As I lugged 5 gallon buckets of water around the property to wet down my thirsty plants, I passed under the big coconut tree and realized that we have these Coconuts hanging over our pineapple plants, and thought “this is the pina colada section of the yard”. How clear the impetus for this drink became and I wondered if some pineapple farmer like myself came up with it. I then walked around the corner, and realized we have the sugar cane growing right nearby. So I got to get a still going, and start making our own rum because we are literally growing our own Pina Coladas here on St John at Starlit Escape. It reminded me of this story an old salt told me about Foxy, on Jost Van Dyke. Foxy is this idyllic islander; barefoot, dreadlocked, smiling and way laid back. He is famous now for singing these reggae/blues/jost van dyke swing songs at his tamarind bar on the beach. Gripping the guitar with work worn hands and making tourists laugh with innuendo and anecdotal songs about politics. He has this knack for knowing a song about anywhere in the world that someone is from. Well this old salt was telling us the other night beneath the shade tree about how when Foxy first opened his bar, he stocked whiskey, rum, and beer. Confiding in the old sailor shortly after he opened he says “I don’t get it, I got de whisky, i got de beer, you knows i got de rum, but these tourists come and all deh wan is de piNa colada” he drags through the words pina colada with specific tone of being unfamiliar with a word “what i ask is a pina colada?” I am going to have to start working on recipes from the yard. Maybe I can bring one over to Foxy.

Happy Birthday Jared! To celebrate St John style we had a Beach Party at Francis Bay, one of our favorite beaches. It was a magnificent day, one of those picture perfect days in paradise where the sun is high, a slight breeze keeps the picturesque white clouds floating by, the water is perfectly calm and crystal clear: just right for floating with a cocktail. The colors down here are always so amazing on those kinds of days, everything just pops out at you like you are walking around in some kind of polarized lens. The foliage on the hillsides above Francis is a rich true green against the turquoise water it just looks magical. I still can’t believe we live here. Back to the party though, we got our crazy crew of friends together, down here everyone knows each other since it is such a small community and everyone loves to come out for a beach BBQ. We fired up the grill and had some tasty sausage and peppers, the girls floated in the shallow water keeping cool while they gossiped and the boys they played a new version of horseshoes that we have created for the beach. I think it may become a new sport on ESPN. The sun doesn’t go down until about 6:30 now over the summer so these magical beach days just float on and on and there is nothing more beautiful than watching the sun set while relaxing in the calm warm water. A great birthday! Oh, Jared had fun too! Now all I have to do to complete his birthday wishes is make him his favorite dish, Macaroni and Cheese. I would love anyone’s recipe if you have one that I have to try. Until then…enjoy life…it’s delicious!

Coral Bay is out there, both geographically and well…. But that does not mean you can’t get good food. There are lots of good restaurants and bars in Coral Bay. Here is a descripiton of each of St John’s most easterly eaterys.

Aqua Bistro - Garden Setting bistro food, bar menu and table menu. Nice place to have a drink.
Skinny Legs - The burger joint. World Famous for it’s cheeseburgers (in paradise). Also has great salads and
other sandwiches, live music and TV’s for sports
Donkey Diner - Best Breakfast on St John. They have Pizza on Wednesdays and Fridays, and bake their own bagels and english muffins.
Sweet Plaintains - Voted best chef in the VI, Rose serves up an amazing pallette of west indian classics with a modern twist. I like the curry. Great dining atmosphere made with true Coral Bay funk.
Shipwreck - Another full flavor spot with a great menu and daily fresh fish specials. live music and nearby shops
Miss Lucys - Can’t miss this. On the water Caribbean fare. Sunday jazz brunch and Full moon pig roast partys.
Island Blues - Bar food changes with the daily chef. On the water with live music nearly nightly. If you want to see a spectactle, monday nights is karaoke. Or as we call it “Scaryoke.” Consider yourself warned.
Sputnik - Very Local, sometimes she has Rotis. A Indian/West Indian speciatly. Check at alunch on Fridays or some other day.
Vies Snack Shack - closed on Mondays, Sundays and probably other times too. The best garlic fried chicken in a beachside barnyard shack environment. MUST SEE. also has coconut tarts and conch fritters. Go for the beach stay for the snack and practice being polite with the sweetest lady on the east end Miss Vie.
Fire Foods and the other Vendor Vans at the corner - Never quite sure who is going to be selling food at the corner in Coral Bay, but you know it will be good and absolutely AUTHENTIC St John Recipes.
Chatuea Bordeaux - The fine fine of fine dine. perched on a cliff with a breathtaking view. This high end place is truly a treat. Spoil yourself, because you have no other choice if you are sitting there. Celebrity frequents and an intimate setting make this the place to celebrate the most special evenings.

So why go to Cruz Bay? Coral Bay has the charm, the quiet, the diversity, the parking and a great selection of places to eat.

In one day summer ended and fall began in Colorado. Two days later, we escaped back down to where we wouldn’t freeze. See I don’t own socks. You don’t need them in St John. It definately seems like summer is over at this time of year up North, but when you get down in the tropics, Summer has just begun. The beaches are deserted down here right now, and we love that. Angie and I were completely alone yesterday when we just had to take a dip to cool off. Summer means SLOW. And it is clear that all here now are m o v i n g v e r y s l o w. Lots of the restaurants have taken a break, well deserved being that most of us work 7 days a week from November to July. Hopefully we will get some of oyu down here to check out this deserted island one year. we miss you all in the States
jared and Angie

People always ask us what the best time of year to visit St John is. My response remains the same, during the full moon. Although, every couple of days I say to Angie that in-fact this moment may be the best time to visit. The full moon is tremendously special down in the Virgin Islands. Not only does it seem brighter and more clear than I can remember it anywhere else, what it does here is paint the stunning views alive at night. There is nothing more mesmerizing than looking over the peaceful Caribbean Sea as it sparkles with moonlight and winds between lush islands. The effect has of yet been unexplainable, and even now I fumble with it as if I were 15 again trying to talk to a supermodel. I try to tell my friends and family about it, and they say “oh yeah, the moon is pretty.” That just may be what you are thinking, but for those of you who have been here, you can imagine looking down the Sir Francis Drake Channel at the moonlit Mountains rising straight from the sea; it is incredible.
This full moon we spent on an eastern bluff of the island, among cactus and quiet in the full-bodied breeze rising off the sea. Others, we have spent sailing always just out of reach of the horizon where she rise. And some we spend in the dramatic sugar mill ruin at Catherineburg in the center of St John, where we bring up the moon with an orchestra of drums and percussion.
What makes this time of year, or rather this time of the month so great is the varied evening skies. The Full moon rises just about sunset, and about 50 minutes later every day after. When the moon is up, the water and land become the focal of the beauty. Before the moon rises, in the couple of days after it is full, the sky and night are some special kind of dark, and the stars get their chance to show off until the moon makes its appearance. So if you come for the week beginning just before the full moon, you will be treated to the full spectrum of St John’s evening skies. Which as proven, will literally make you speechless, or my case just make you unable to write well.

This was a great weekend for eating in St John. For the past two weeks, our guests, Bob and Betty at the villa and Angie and I have been inundated with bananas. When they come ripe on our trees, we end up with about 50 pounds at once. So we make banana bread, banana muffins, banana rum drinks, banana cakes… it just goes on and on because the whole bunch of them come ripe at about the same time. Once I couldn’t handle it so I traded them for a case of beer. But this time with the guests in the villa, we were able to tackle most of them. Still have plenty in the freezer for frozen drinks though. Our pineapples are also ready for harvest right now. They are by far the sweetest you will ever taste.
So with all of the sharing of fruit our guests at the villa felt like sharing back and invited me to go out on a fishing charter with them. I woke up early, mostly because the mango tree has heavy fruit outside our bedroom and when the wind blows, it knocks against the wall like an eager door-to-door salesman. I went outside to check the weather before preparing to go out on a boat and stared and stood in awe looking through the mangoes at the sunrise over the sea.
The day was mostly without fish (captain said because of the moon), but we did catch a nice tuna. Bob and Betty, and their son Ray are experienced fisher folks, and had a great time even without the bounty we all hoped. They gave me some of the fish, and we made plans to meet at the food fair and festival coronation the next day.
The carnival starts out with lots of different events, one of which is the food fair. It’s a lively scene, with steel pan bands, reggae bands and calypso bands playing between not so important speeches that are given the highest of importance.
(Just an example of how important carnival is down here; The Virgin Islands will be drafting it’s own constitution during the next year and a half. In a public service announcement about the election of the delegates, a high official told the masses “we need to take this as serious as carnival”) this years carnival theme was announced, “a mix of cultures”. Quite nice, as there are people living in St John are from all over the Caribbean and the United States. It definitely gives me a smile though as last years theme was “a cultural mix.” For a carnival committee that takes themselves so seriously… I just wish I was at that meeting when they decided on the new theme.
The food was amazing though; conch with butter sauce, whelks in stew, mutton curry, Caribbean bbq chicken and ribs, chicken, beef and salt fish pates, dove pork, Johnny cakes, pineapple pies, coconut tarts, passion fruit juice, tofu wraps with fried cauliflower, homemade ice cream, garlic fried chicken, and everything comes with rice and pigeon peas. Angie and wiggled our way through the crowd, trying to decide as all portions are big enough for a couple of meals, as the cool sounds of steel pan orchestra spread though the sky. Not too much though, I had fresh tuna to eat at home.
After a quick stop for a swim in the ocean and a nap, we went by Josephine’s organic gardens to get the rest of what we needed for dinner; fresh arugula and herbs. I picked a mango off of our tree and we were ready to go. We seared the tuna with the mango, fresh parsley, lemon, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and some local honey to just past rare. Sliced it thin to show the fresh ruby red pink meat and laid it over a locally grown arugula salad tossed with mango strips. I felt ultimately self sufficient (as an island) knowing that the whole day, nearly everything we ate was grown here or locally caught. Relaxing now, proud of our island for its bounty of beauty, culture, and all things fresh, we set in to prepare for a busy couple of weeks partying at carnival.

There is this guy Bode living here. I don’t know his last name, and its possible he doesn’t have one. In fact, no one has a last name here. It’s a sunny place for shady people if you know what I mean. Bode is friends with a guy named Buddy (see what I am saying). Bode is probably 55, 200 pounds with 25 lbs of that his beard. The only skin on his face that you see is when he puckers up for a rum drink. Buddy is typically covered in oil from working on engines. They are full-on pirates, with uncanny stereotypically jolly pirate behavior. That doesn’t mean I would call them seaworthy though. I like a captain who can… well …. Stand. And neither had a boat. But what every pirate needs is a boat, and Bode found just the one. For as long as I had lived here, there was this old powerboat on the beach in Cruz Bay. It couldn’t possibly float. It was painted in a graffiti style, had no engine and may have served as a home for someone who just couldn’t make it home some nights. On the side was painted her name in bright yellow with blue squiggly outlines, that had all now faded to some other color; “Yeowza.” It’s fun to say. We have all heard the expression, but how is it spelled? Some derivative of yikes and… I don’t even know. I got to say it again “Yeowza.”

But back to them in a minute.

So Angie and I had gathered our energies for a short vacation. Everyone always wants to know where we would vacation, being that we live in St John, a dream destination for just about anyone. This time we were going to Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. Short trip, but totally rehabilitating for us. There was going to be a party over there and a number of our friends were also going for the weekend. Which meant of course, that half the Island knew there was a party being that the coconut telegraph never sleeps. It took us a few hours to gather all of our necessities, and get to the boat to start sailing over. It is about a 7-mile sail, on a reach (an easy point of sail) typically, so we can make it from St John in about 2 hours with the right breeze. The seas were really rough that day though so it took a little longer. We settled in for the weekend party and found ourselves relieved to be Limin on the beach and happy to be with our friends. Some other friends had come by smaller boat and had a rougher time, but we all had made it. As evening fell we stargazed from the soft cool evening sand and laughed about the characters on St John.

Around midnight, out of the darkness we heard a commanding laughter and the weak sound of a 2-stroke engine running on one cylinder. Suddenly Voice recognition sets in, “I swear I hear Bode” I say to my friend Dave. “Not possible, he had his first rum this morning at about 9 (Dave is bartender), plus who would bring him on their boat?” As the laughter grew louder, the image appeared. He was epic in posture. One foot up on the bow, bottle of rum held out to the gods and that deep, deep gravel of a laugh. He looked like Washington crossing the Delaware, but it was Bode and Buddy in “Yeowza” at midnight through impossible seas with a boat that should be a planter and of course a bottle of rum. Without turning off the engine, they rammed ashore, Bode’s infectious laughter quickly sending us all rolling. And we all realized right there that you’ve got to believe in pirates and the power of rum.

The news on St John is not quite as important as in the states. Most of us don’t watch CNN or much TV at all for that matter. When we need news we turn to the Coconut Telegraph. An extremely low-tech network of HIGHLY efficient connections powered by the people. News travels fast on St John. There are only 5000 residents, and living on an Island is like living on your own planet, so there are 5000 people on our planet. It takes about 25-30 minutes to drive the 8 miles between Coral Bay and Cruz Bay, but news travels much faster. They say if you do something foolish in Coral Bay, then get in your car and drive to town (Cruz Bay), everyone will know about it when you get there. The good news is that in St John, someone will out trump your stupidity quickly enough, so the spotlight can shift away from you (at least until…).

Yep, nobody really cares what you do here, as long as they know what you are doing. They call this “the world’s largest open air asylum”, a place where “we are all here because we’re not all there”. The ultimate figurative and literal reality. When you live on an island, especially one like St John, surrounded by constant and unyielding natural beauty you have certain obligations to the rest of the world. You must be a master of laziness and hard work, you must find kindness in all of the most difficult situations, and you must demonstrate the reality of total freedom to the guests who come from so far to find it.

Welcome to the new Starlit Escape Villa blog. A place, where like St John itself, we will forget rules and refresh our sanity with healthy doses of insanity. Insane beauty, crazy love stories, absolutely nuts people and the best local advice about St John Villas, Virgin Islands beaches, nightlife, dining and experiences. Please check in often to get the latest St John and Virgin Island stories that will help you plan the best St John Vacation and help you remember it forever.

The Players (just to start)
J-goofy hairdo, blue eyes, jack of all trades
A- stunning, petite, fetching smile, fastidious attention to detail

Away from St John on a vacation to visit family makes me miss our beautiful home. Being here in Colorado reminds me how important water is to me. To live in a place completely surrounded by the clearest and most breathtaking waters is truly amazing. We are so fortunate to be able to return St John, the place we call home. Can’t wait to get back and hope to see you all there…