Happy Fishes

I am a Happy Fish.

Truely, swimming in Caneel Bay this week, scraping barnacles off the bottom of our Park boat, I recognized that I didn't taste the salt in the water. I wasn't putting my face down to see what creatures might be waiting to bite my toes. I'm finally so comfortable and at peace with my place in the world and feel incrediably blessed and happy. Can't get a hitch? One will come eventually. Internet doesn't work? No worries, I'll check email tomorrow. PB and J again? Bring it on.



With 11 days of family and friend visitors coming to an end, I had a day to sit and reflect on how amazing this island really is. It's always been amazing in my own eyes, but we as humans seek to share what we see with others so we can validate our own experiences.



We.......swam with a sea turtle, became conch-fritter-connoisuers, visited the BVI, went on culinary adventures :), threw a jammin dinner party, found bioluminesence, pet a donkey, snorkeled the "Indians", participated in an entire tent tearing down and setting up team (I have a new tent with a zipper!), danced like wild vildehyas (Joy, how to spell that?), drank entirely way too much rum punch, ate breakfast on the beach, ate a sundae as big as our heads, and saw more stars than I could ever imagine counting.



Because I could do all of these things with unbelievably generous friends and family, my experience has become fuller and richer and I'm so lucky to know such amazing people. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

With such fancy new digs, a cooler full of food (DAD: how did you know I love Nutella??! Thank you!) and visions of returning to a DC bursting with cherry blossoms, I am indeed, a very happy fish.



A notice to all: I am completely stocked with peanut butter.

This blog's song is for Grandma. Allison Hinds is known as the SoCa Queen (Southern Caribbean) and my favorite song by her is "Faluma". So Grams, that goes out to you because you, too are a SoCa Queen!

Next Up: Puerto Rrrrrrriico! Ya ready, Hot Pants?

Much love to all, I'll be back so soon ;)

A Guest Feature-- Segment by Joy

It's not every trip you can say you've stayed in an exclusive villa, rouged-it in a tent, ran into a scorpion, petted an adorable donkey that we just bumped into, hitch-hiked my away around an island and vacationed at what is considered by some as one of the top ten beautiful beaches in the world. I will say I've 'majobled' myself to many islands and this has been the most breathtaking that I've seen. I'd say this has to with the island being extremely underdeveloped, as two thirds of the island is national park. The many beaches are quiet, with trails leading down from the woods. I almost felt like I was in an episode of Lost-- I didn't think these type of islands still existed. I suppose that's also why everything is outrageously expensive- I'm still not over a carton of milk costing $5.99.

In any event, I won't get boggled down in details, because this is my one and only blog and my Guest Feature, guest entry... So what to tell of our experience...

I am quite impressed by Jill's resourcefulness and camping attitude and personality. Yes, the island is equisitely gorgeous, but there is no luxury in her accomodations. The frigid cold shower on the chain was quite the wake-up call. She warned me and told me you get adjusted, but there is nothing remotely enjoyable about cleaning, and I'm not sure I believe in her getting used to frigid cold philosophy... I loved the tent apartment, minus the killer Scorpion (ok, maybe exaggerating on the killer part) and the stiff back. Jill's newfound amigos, Skye (quinissential name for the type of islanders and visitors that frequent this island) and Eric (Ejj) and Kevin (Moon- yes Moon because he's out there, like it...) were all very fun and sweet and made my trip that much more interesting. Thank you ejj for the deliciously packed lunch, beautiful hand-made necklace and the delicious Antiguan coffee. The people I met who lived on St. John, mostly limited to our hitchhiking buddies are all slightly quirky, but also really friendly and warm.

Jill's family is wonderful! Perhaps when they read this blog, they can think about making me an honorary family member. They were so gracious, warm and fun!!! They rented a villa for the week so our first two nights were spent in their gorgeous week home enjoying the overlook. My full-day with her family consisted of time visiting beaches, snorkeling around a wildly huge turtle, a delicious lunch and a fun night out on the town. Yes, family, my name IS Happy!

It is really hard to sum up this trip, but hope these highlights share some of our experiences. Jill's doing amazing in her two-month home we all look forward for you to return back to your real one. Lots of love and island wishes to Jilly.

I will dedicate this segment's song, "Coconut (put the lime in the coconut) to Ejj and Jilly for their island supper--

~Joy

8 Tuff Miles

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....." are the immortal words of little Nemo and come in handy when you decide to make your first footrace an 8.3 mile traunce across virtually 90 degree hills all over St. John in an old pair of broken-in puma tennis shoes.

The 8 Tuff Miles race is an annual footrace that goes from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay along Centerline Road. In it's 12th year, it was quite the event with over 600 people from many different states and countries flying in to participate. The island population swelled to create a pre and post-race festive environment with lots of gatorade pre-race, and lots of beer post-race!

Katie, Jess and decided to start out together and ended up finishing all within 15 minutes of each other. For a first-time racer, I was proud of my pace of 11:02 and spot within the Top 100 women.

Katie and I are really not that sweaty...it started to pour in the middle of the race which is what I think saved all of us, though it made for some very squishy shoes. If i happen to be able to afford it, I'd really love to make an annual pilgrimage to run 8 Tuff...it was just such a great, exciting, lively vibe. I think I finally found my runner's high!

This is my favorite beach on St. John (Oppenheimer/Gibney Beach. Yes, Oppenheimer as in the creator of the A-bomb.) where I went to cool my heels after the race. Not a bad place to unwind, right? I had accomplished too much by 9am on a Saturday on a tropical island and needed to be lazy under palm trees. The problem was that once I tried to get up off the sand, i couldn't move!!

Peace, love and gatorade....Jilly

PS! Please read the Friends of VI blog link on the left...i didn't know that the link was faulty, but it's fixed now and talks about the work that I am doing here. It's not just alllll fun and games :)

Lunar Eclipse of the Heart

Ram's Head, day time.

Most of you probably know that on Wednesday of last week, we had both a full moon and a lunar eclipse at the same time. Full moon parties are really celebrated here on the island, but with an eclipse to boot, it was a true soiree!

You have a few full-moon choices. Choice one is going to the sugar mill ruins at Catherineberg to take part in the drum circles that echo really loudly through the central island. I would generally choose drum circle (hello citron training!), but in order to make it echo so awesome, you go down underneath the ruins, thus missing the sky-action.

I went with choice 2, which was a moonlight hike up to Ram's Head, the southern-most tip of the island and the same ridge we hiked in the daytime last weekend. It's spectacular during the day, but at night its a totally different ball game. The rules were: no headlamps, no flashlights, just the light of the moon guiding your path.

My girl Meaghan and I started around 10:00 pm from Salt pond with some of the folks she worked with, the owners of the Tap Room and brothers and girlfriends (random connection for DC folks: you know Thievery Corporation? I did this hike with the bassist, "Hash" (sub-parathentic comment: Hash's brother's name is Cheech. I couldn't make that up). Our crew followed in single file, passing the bottles of wine up and down the line as we made it up the ridge. Once at the top, all of the clouds miraculously blew over and everything was silver and shimmering. We laid down on our backpacks and settled in to watch watch the sun eclipse the moon. It was really surreal and one of the neatest things I've ever done! Some smartass brought an ipod with the Dark Side of the Moon (it sounds like it would be cool, but was a tad cliched).

We hiked back down around midnight just as the rain set in. I was dragging the next morning, but was so glad that I did this, it was one of the neatest things. I wish that I could show you photos, but nighttime photos don't really work on this camera, so here is a daytime shot of the hike up to Ram's head, and Meaghan and I squinting into the bright camera flash from our eclipse-viewing positions.

I have forgotten to dedicate songs lately, so sorry about that but I shall resume here:



This dedication is a revelation of the fact that life is all about perspective and that aside from really serious things like termnal illness or depression, the power to make it as beautiful or as ugly as you want rests in your own hands. And while traveling, isolation, etc. brings out much stronger emotional manifestations of your experience, you realize that we're all the same no matter where we are. I hope that everyone got a chance to peek at the moon, because (at least in this hemisphere) we all had the opportunity to see the same eclipse.



So, "Same as it Ever Was" by the Talking Heads goes out to Uncle Brack. I remember that being the opening song on the Talking Heads DVD Jesse bought for you maybe 6 years ago and you dancing around the kitchen to it, and that song always sticks in my head. Plus, its just a freaking awesome song.

On the more lighthearted side, i forgot to dedicate a song with the peanut better blog. So, to my brother Mikey, and to Scotty E, i had meant so send the song from Family Guy, sung by Brian, "It's Peanut-Butter Jelly Time, Peanut-Butter Jelly Time, where ya at? (x4) there ya go (x4)". Love to Mikey and Scotty E.



So many kisses and hugs to all. My family is now visiting and Joy arrives thursday and its just a huge par-tay. Plus, there are real beds, hot showers and amazing food. Arriba arriba!!!

Read down..

Apparently blogger publishes posts on the day that you start them, so read down to see a new one (with pics) from a week ago. much love!

Great for vacation...

...impossible to live on. The term, I believe, is "rock fever".

Just wanted to tell everyone that I have four entries drafted which are contingent upon the photos that are stuck in my camera, I just can't find a computer on the island that is fast enough or smart enough to get the photos from the camera onto the computer and then upload them. Sooo, you'll have several things to read once I can figure that out!

Since the last posting, I've run an 8 mile race on the hills here, snorkeled in the bluest water ever, met a celebrity chef, hiked at night to see the full lunar eclipse, have become one with the lizards that live in my tent. It's amazing how close to nature you really are here.

Being close to nature really does mean being far from technology. There is rarely cell service (none for my phone). The pay phones at the campground are always broken. There is not one bank here that will cash any checks or make any deposits for me. The computers use dial-up.

As I said, this trip has been like a pendulum swinging from extreme bliss to extreme frustration. I'm shunning technology for now and heading to the reggae party at the beach to nurse my really sore legs and forget about photo uploads for now. I'll have much to say very soon, but I think that for now I'll have a rum and coke and chill OUT!

Sending reggae vibes....love, jillian

Island hike and updates...

Since our big hike was last week, I feel like its been eclipsed (literally!) by so many other things this week, but I still wanted to upload a few pics from our trip around the southern half of the island...

We started out at the top of Reef Bay trail and hiked down to see the petroglyphs. The petroglyphs are rock carvings that were made by the Taino Indians somewhere between 900-1200 a.d. They are on a soft rock in a freshwater river and sometimes can only be seen when the water level is low, but if you get there on a day when the water level is just right and the water is still (as we were), you can see that the carvings are reflected like a mirror which has been interpreted as represeting the duality of the material and spirit world.

From Reef Bay we went down and across to the Lameshur Plantation ruins (pre-1733 slave revolt) and across to Salt Pond, a really still and beautiful beach, great for snorkeling. By the time we hit salt pond we'd already been going at it for about 4 hours and had no intentions of continuing, but seeing how close Drunk Bay and Ram's Head were, we rallied :)

Drunk Bay is other-worldy compared to the green, lush, white sand beaches of the northern side of the island. First off, no one was there, it was just us. Secondly, the beach itself is made up of big rounded pebbles and boulders and the waves are really huge and crash loudly on the rocks. Thirdly, people come here to do this really crazy rock art, where they stack the rocks and pebbles and make people out of the rocks. Everywhere you look there are stacks and mounds of smoothed rocks making the landscape seem so interesting and almost alien-like.

Then we did the big hike, up to Ram's Head. Both of us had run out of water and were discussing up and back what flavor gatorade we'd buy when we returned, panting all the way. It was SO worth it though, you can see all the way to St. Croix and the mountain peaks of the entire island in the background. The photos don't do it justice, so you'll just have to come and see it for yourself!

Jess and I got on the last bus from Coral Bay back to Cruz Bay, got a pizza, crashed and got up the next day and went to Trunk Bay with her cousins who were visiting. We took them to Rhum Lines in the evening for some drinks and appetizers, and I met this fellow:

I'm guessing that only a few select people will know who this is...hint: I noticed him by his orange crocs. Write in the comments if you know him! It was a really big celebrity sighting for me!


We then went to the "Pour your own". I don't know what this bar is actually called, but like to call it the "pour your own" because, well, when you order your drink, you get to pour it yourself, whatever ratio of liquor to mixer you like. I really, really liked this and took over asking everyone in the bar if I could pour their drinks for them. I am destined to spend some portion of my life as a mixologist.

We went to Trunk Bay the next morning and spent the day on the beach. Trunk bay is stunning, but also a huge tourist beach so you have to stake out a spot early. I'm very glad that we went, but prefer to keep it to the smaller beaches.

Peace and love, much more to report soon!