St. John Fri. 3/9/12

No rain last night for a change. It was a lovely day today (as usual) - the wind has died down and the sun is bright! Dave and I started a new rock garden today. The Sierra Club from last week spent an afternoon helping around camp and pulled most of the snake plant from this garden so we dug for roots and rebuilt the stone wall. We are not quite done, but should finish in another session. Dave got stung by a wasp (they call them Jack Spaniels here) so I mixed up some baking soda and vinegar to put on it. They must have a nest nearby as we saw quite a few of them. We collected a few new "critters" for the students to look at - a grub as thick as Dave's thumb, a fairly large scorpion, another slave gecko, and a blind snake. At first we thought the snake was a legless lizard, but the scale pattern was wrong. I saw a hermit crab climbing a tree today. He went very slowly, but inched his way up - very persistent! We had fish tacos for lunch. I had never had one before - it was quite good. After lunch, Dave took a nap and I went for a snorkel and swim. The water was great, as usual, and I enjoyed being in the water after digging in the dirt all morning. Ital (the drummer) is coming tonight to put on a program for the kids. Charlie, Pete, and Zoe went scuba diving this afternoon out from Cabrit Point. Charlie said they had a very good dive. He has a wonderful underwater camera and is putting some of his pictures on the computer in the camp office. I will have to see if I can figure out how to download some of them - you will be amazed! The kids from Radford are still working on their projects. They are really a very nice group of kids - very polite and appreciative of everything we do. We will miss them when they leave on Sunday. No pictures today - I was too busy to grab the camera - will try to do better tomorrow.

St. John Thurs. 3/8/12

Last night a lecturer, Barry Devine, came in to talk to the kids and invited the staff to sit in. He talked about biodiversity and the patterns of flora and fauna from the ridge to the reef in the Virgin Islands. It was very interesting and the kids asked very good questions. He reminded them that our generation was the one to identify problems in climate and the environment and that their generation must be the one to begin fixing these problems. The loss of live coral was the most dramatic change that he showed and we have seen that for ourselves. In just a short time, the percent of live coral has gone from 80 to 15! We had more rain and wind last night, but it didn't last as long as the night before. We had just gotten into our cottage and it began pouring. We heard the stomping of feet on the boardwalk and screams from the girls so obviously some of them didn't make it to shelter in time! Dave and I did housekeeping this morning. We are expecting a group of students and staff from Manhattan College tomorrow so we tidied the rooms, made beds, etc. I then did laundry from Glenn and Harry as they are leaving today. Our next job was spreading mulch. The town trucks were around yesterday cutting brush and small trees next to the driveway and road heading to camp and today they came back to chip. Randy went out with the truck and kept bringing back truckloads of chips which we spread in the newly formed gardens. What perfect timing! The gardens looks great with all of the mulch (see photo). We had a quick lunch and then took Glenn into Cruz Bay to catch the 1 PM ferry over to St. Thomas. We also took Jerry who was going in to town for the afternoon. After seeing Glenn off, we checked for mail at the post office, picked up Charlie who had gone in with John and Harry earlier in the day. He had been bitten by a spider in his armpit and wanted to get it checked out at the clinic. He seems to be okay, but will watch the area for a couple of days to make sure that it is healing. We took the north road back so we could return the projector to the National Park and stopped along the way to take a few scenic shots. In the Maho Bay shot, you can see the tents on the hillside. The other shot is of Trunk Bay. We stopped at the grocery store for more bananas for people and got home in time for a quick swim. The kids have been busy all day with their projects and seem to be doing a great job and having fun at the same time. One of the girls who is doing the mongoose project just stopped in for water. She said they have caught 26 mongeese today! They have traps set up at camp, on Yawzi Point, and the Lameshur Bay trail. We have connected with a friend of Jon Owen and will try to see him next week sometime. He lives out on the East End, not too far from the Round House. Happy Birthday, Dean!

St. John Wed. 3/7/12

First a correction to yesterday's blog: Dave looked up our skink which turned out to be a slave gecko, so named because they came over to the islands with the slaves who were brought here to work the sugar cane fields. The students caught several mongeese yesterday afternoon (see photo). The group that was doing a study on them measured their length, the length of the tail, brushed them for exo-parasites (mostly fleas and ticks), took pictures of their teeth (for counting purposes to determine age), checked if male or female, weighed them, shaved a patch off the leg and marked them before releasing them. Some of them were quite feisty and others were resigned to putting up with all the fuss. Most people have heard of Rudyard Kipling's story of Ricki-tiki-tavi, but these are quite a bit smaller than the Indian ones who tangle with cobras. In fact, we found that they are close cousins to meerkats! We had a huge rain/wind storm last night. It was quite exciting as the cottages only have screens so the wind came whipping through as the rain beat on the tin roof. It was great to listen to and we both slept soundly. We took the day off today and drove Barb, Jim and Glenn into Cruz Bay. We had to wait at one point as a herd of five cows were meandering down the middle of the road (see photo). We went to visit an artists house/studio that Barb and Jim were familiar with. I bought some of her postcards and enjoyed looking at her watercolors. He dog posed quite nicely for me so I snapped her picture (see above). As we were getting back to the jeep, we spotted a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig in the surf (see photo). His owner was luring him in with Cheerios. His name was Ziggy and he was rather cute. Jim renamed the spot where we saw him, the Bay of Pigs! We stopped at the post office and mailed some boxes and letters from the staff. We also picked up mail going out to camp. We drove down to Mongoose Junction and did a little shopping (not that there was much there, but I did pick up a few things). We ate lunch at a Texas BBQ place and decided we had had enough of the "big city" and decided to head back. Unfortunately, the parking brake was stuck and we could not unstick it no matter what we tried. Jim and Dave stayed with the car while the rest of us walked up to the car rental place to see if someone could help us out. One of the guys drove us back to the Jeep and he basically pounded on it until it became unstuck - we probably would have broken it if we had tried doing the same - so no more parking brake for us! We stopped at the National Park Service area to borrow a projector for the camp and then headed out the north road for home. We made one more quick stop at Lily's in Coral Bay for bananas for some of the volunteers and then made it back to camp by 3. The back seat of the Jeep is not really made for 3, but we managed. The students just got back from their hike. They went up to Ram's Head, Drunk Bay, and snorkled in Salt Pond and then back to camp - about 6 miles round trip. They are now working in groups on a variety of research projects - mongeese distribution, sea urchins, anoles, etc. They are all busy doing their projects, but look like they are having a good time, too. By the way, the lemon squares were a big success!

St. John Tues. 3/6/12

Another gorgeous day! After helping to clean up the kitchen this morning, I baked lemon bars for tonight's dessert. We are out of confectioner's sugar, but I found a recipe that uses granulated sugar so I am hoping they come out okay. About 9:30, I got back in the rock garden. They guys built a lovely stone wall around it and I worked over that last third that didn't get done yesterday. Dave turned over a stone and found a nice tarantula which Glenn caught on a stick for me to photograph (see above). Glenn caught a skink which is pictured above on the thumb of his glove. We stopped for lunch and then Glenn offered to take Dave and I kayaking. Dave was very uncomfortable as the kayak was narrow and was pressing on his hip bones so he hopped out and walked back to camp. Glenn and I paddled around Cabrit Point (see photo) until we could see Ram's Head. As you can see it was glorious on the water. It was a big rough in the deeper water, but it was still fun. We rode some of the rollers for a while and then paddled some more. We saw a great blue heron and two oyster catchers on the shore. We also saw someone fishing with a hand line near the point. On our way back to the dock, we saw John and Harry on the boat and stopped to say "Hi" and then saw Laura and Pete who were just getting ready to jump off the dock for a snorkel. The college kids went to Hurricane Hole to snorkel this morning. After lunch, they baited have-a-heart traps trying to catch some mongeese and then worked around camp on rock walls, pulling snake plant, and generally cleaning up. They will be hungry for dinner tonight! The final picture for the day is of two Cuban tree frogs who live in the toilet tank in back of cabin 2. There were 3 of them, but one of them used to hide in the bowl and one of the guys got tired of him being there and flushed him! Poor froggy! Oops! I see that I got 2 pix of Cabrit Point and skipped the toilet toads so will try to add it. I got interrupted because the kids caught a mongoose in one of the traps and I stopped the photo upload to take a picture of the mongoose.

St. John Mon. 3/5/12

Today was another day in the rock garden. Zoe came out with a rake to help and it is starting to look pretty good (see photo). It really helps to have another person working with you. I figure we are about 2/3 done. When it is done, the guys will build a stone wall around it (you can see where they started - you also can see some of the rocks that I have pulled out of there). Dave and Glenn mopped the floors in the cafeteria and kitchen today as well as swept the patio. Today is Randy Fish's 29th birthday. He is the manager here and Nancy baked him a cake, Barb frosted it, Roy outlined the fish, and I decorated it - a real community effort (see photo). We have made up a song to the tune of Yellow Submarine which the staff will sing for him tonight. Barb wasn't feeling well around noon so she went back to her room to rest and I help Nancy and Roy serve lunch to the kids (enchiladas). Laura and Pete are making dinner tonight - veggie lasagna as today is meatless Monday. After cleaning up the kitchen, Dave and I went to Greater Lameshur to snorkel. We had a great snorkel. The students came over and snorkeled with us. There were a lot of fish near the rocks on the east side of the bay. I saw another ray - they are so graceful in the water. One of the students saw a lion fish and she will bring her camera to dinner so I can see it. On our way back to camp, we saw an iguana just sitting in the road. I ran to our cottage to grab my camera and he was still sitting there when I got back (see photo). He wasn't too happy to see me so I had to use my zoom lens! I am sitting in the cafeteria writing this blog and Emma, the cat, is sitting on a picnic table on the other side of the screen. I think she is picketing for dinner, but it is only 5:00 so she will have to wait a bit yet. Life is good here in St. John.

St. John Sun. 3/4/12

I am going to call today's post "Camp Critters". Emma, the cat, lives at camp and gets fed twice a day by the kitchen crew. She is very friendly and lives the life of Riley! We have tons of soldier crabs here in camp. They adopt different shells as they grow. There is suppose to be one living in a baby food jar and someone said they saw a tiny one last year in a toothpaste cap! There are several deer who wander through camp at all times of the day. There is one family with two babies - very cute. The birds in the photo are banana quits. They love anything sweet and these are attacking Willie and Deb's feeder just after Willie added some sugar to the feeder. We have had donkeys, but didn't have my camera ready. We constantly see mongeese, but they are very elusive and camera shy. Today I was back on the rock garden. I did the rest of the camp laundry during breaks. We had a group of students from Radford University in Virginia come in late last night. They went for a hike this morning and a snorkel this afternoon. They are studying tropical ecology. After lunch we loaded Glenn, Nancy, and Roy in the Jeep and took a drive over to Francis Bay to snorkel. I saw two large tarpon even before we got in the water - they were very close to shore. We had just gotten in and a 5-6 foot manta ray slowly swam by - beautiful! I think the snorkeling near here was better, but we did see a very large parrot fish and a porcupine fish. After our swim, we took a walk down the boardwalk that we had worked on earlier in the week. The boardwalk itself is done, but the railings are not. The pink flamingo is still there - Nancy and Roy had never seen one in the wild and were quite thrilled. Jim and Barb are cooking tonight - marinated chicken - it smells wonderful.

St. John Sat. 3/3/12

A busy day today! It was all hands on deck for housekeeping as the Sierra Club left this morning after breakfast and a group of college students from Virginia are coming in tonight. We sang "Happy Trails" as the Sierra Club left in Hamilton's taxi truck and then everyone got to work stripping beds, cleaning, sweeping, remaking beds and doing laundry. Today was our own moving day too. We moved over to the back of cottage 5 which is great because now we have our own toilet and outdoor shower. No more walking through the cafeteria at 3 in the morning to use the bathroom! The next closest alternative is a small bathroom behind cabin 2, but there is a family of Cuban tree frogs living in there and sometimes they sit in the bowl! We were going to snorkel after lunch with a group, but got a phone call from the car rental place and they said they were coming out to switch the truck for a jeep. It was Sunday when we last heard from them and they assured us they would be out at 9 AM Monday morning and here it is Saturday! Oh well, we couldn't have taken the gang over to the Round House if we hadn't had the truck. Hopefully, they will come out soon as we didn't get a chance to get in the water yesterday and I am ready for a good snorkel and swim! I finally gave up on the car guys at 2 and Dave offered to stay and wait for them while I went for a swim. I saw another spotted eagle ray and a regular ray with a remora stuck on his back getting a free ride. The remoras like to save energy by hitching a ride and when the ray eats, they pick off the pieces for an easy meal. I got back to camp and showered and threw in another load of sheets. By the time I got back to Dave, the car had been switched. We now have a Jeep Wrangler so will only be able to transport 3 very friendly people in the back seat. It is now 4:30 so we are sitting around at the picnic table enjoying the sunshine and breeze. We will eat first tonight as the students will come over on the 6 PM ferry and get here a little after 7.