St. John Wed. 2/29/12

Another glorious day! Randy came by at breakfast and asked some of us to volunteer to help on a Friends of the National Park project. We helped cut and haul lumber for the new handicapped accessible ramp that runs through the mangroves out at Francis Bay which is next door to Maho Bay where we spent many wonderful days vacationing in past years. The work was dirty, but not hard. We saw lots of stilts and water birds in the mangrove swamp AND I saw a pink flamingo! He must have blown in on the winds we have been having the last few days. We got back to camp in time for lunch and after went down to the VIERS dock for a snorkel. I did not find it as interesting as Little Lameshur so doubt if we will go back to that side. I did walk over to the beach after and had a swim before coming back to camp for my shower. I spent some time in the office filling out our time sheets - you have to work 4 hours a day in order to qualify for free room and meals. You can work more each day and bank some in order to earn a day off, but honestly, just swimming and snorkeling in Little Lameshur is wonderful and that is just a short walk away. After dinner last night, I brought out the ice cream that I had made for the staff - it was a big hit! We sat around talking for a while and then went back to our cabin to read. Barb and Jim are making dinner tonight: pepper steak, rice, salad and walnut cake for dessert. I am trying to eat very small portions as I don't want to gain a ton of weight here although the physical labor, snorkeling and swimming probably counterbalance some of the caloric intake (at least that's what I'm telling myself!). Dave has finished carving a spoon. Originally, he was going to donate this one to the camp kitchen, but we have been invited to a house in Coral Bay on Friday for the afternoon and will take it as a hostess gift and Dave will carve another one for the camp. Two of the volunteers from Michigan, Melissa and Rich, always spend a few extra days relaxing on the island when they finish their volunteer time before going home. They have rented a place called the Round house - can't wait to see it. The photos today are of St. Francis Bay, the overlook off the trail and the handicapped access trail that we were working on. Happy Birthday, John King! So nice that we can say this on the actual day!

St. John Tues 2/28/12

Had another small shower in the night - never lasts long. This morning after breakfast, Dave, Glenn, Charlie and I worked on digging rocks out of a garden area - the same one we pulled tons of snake plant out of. The idea is that eventually we will put some fresh dirt and sand, rebuild the wall and plant flowers. It will look lovely when it is done, but it will take a while to clear the area of roots and rocks. I stirred the ice cream about every half hour this AM and we will eat it tonight. We quit at noon and had lunch. Lunch is usually leftovers from the previous night's dinner or lunch meat or peanut butter. The strawberry jam we brought down is almost gone - it is quite popular with the staff. Today, Willie made fried rice - it was very good. The garden gang piled into the truck and went into Coral Bay to buy more postcards. We then stopped at Salt Pond and did a bit of snorkeling. Glenn was behind me and saw a reef shark which I missed. I saw lots of staghorn coral, huge parrot fish and sergeant majors. It was a lovely swim. I will stop there another day and take pictures. I don't like to leave my camera on the beach when we are out snorkeling. I think we are having fish and baked potatoes tonight for dinner. It sure does smell good in the kitchen. I was finally able to download some pictures! One is of our cabin, one of the dining room and kitchen, and the last is of Little Lameshur Bay which is our local, walk-to swimming hole. The rocks on the left have the best snorkeling.

St. John Mon. 2/27/12

Today I spent the morning in the kitchen. I made several batches of oatmeal raisin cookies (the Sierra Club folks are helping with trails in the National Park and pack their lunch), four lemon pies (a new recipe which I copied down for home if it comes out okay) for tonight's dessert, and I started a batch of vanilla ice cream that I will attempt to make in the freezer tomorrow. There is no ice cream maker here, but I figure if I stir it every half hour, it should come out okay. After lunch Jim, Barb, Glenn, Dave and I went for a hike up Bordeau mountain - great views from the top - could even see the camp! We came back down and jumped in Little Lameshur Bay - delightful to swim around and cool off. Debbie and Will are making stuffed peppers for dinner. I just got out of the shower, folded laundry that I had done earlier and am now just hanging out until dinner. I'll bet we will sleep well tonight after all of the uphill walking we did on the trail!

St. John Sun. 2/26/12

I just realised that my dates are off - hope I have got it right now. I also am having trouble uploading photos for the blog, but eventually I will figure out what is going on. Dave and I did not get put on the cooking schedule for this week, but that is okay with us. I spent the morning cleaning rooms and making beds as we have a group of Sierra Club members coming in this afternoon. Dave and some of the other guys worked on the snake plant project again - it is really a never ending job as there is so much of the stuff all over the camp.

After lunch, we took a group of people in the truck. We dropped Jerry and Jim at the Brown Bay trailhead and the rest of us, Barb, Glenn, Charlie, Dave and I went snorkeling on the south side of Haulover Bay. The snorkeling was great - lots of colorful soft corals, trumpet fish, puffer fish, parrots and sergeant majors. We swam out about 3/4 of a mile and then back - we should sleep well tonight. We walked over to the north side of the bay, where Dave and I have been before, but it was too rough to get in - the wind is causing some major wave action. We went back to Skinny Legs (a bar) to pick up Jim and Jerry and then went for an ice cream cone. We stopped at a store in Coral Bay and picked up some heavy cream. Randy had two vanilla beans and challenged us to make something with them. I found a recipe on-line for vanilla ice cream that doesn't need a machine. I will try it tomorrow.

We jumped in the shower when we came back and then chatted with some of the Sierra Club guests until dinner. We will go to bed soon. Tomorrow, the car people should be out with our jeep. We will believe it when we see them! This is a good group of volunteers - having a great time. Generally, the work day is from 8-12 (unless you are cooking dinner) so you do get quite a bit of time off. We are really enjoying the water and sunshine.

St. John Sat. 2/26/12

Today we got up very early and had a quick breakfast before heading out to the mile 4 marker where we set up a water/gatorade station. There were 1100 runners this year. It was great fun passing out cups of water to the runners. The course is actually 8.3 miles, but over very hilly terrain! The winner came in at 46 minutes I think. We cleaned up our area and headed back to camp. I took us an hour and 45 minutes to get back as we crawled up the hills behind the last runners who were actually walking and jogging by that point. We hung around camp for the rest of the day - just relaxing and chilling out. John, the volunteer who lives on his boat, made pizza for everyone for dinner - delish! Randy, the boss, and Zoe, the intern, made fresh onion soup and french bread. We really had a feast! The big boss, another Randy, has recently had a heart attack and is home in Baltimore recuperating. The other volunteers wrote a get well song for him and we videotaped it. One of the other volunteers put it on youtube so he could see it. We had a very good time listening to music and talking. A couple of guests came in for the night so we got them settled and stayed up a bit longer to chat. We went to bed around 9:30. It was good sleeping weather - a lot of wind and some rain.

St. John Fri. 2/25/12

We had a lovely dinner last night and then cleaned up the kitchen. People go to bed early around here - usually quit the kitchen area where we all sit around and talk after dinner around 8:30 or 9. We usually read for a while before dropping off the sleep. We have been waking up about 5:30 or 6, but tomorrow we will have to set the alarm and we have to leave camp at 6:15. We are manning a water station for the road race. I think they are going to have about 1500 runners (you should have signed up, Russ!). We had a bit of rain in the night from about 3-7 AM. It sounded nice falling on the metal rood. We didn't have any guests this AM, so we each made our own breakfast. Several people tried the gooseberry jelly that we brought down and enjoyed it. Dave and I were assigned work on one of the gardens. It was overwhelmed by snake plants (mother-in-law's tongue). We got into a rhythm - I pulled the plants and Dave lopped off the roots with a machete. We managed to fill two pick up trucks with the leaves and 5 large garbage bags with the roots. I'm sure we will be back doing the same thing on Sunday. I took a small break midway through to go out to the dried lake bed behind the camp where the hummingbirds flock on a flowering weed. They only do this in the morning because it gets too hot later in the day. We quit around noon and got lunch. The rental car company never showed up today to switch out the car - ah, well.

After lunch, we went snorkeling again - another beautiful day in Paradise! Today we saw a coronet fish, many squirrel fish (they have huge eyes), along with the normal fare for the area. I spotted a 3 foot across sting ray - quite nice. Dave found a sea urchin test which I am drying outside and will attempt to bring home. He also found a lovely Queen conch, but it was inhabited so we left it there. I picked up a few shells on the beach - some of them quite tiny. We came back and showered and I threw a load of laundry in. I called the car rental place and they said they went to the wrong place so I will call them again tomorrow when we get back from the race.

A group of middle-school students came in this afternoon from a local school. They are working on making a dinner using fresh native ingredients. Each group is in charge of a course. They look like they are having a good time. As they finish preparing, they are planting some native plants in the bed that Dave worked on yesterday.

Nancy and Roy are making dinner tonight - meatloaf and baked potatoes. I was going to download some pictures, but the internet is getting fluky so I will post now and try for pictures tomorrow.

St. John Thurs. 2/24/12

Had a pretty good night's sleep last night. The kids were a little wound up and had a camp fire because it was their last night. They quieted down at 10 and we dropped right off. I woke up about 12:30 - heard things falling on the tin roof. Found out this morning that the small things I was hearing were leaves and the bigger things were hermit crabs that fall out of the trees. The breakfast bell went off at 6:45 for the kids and ours went off at 7. Breakfast was french toast, sausages, fruit, yogurt, cold or hot cereal. I can see I will have to be selective. Today we have a day off and we will acclimate ourselves to the camp. I will get back on later to let you know how our day went.

Everyone was busy doing something so instead of sitting around we pitched in to help. Dave helped some of the guys and Zoe build a new garden - it was completely taken over by Mother-in-law's tongue and it was quite a job to dig it all up, put in new soil, etc. They came close to finishing - should be done tomorrow. I swept out two of the cabins that will be used next and did two loads of sheets and towels so that we can be ready for new campers. I think that a school from St. John is coming next and then a group of National Park researchers. On Saturday we have a group from the Sierra Club. I have been trying to reach the car rental company, but have been unsuccessful so far. Our cell phone does not work out here so am using the office phone since this is a local call.

After lunch, we went down to the beach to snorkel. We had a lovely swim - saw 7 squid (three of them quite large), coronet fish, parrot fish, wrasse, lots of sponges, sea cucumbers and coral. Dave spotted a sting ray - it was buried in the sand and only had his tail sticking out! We dried off on the beach which was very crowded today. Someone said it was windy and large waves on the North shore so everyone came to the south shore to swim. We walked back to camp to shower. One of the guys was filling his bird feeder with sugar water and masses of banana quit (small colorful birds) showed up. I took a few pictures and will try to download tomorrow and put them on the blog. I finally got through to the car rental company and they are coming out here tomorrow to trade a car for the truck. Jim is making dinner tonight - barbecue chicken sandwiches, potato wedges and salad. We are starting to sort out the couples and who belongs to whom. It was another glorious day! We officially start work tomorrow so will find out what our job will be.

St. John Tues 2/22/12 and Wed 2/23/12

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We had brought a couple of bananas from home and ate them for breakfast as we left the motel before the meal was available. We read until our flight was called and then we were on our way. Our first stop was Charlotte, NC. Dave's knee has been a bit stiff - too much work on gathering wood for next year - somehow he wrenched his knee, but even though it is getting better day by day, he still feels it if he tries to walk too fast - so, we hitched a ride on one of the people carts in Charlotte to get to our next terminal. We felt quite special. I asked the woman driver if she had ever driven any celebrities and she said she had: Scorza? - a baseball player and Oprah's boyfriend among others. She delivered us to our gate and we had only a short time before our flight was called. This time we landed in St. Thomas around 4:00 (3 PM Mystic time). We had to wait quite a while for our luggage, but then caught a cab to Red Hook to catch the ferry to St. John. We got on the 6:00 ferry and arrived in St. John about a half hour later. We took a cab to the motel (walkable distance, but uphill in the heat dragging suitcases didn't sound like fun). We got settled into our room and then walked down to town for dinner. We had a granola bar and some chocolate for lunch - you know they don't feed you on the planes anymore so we had come prepared with snacks. We found a place on the water called High Tide. The dinner was good, but there were some guys at the bar who were very loud! We walked back to the motel to read and finally to sleep. We didn't sleep too well - lumpy bed and loud motorcycles going by in the night. We had breakfast at the motel and then went for a little walk as the car rental office was not open yet. We walked back there at 9 only to discover that our car hadn't been turned in yet. They said to call at 10:30. We called then and it still wasn't in - call back at 11:30. You have to get used to "island time" - everything runs a bit slower here. At 11:30, he said the car had come in, but there was a problem and it had to go to the mechanic so he would give us a truck for a few days to get us on our way. The truck turned out to be a taxi truck (remember Lana?). We had one of those the last time we were here. He said to call tomorrow and he would see about switching it out. We loaded the truck and got on our way with Dave driving (I don't drive on the wrong side of the road!). It is 14 miles across the island on switchback roads with the speed limit of 20 mph. The first 13 miles are on paved roads and the last one on very rocky dirt roads. We were happy to have the truck - I may call and ask to keep it! We arrived at VIERS (Virgin Islands Environmental Resource Station), which will be our home for the next month. We met the director, Randy, and he introduced us to the other volunteers. It will take me awhile to get all of their names, but there are quite a few of them from a variety of places - Michigan, New Hampshire, Martha's Vineyard, New York City. I will sort them out by the end of the month. We are staying in a dorm cabin (just us, but no private bathroom) for a week before we get into a volunteer cabin. One of the leaders of a school group which is here now is using the cabin we will be using later on. The kids are leaving tomorrow, but he is staying an extra week. As far as I can tell, the volunteers do a variety of jobs - cooking, cleaning, making beds, etc. Randy told us to take today and tomorrow off to settle in and get used to the area. We saw two mongeese (mongooses?) on our way to camp and two wild donkeys and a deer in camp. Randy tried to drive the donkeys off with an umbrella - they didn't look too scared! After moving into our room, we took a walk down to the beach. The water was lovely! We chatted with some of the volunteers and had a wonderful swim. When we got back to camp we showered and then tried to get on the blog until dinner. We had salad, fish, corn, rice and cake for dessert. Apparently, the breakfast crew is in charge of making dessert each day. I will have to learn to say no or will come back home weighing 400 pounds! The kids in camp right now are a high school group from Michigan. They eat the first shift and the volunteers eat 10 or 15 minutes later. We chatted with the volunteers for a while until bedtime.

St. John Mon. 2/20/12

Well, we finished the last of the packing, dropped off some mail with Amy, and stopped at brother Ed's to drop off something (and to wish Betty a Happy Birthday) and then drove to the the Holiday Inn Express. We will stay overnight because we have an early flight and also because if you stay the night with them, you get an awesome deal on parking! We took their shuttle to Bertucci's for dinner. We had a lovely dinner and then back to the motel for a good night's sleep.