now a little easier to park in Cruz Bay!
For those of you who read Explore STJ regularly (and a HUGE thank you to all of you who do), you likely read how parking in Cruz Bay was limited due to construction at the ferry dock and St. John’s festival celebration. Well, I am happy to tell you today that both areas are open for parking, once again.
The Customs lot, located across from the Post Office In Cruz Bay, has been repainted and is open again. This adds dozens of free parking spots in Cruz Bay.
The Customs parking lot in Cruz Bay is open once again.
Additionally, a few extra spots facing the water in Cruz Bay are open for public parking again. These spots were reserved for taxi parking for several months while construction occurred at the ferry dock.
There are seven free 30-minute parking spots near the water in Cruz Bay.You can park to the right of this pole. Spots to the left of the pole are reserved for taxis.
As you can see in the images above, these spots are limited to 30 minutes, and I have seen police officer tickets vehicles here from time to time, so please be mindful of that.
So while this doesn’t alleviate our parking issues in Cruz Bay, it definitely helps.
Get to know St. John. Visit beautiful beaches & centuries-old plantations. Perhaps stop at a tiki bar or two. Full & half days available. Rated “Excellent” on TripAdvisor. 2023 & 2022 TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Winner. Learn more here –> www.explorestj.com/tour
Robert Oppenheimer purchased land on St. John in 1957.
With today’s release of the new Oppenheimer movie, there will likely be a renewed interest in Robert Oppenheimer’s life on St. John. For those of you who have visited the island, you have likely passed, or perhaps visited, Oppenheimer beach, which is located on Hawknest Bay on St. John’s North Shore. It is the same stretch of sand that is widely referred to as Gibney beach.
Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, found solace in St. John beginning in the late 1950s. Oppenheimer, his wife Kitty, and their daughter Toni began vacationing at a guest house on Trunk Bay, which closed when Trunk was sold to the Virgin Islands National Park. The Oppenheimers subsequently purchased land from Robert and Nancy Gibney in 1957 and began building a small cottage for themselves.
Like many things here in St. John, construction didn’t occur in a timely fashion. Therefore Kitty desperately asked Nancy if she could spend some time at the family’s home during the summer of 1959, so she could check on the cottage’s progress. This story is hilariously retold by the late Nancy Gibney in the book “St. John People.”
A screenshot from the Kindle version of St. John People, which is available on Amazon.
In her essay, Nancy Gibney recalls her frustration over the number of times the Oppenheimer’s daughter Toni and her friend washed their hair, using the island’s precious water, and how Kitty would rummage through the ice chest at all hours of the night so she could chill her cocktails. This summer, described by Nancy as “seven hideous and hilarious weeks” led to a well-documented feud between the Gibneys and Oppenheimers.
Alas, construction at the Oppenheimer’s cottage was eventually completed on the east end of Hawksnest Bay.
Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty built a small cottage on the east end of Hawksnest Bay in St. John.
The Oppenheimers were known to throw parties at their cottage and began renting it out to vacationers, further fueling the feud with the Gibney family.
The Oppenheimers spent several years on St. John, where Robert was presumably able to escape media attention. Robert, a chain smoker, ultimately died of throat cancer in Princeton, New Jersey in 1967. Kitty spread his ashes at sea.
Oppenheimer left the cottage to his wife Kitty, who died in 1972 during a sailing trip from St. John to Panama. Their daughter Toni inherited the cottage and lived there until her death in 1977. Toni took her own life at the cottage, and on a note, left the home to “the people of St. John.”
No money was left for the home’s upkeep, so it quickly fell into disrepair. The Virgin Island’s government subsequently took control of the land and refurbished the cottage. That building is available to rent for events through the Department of Sports, Parks & Recreation.
The building at Oppenheimer Beach pre-Irma.The Oppenheimer building in recent times.
A tire swing used to hang from a palm tree at Oppenheimer that stretched over the bay’s turquoise waters. The swing was removed during the summer of 2017, and sadly the palm fell during Hurricane Irma.
The famous tire swing at Oppenheimer in 2016.
And this is what Oppenheimer looks like today:
If you would like to read Nancy Gibney’s essay about her summer with Robert Oppenheimer in its entirety, you can purchase St. John People in several stores on St. John. You can also click here to purchase a paperback or Kindle version on Amazon. The book includes numerous stories about St. John residents told by St. John residents. It’s a very good read.
Take a St. John island tour with me!
Get to know St. John. Visit beautiful beaches & centuries-old plantations. Perhaps stop at a tiki bar or two. Full & half days available. Rated “Excellent” on TripAdvisor. 2023 & 2022 TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Winner. Learn more here –> www.explorestj.com/tour
It hit 104 degrees yesterday, according to the thermometer on my Jeep. I snapped this pic after pulling into Skinny Legs.
It’s hot. Like most of the country, St. John is a bit hotter than usual. I’ve been consistently seeing temps in the mid to upper 90s around Coral Bay, Salt Pond, and the East End over the past several weeks. The thermometer on the Jeep has even hit 100+ a few times when I was driving along Centerline Road near Coral Bay. The temps seem to be closer to the upper 80s on the North Shore and around Cruz Bay but don’t be fooled, it’s still sweltering there too.
So where exactly can you beat the heat during times like this? The majority of our restaurants are open-air, which means they have fans, not air conditioning. Here is a list of come of the colder spots on St. John:
The Parrot Club, Wharfside Village, Cruz Bay
The Parrot Club is a small casino right on the water in Cruz Bay. It has a full bar and drink specials daily. The Parrot Club is fully enclosed with air conditioning. It is a great place to cool down on a hot day, and you may even win a bit of cash while you’re there. There are a few dozen slot machines and a large roulette table. The Parrot Club does not have any live dealers.
The VI Wine Shop, Wharfside Village, Cruz Bay
The wine shop is a great little spot with a large bar and small tables to sit at. You can order wine by the glass or purchase a bottle off the wall. They serve a few specialty cocktails too, but they do not serve beer at this time. The wine shop is fully air-conditioned. They even offer a small menu that includes charcuterie, olives, burrata, and a few other treats.
Lovango Run Bar, Cruz Bay
Lovango Rum Bar is located across from the beach in Cruz Bay. It has a large open-air outdoor space with great views of Cruz Bay and also a large indoor space that is fully air-conditioned. Lovango Rum Bar has great pizzas, salads, and charcuterie plates too. This is one of my favorite spots on St. John.
Cafe Roma, One Block from the Ferry Dock, Cruz Bay
Cafe Roma is consistently ranked the best Italian on St. John, and my island tour guests have been raving about it lately. It is located above The Longboard, just one block from the ferry dock. This is a fully enclosed dinner restaurant with cold air conditioning. Cafe Roma is a walk-in restaurant. They do not take reservations.
Dave & Jerry’s Steakhouse, One Block from the Ferry Dock, Cruz Bay
Dave & Jerry’s is also located close to the ferry dock. They are underneath the Cruz Bay Hotel and across the street from Lime Inn. The interior dining area is fully air-conditioned. If you opt to dine outside in the bar area, there are fans and streetside views. Dave & Jerry’s accepts reservations and is open for dinner only.
The Tap Room, Mongoose Junction, Cruz Bay
The Tap Room opens daily at 11 a.m. and serves the same menu until 9 p.m. It has a large dining room and bar area that is fully air-conditioned. There is even a photo booth and two arcade games to keep the kids entertained while you’re cooling off. The Tap Room is walk-in only. They do not take reservations.
North Shore Deli, Mongoose Junction, Cruz Bay
North Shore Deli serves breakfast and lunch seven days a week. It is fully air-conditioned with a handful of tables. You can enjoy the cool air while waiting for a to-go order or dine in. Call ahead to save some time. North Shore also has a nice grab-and-go section.
Some restaurants like The Terrace and Extra Virgin, for example, are open-air but have air conditioning in the interior sections of the restaurants. The Windmill Bar usually has great breezes to cool you down, as does Salty Mongoose and Surf Club Cantina in Coral Bay.
The rest of the open-air restaurants have numerous fans throughout to keep patrons cool. They are all still great places to dine at. I just wanted you all to know today where you can find a few full air-conditioned spots because my island tour guests have been asking about this a lot lately.
Added August 14th: Cap’s Place and The Dpwnstairs at The Upstairs are also air-conditioned now.
Want to know where some of these spots are located? Please check out Explore STJ’s Restaurant Map at www.explorestj.com/restaurantmap.
Want to see & learn more about St. John? Take an Island Tour with Explore STJ. Full & half days available. Rated “Excellent” on TripAdvisor. Learn more at www.ExploreSTJ.com/tour.
The Saharan Dust is extremely thick today. I was out and about with island tour guests today and snapped several pictures for all of you.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Saharan Dust, it tends to come and go during the spring and summer months. It is actually dust that lifts up from the Sahara Desert in Africa and is carried over to the US Virgin Islands. It looks like clouds or a thick haze and can bother your respiratory system a bit. My eyes tend to get a little itchy, and I sneeze a bit more when there is an abundance of dust in the air like there is currently.
Here are some pictures that show what the island typically looks like and what it looked like today. I’ll start with Trunk Bay.
Trunk Bay on a nice and clear dayTrunk Bay with today’s Saharan Dust
An overlook in Coral Bay:
An overlook in Coral Bay without dustThe overlook in Coral Bay with today’s Saharan Dust
Overlooking Hawksnest Bay toward St. Thomas:
Looking over Hawksnest Bay toward St. Thomas without dustLooking over Hawksnest Bay toward St. Thomas with today’s Saharan Dust
And here are a couple of more images I took today:
Maho & Francis bays today with the Saharan DustLooking over the Sir Francis Drake Channel toward Tortola on St. John’s East End today with Saharan Dust
It looks like the Saharan Dust will stick around for a few more days before our skies clear up once again. You can track the Saharan Dust here, just like you can track rain on the radar. MyFoxHurricane.com is the best site to track the dust in my opinion.
You can also see what’s happening live by checking out Explore STJ’s webcam page at www.explorestj.com/webcams.
St. John is a wonderful place to live, but let’s be honest, it’s pretty easy to run out of new things to do when you live on such a small island. So one of my family’s afterschool/after-work pastimes is climbing rocks. My son Dalton, who turned five earlier this month, loves challenging himself to see just how high and far he can climb, all under our watchful eye of course.
Dalton having fun over at Klein Bay.
Dalton and I were climbing rocks over at Klein Bay last week when I noticed a water bottle jammed into the rocks. When I went to pick it up, so I could throw it away, I noticed that the bottle appeared to have Chinese writing, which isn’t something we commonly see around here.
Using the Google Translate app on my phone, I was able to confirm that the bottle was produced in China, which is one of the largest ocean polluters in the world. Whether or not this particular bottle made its way through the ocean from China to St. John remains to be seen.
Image taken using Google Translate on my iPhone.Image taken using Google Translate on my iPhone.Image taken using Google Translate on my iPhone.
I don’t know about you, but I found it to be quite interesting to find this bottle. Perhaps it fell off of a cruise ship, which often pass to our south. Maybe it did travel thousands of miles across the world from China to St. John. Who really knows?
Regardless of where this particular bottle originated from, it’s up to all of us to make sure that we do our best to not pollute our oceans. St. John does have a recycling program, thanks to the Island Green Living Association, but it is voluntary. Recycling isn’t required in the US Virgin Islands, which is a darn shame in my opinion. You can find recycling bins at several of our dumpster sites, and you can also find them near Island Green’s Recycle Depot, which is St. John’s thrift store located on Route 104.
I just added Island Green’s Resource Depot to Explore STJ’s Logistics Map, which also includes locations for St. John’s markets, gas stations, dumpsters, free and paid parking lots, and more. You can see it at www.ExploreSTJ.com/LogisticsMap.
I hope you all enjoyed this little story today. And if you happen to see a piece of trash near the ocean, please pick it up. The turtles, fish, and other wildlife will thank you.
Want to see more of St. John & learn from a resident why this place is so great? Please consider taking an island tour with Explore STJ. Explore STJ is rated “Excellent” on TripAdvisor, and we received TripAdvisor’s Travellers Choice Award in 2023 and 2022. Full & half days are available. Learn more at www.ExploreSTJ.com/tour.
