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I am lucky enough to be on vacation with my family on the glorious island of St John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We decided to flee at the last minute, as Chesca is out of school for the week and it would be a shame to stay home and punish ourselves for circumstances that are beyond our control. At this time of the year you either embrace winter or avoid it all together, and we have done our fair share of embracing. Was time to get out of Dodge. So here we are, in what is a remote and pretty inaccessible location (we do love islands) minding our own business and whom should we come across but other Vineyarders!
To get here you have to fly by whatever means to St Thomas which is a larger island next door with airport facilities, then take a 30 minute ferry over to the smaller St John. As we are waiting in the area where the taxi comes to pick us up for our ferry ride I’m looking at the back of this guy’s T-shirt and it say’s Oak Bluffs Police. Now I live in Oak Bluffs so I can’t ignore the obvious but before I even have time to make the connection my husband is engaged in conversation with another member of their foursome (he’s also a builder!) and so it begins. We haven’t even arrived at our destination, and already the tentacles of home have reached out and touched us. It’s not unpleasant, au contraire, it is familiar and comforting, and the anxiety of arriving somewhere where we were unfamiliar and did not know what to expect was immediately relieved and replaced with assurance and security. Throughout their conversations with each other we could tell there were others and that this island, like our home island was going to embrace and welcome us and be far more familiar than we could have anticipated.
The next evening we had dinner at our hotel and the dinning room manager came over to speak with us. Eventually the question of where we were from and where he was from came up, and again a Vineyard connection was revealed. His wife’s family owns a couple of shops in Edgartown! Women’s clothing stores, of which I am familiar, and where I have spent plenty of time and money. Needless to say an instant connection was made, and I immediatly started my campaign to recruit him and his family to join us on our island. His name is Bob, and he believes that there are many similarities between the islands as he visits the Vineyard often. I’m still trying to figure that one out. They are both islands, yes. Many boats, ok. Other Vineyarders, apparently. But aside from the blatantly obvious, we are wolds apart.
Ruins At Annaberg
St John is small, 20 square miles, and mountainous. The Vineyard is flat if we had to compare, and much(!) larger. They are both tourist destinations, though St John has a longer shelf life (8 months) to ours (3-4 months). This island is covered in the ruins of abandoned sugar plantations from the 1700’s, it is steeped in history and it is the history of oppression, you get chills when you come across the abandoned slave housing that is juxtaposed over the panoramic ocean views. You can hike all over St John, as there are trails and maps and very few roads. Most of the island is National Park, and it is raw, undevel0ped land. I also have to note that it is almost all uphill and downhill. I’m talking roller coaster variety. Steep and treacherous. I’m in pretty good shape and am a distance runner, but I was winded within a few minutes of starting out on a couple of the hikes that I undertook. You can walk the entire island as the trails all meet up though there are no water stands or refreshments along the way. One of the Rockefeller’s bought and donated the land back in the fifties so it is preserved and will remain parkland. It is unlike anything I’ve ever seen and that is above the water line.
The ocean itself is magnificent, we’ve been snorkeling every day and have seen barracuda and sea turtles, all types of tropical fish and things that I could not identify if I tried.What has been harder to pinpoint is where the locals live, and if we were living here, where Chesca would go to school. When you are on vacation, everything is seen through a filter of selfish neediness. Or wanting. Or merit, like I earned this, and don’t want to know about anything other than what I deserve and what is good. So burdened with that filter, it is hard for me to see where I am though I want to. After I snorkel and hike, I will make an effort to find Bob and ask about the school system, affordable housing and life on StJohn in real time. This is a beautiful and historic place, and worth knowing more that what is on the surface. Like home.
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