We are at American Yacht Harbour on St Thomas waiting for Tim Matheson's group of charterers to come in at the end of their charter, but since it is now dark, we assume they will show up early tomorrow morning. Our understanding is that their flight is at 11:00a.m. so it will be a busy morning for them & we'll likely barely have time to hear the highlights of their charter week. The house picture in our blog last week, I think I found that particular house in a real estate magazine. If you want it, it's for sale - price $32 million.
We spent the week back at St John, doing a bit of sailing and touring the south side of the island. In Lienster Bay, we got our first dose of reality of what life was like 200 years ago on the slave sugar plantation. Rum is simply a by product of making sugar. In 1733 the slaves revolted and controlled the island for 6 months. Eventually they lost and slavery continued for another 110 years.
We had one free night of anchorage in Coral Bay, but Joan's best comment was "this place looks like a slum for boats". There were all kinds of derelict boats shipwrecked on shore and there were all kinds of people living on derelict boats that would never sail again. We were happy to leave early the next day, looking for a more picturesque anchorage.
The snorkeling around St John has been the best - swimming with turtles and stingrays and once in a while seeing these stingrays jump 10 ft in the air. One of our anchorages on the south side of the island was Little Lameshur. It's claim to fame was that during the 60's NASA ran an underwater program here where some aquanauts stayed under water for 2 full months. The program was called Tektite and its purpose was to see how people functioned in small spaces previous to the long space voyages. There was a nice museum on this program at the Virgin Islands Environmental Resources Station. I'm sure it would be possible for BPDS senior science environmental class to come to the centre for a trip. This area is also a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
On my second day at Little Lameshur, I wanted to do some hiking to a former plantation great house, sugar factory and pictographs. First stop on the trail was the great house. While walking the trail, numerous mongoose scurried across. They were an introduced species to control the snakes and rats in the sugar cane fields; but much like the slaves, they didn't like their new job. The mongoose hunt during the day and the rats & snakes come out at night so they decided to settle on bird and turtle egg nests instead. They are a pest but there is no way to get rid of them now. Arriving at the great house, it was all boarded up as someone had tried a restoration but had obviously given up. Walking around the back, there was one doorway pulled off. It was very dark inside but the sunlight was able to highlight the arched plaster entrance way which would have been impressive in its day. I slowly walked in, a little bit nervous about the quality of the floor as all these homes had cisterns in the basement and I didn't want to fall through the floor and drown - so I just continued to creep in slowly - wishing I had my x-country skis to spread my weight over more area. There was lots of crap on the floor and I wasn't sure what animals were responsible and were they waiting for me outside. Pretty soon I got my answer. OH SHIT - they are dive bombing at me. My first reaction was to grab my hat and wave it above my head to try to protect myself. OH SHIT! my sunglasses were on my hat and now they're somewhere on this dark floor. I can't run out as I'm too worried about the safety of the floor. I continue waving my hat above my head and find my sunglasses but the earlobe piece is missing. I still don't know what is attacking me. I grab my glasses (minus the earlobe piece), carefully shuffle towards the door. Nothing followed me outside - so now it's time to turn & look back inside. I thought they were birds nesting but now I can see the house is filled with a very large bat colony. Joan is thankful that she wasn't with me. The house was in partial disrepair, which was great for me as I was able to see building construction. There was all kinds of special brick work and fancy cornices - some in disrepair but also some had been refurbished. Just before leaving, I spotted a plaque on one of the porch pillars that was dated 1846 - one year after slavery ended. The journey continued down the valley to the sugar factory. This was the last operating one on St John and closed about 1907. Its first operation was under slave labour and when the slaves were emancipated, it was converted to steam power and worked that way for over 50 years. All the steam equipment was still there and again I was able to marvel at the machinery that was built in 1861 - some of it looked like a good dose of WD40 and it could be back in running condition. From my previous experience at the great house, every room I entered started with an inspection of the ceiling and yes - there they were - great thriving masses of bats in clusters of probably 100 or more - again Joan is thankful that she wasn't with me. The third part of the trip back up the trail was to the sometimes waterfall. I sat down for lunch beside a pool of still water - it was too dry for any waterfall. While eating lunch, I looked up and there he was staring at me - a Tatino indian pictograph face carved into the rock. After lunch I inspected the next lower pool and there were more carvings in the rock. This second set of pictures was placed so that they were reflected in the still pool of water but here in the water, their images were upside down. Upon leaving the waterfall pools, I came upon 2 unexpected inhabitants - were they wild goats - no maybe wild donkeys - no must be on the Bruce Peninsula - those were 2 whitetail deer. They must hang around the pools as the only source of fresh water. During this hike I passed miles and miles of stone fences, obviously piled by the slaves, to mark roads and planting fields. The sugar farms disappeared when slavery ended. The slaves were not free labour but were simply a commodity and they were bought and sold just like any piece of equipment. At the end of the slave rebellion in 1733, many slaves chose to jump off the cliff rather than to return to slavery. For us - who have only known freedom - the concept of slavery is simply words and pictures, but their stories and hardships were real.
We spent the week back at St John, doing a bit of sailing and touring the south side of the island. In Lienster Bay, we got our first dose of reality of what life was like 200 years ago on the slave sugar plantation. Rum is simply a by product of making sugar. In 1733 the slaves revolted and controlled the island for 6 months. Eventually they lost and slavery continued for another 110 years.
We had one free night of anchorage in Coral Bay, but Joan's best comment was "this place looks like a slum for boats". There were all kinds of derelict boats shipwrecked on shore and there were all kinds of people living on derelict boats that would never sail again. We were happy to leave early the next day, looking for a more picturesque anchorage.
The snorkeling around St John has been the best - swimming with turtles and stingrays and once in a while seeing these stingrays jump 10 ft in the air. One of our anchorages on the south side of the island was Little Lameshur. It's claim to fame was that during the 60's NASA ran an underwater program here where some aquanauts stayed under water for 2 full months. The program was called Tektite and its purpose was to see how people functioned in small spaces previous to the long space voyages. There was a nice museum on this program at the Virgin Islands Environmental Resources Station. I'm sure it would be possible for BPDS senior science environmental class to come to the centre for a trip. This area is also a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
On my second day at Little Lameshur, I wanted to do some hiking to a former plantation great house, sugar factory and pictographs. First stop on the trail was the great house. While walking the trail, numerous mongoose scurried across. They were an introduced species to control the snakes and rats in the sugar cane fields; but much like the slaves, they didn't like their new job. The mongoose hunt during the day and the rats & snakes come out at night so they decided to settle on bird and turtle egg nests instead. They are a pest but there is no way to get rid of them now. Arriving at the great house, it was all boarded up as someone had tried a restoration but had obviously given up. Walking around the back, there was one doorway pulled off. It was very dark inside but the sunlight was able to highlight the arched plaster entrance way which would have been impressive in its day. I slowly walked in, a little bit nervous about the quality of the floor as all these homes had cisterns in the basement and I didn't want to fall through the floor and drown - so I just continued to creep in slowly - wishing I had my x-country skis to spread my weight over more area. There was lots of crap on the floor and I wasn't sure what animals were responsible and were they waiting for me outside. Pretty soon I got my answer. OH SHIT - they are dive bombing at me. My first reaction was to grab my hat and wave it above my head to try to protect myself. OH SHIT! my sunglasses were on my hat and now they're somewhere on this dark floor. I can't run out as I'm too worried about the safety of the floor. I continue waving my hat above my head and find my sunglasses but the earlobe piece is missing. I still don't know what is attacking me. I grab my glasses (minus the earlobe piece), carefully shuffle towards the door. Nothing followed me outside - so now it's time to turn & look back inside. I thought they were birds nesting but now I can see the house is filled with a very large bat colony. Joan is thankful that she wasn't with me. The house was in partial disrepair, which was great for me as I was able to see building construction. There was all kinds of special brick work and fancy cornices - some in disrepair but also some had been refurbished. Just before leaving, I spotted a plaque on one of the porch pillars that was dated 1846 - one year after slavery ended. The journey continued down the valley to the sugar factory. This was the last operating one on St John and closed about 1907. Its first operation was under slave labour and when the slaves were emancipated, it was converted to steam power and worked that way for over 50 years. All the steam equipment was still there and again I was able to marvel at the machinery that was built in 1861 - some of it looked like a good dose of WD40 and it could be back in running condition. From my previous experience at the great house, every room I entered started with an inspection of the ceiling and yes - there they were - great thriving masses of bats in clusters of probably 100 or more - again Joan is thankful that she wasn't with me. The third part of the trip back up the trail was to the sometimes waterfall. I sat down for lunch beside a pool of still water - it was too dry for any waterfall. While eating lunch, I looked up and there he was staring at me - a Tatino indian pictograph face carved into the rock. After lunch I inspected the next lower pool and there were more carvings in the rock. This second set of pictures was placed so that they were reflected in the still pool of water but here in the water, their images were upside down. Upon leaving the waterfall pools, I came upon 2 unexpected inhabitants - were they wild goats - no maybe wild donkeys - no must be on the Bruce Peninsula - those were 2 whitetail deer. They must hang around the pools as the only source of fresh water. During this hike I passed miles and miles of stone fences, obviously piled by the slaves, to mark roads and planting fields. The sugar farms disappeared when slavery ended. The slaves were not free labour but were simply a commodity and they were bought and sold just like any piece of equipment. At the end of the slave rebellion in 1733, many slaves chose to jump off the cliff rather than to return to slavery. For us - who have only known freedom - the concept of slavery is simply words and pictures, but their stories and hardships were real.
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