Rendezvous in St. John

Hi All - 

Here I sit on a breezy balcony in the Caribbean, overlooking Rendezvous Bay sparkling below, the green hillsides surrounding it dotted with homes with blue and orange rooftops.  The top of a palm tree sways directly in my line of sight, and life is good, my friends.

Let’s blog.

Friday, July 11

The first day of our adventure was exhausting and terrifying, as I think most vacations start. We woke at 4:30 am and flew from Tampa to Puerto Rico on Jet Blue for the first leg of our trip. That part was fine. We got to PR around 10:30, had an early lunch at the airport Margaritaville, and then went and waited at the gate for our next flight to St. Thomas.

We started to board at around 12:15, but the gate person stopped us and said that we were on the wrong airline. Yes, there was a Jet Blue flight leaving for St. Thomas at 12:50, but there was also a Cape Air flight leaving at the same time – and that was the flight our tickets were for. We were at gate A. The Cape Air flight was at Gate D. The gate person told us to RUN.

(I don’t know if you know this about me, but I do not, cannot, run.)

We ran. The other thing you should know is that Gate D was probably 2 miles away and the PR airport has no people movers. By the time we had passed gate C, Glenn and I heard our names over the loudspeakers – “Final Call for Glenn and Diane Callihan. This is the last call.”

We made it to the gate and there were hardly any people there. We assumed our plane had already boarded. The gate people told us we’d made it, asked us how much we weighed, weighed our carry on bags and told us to go sit down and wait, we’d be boarding shortly.

Now we’re wondering, why in the hell did we just run two miles? (I am doubled over at this point trying to catch my breath and wondering if I am having a heart attack. Yes, I’m out of shape. Whatever.)

So finally, they announce we’re going to start boarding. There was a man and woman there and we let them ahead of us in line. Then us. Then they shut the doors behind us.

There would be only 4 of us on the plane. Plus the pilot.

They took us out onto the tarmac and we walked over to the world’s smallest plane. There is, by far, more interior room in my car. They put our carry-ons into a tiny cubby, and told us that we could not get into the plane until it was refueled, but we could go and stand under the wings for shade (since it was blazing hot on the tarmac.) 

Also, again, why did we run across the airport only to wait for like 15 minutes in the airport and then 20 minutes on the tarmac. A mystery.

Finally, the four of us boarded with our captain, and we took a loud and terrifying flight to St. Thomas, the runway looking much smaller than your average driveway. We survived, but I don’t know how we’ll get back, because I never want to do that again.

When we arrived (yay!) in St. Thomas, they told us that if we had checked bags to wait by the carousel. There was no one in the baggage area. The carousel was off. At this point, we started to wonder what might have become of our bags? Clearly they did not fit on a plane that was the size of Mazda miata.

Eventually, we asked someone and she told us to stop at the Cape Air gate (I think of this airline now as Cape Fear) and hallelujah! Our bags had somehow arrived before us…two lone bags sitting behind the counter.

We got a shuttle to the rental car place, got a Jeep, and then Glenn began aimlessly and terrifyingly began driving around St. Thomas (KEEP LEFT). I finally was able to secure us some directions to the ferry, which meant a white knuckle drive through treacherous mountain roads. We got there a little after 3:00 although we had reservations for a 5:00 trip, and as soon as we backed our car onto the boat, it set sail. So once again, it seemed like: No one can leave until the Callihans get here!

So then we take the half hour ferry ride across the ocean, which was the least terrifying of our travel methods thus far, and made it to St. John’s. (Is it St. John's or St. John? No one seems to know. We saw it both ways.)

We managed to meet up with our Air-BNB owner, Petra (Swedish maybe? Insane, definitely) at a nearby grocery store and we followed her up the mountain to the house.

The house is beautiful, the pool and view spectacular. It was called Rendezvous Breeze.

This is the pool area, where we spent the vast majority of our time.

The inside was a bit more quirky or "janky". Apparently they often have no power here so the house has more solar generators than I can count. The running water is all water gathered from the roof, so it is not drinkable, and they try to discourage you from showering or really using it at all. Let’s not even talk about their septic system. Petra talked to Glenn for probably a solid hour about the electricity situation, apparently assuming he was an electrical engineer. We understood nothing and finally she left.

Here is some of the jankiness.

Entranceway

Another view of the entranceway - basically venetian blinds covering shelves filled with junk.

Generators - just for the living room - every room had generators.

Living room - looked okay. Screen door was broken and we never got any of the tvs in the house to work.

Nice kitchen until you look closely. Bar stools rusted. Open refrigerator area holding a mop. Window to nowhere. Faucet falling off.

Boombox from my childhood.

There are also two cats that live outside on the property, Little One and (Marsha will like this), Hermie. We haven’t seen much of them. I did get a pic of Little One. Hermie only showed up when we least expected him - he was all black and seemed to like startling me.

There are more weird things about the house, and I won’t get into them all here, but the biggest drawback is that, even though we are the only ones staying in this huge place, Petra locked off our ability to go to rooms we wouldn’t need, so we couldn't go upstairs or downstairs. To go to the lanai and pool, we have to go out the front door and walk down a steep hill and cut through the yard. It’s not a big deal, but you know, you get down to the pool and realize you forgot your sunglasses or something, it’s a pain.

We had planned to go grocery shopping but we were so drained from our day, that we aborted all other plans. We found a cool place to eat and watch the sunset at the top of the mountain, called the Windmill, and sat with some fellow tourists and chatted and listened to music as we looked out over the British Virgin islands.

Here's the Windmill parking lot. Notice anything?

Love this selfie - Glenn used some filters on this, so it's kinda cheating, but still.

Ok – man, that’s a lot for one day…don’t expect this much blogging for each day.

Saturday, July 12

This morning we headed over to Cruz Bay Landing for breakfast – we ate outside next to an outdoor market and a bunch of chickens. The restaurant had gluten free toast, so I was quite excited. There was also a baby chicken (technically a chick) walking around and I noticed he was missing a foot, although he was getting around well and seemed generally happy for a chicken. We named him Pegleg and we both want to write a children's book about him.

Pegleg!

After breakfast, we went into a fun little shop and bought some clothes. I got Magic Shorts that look like they are a solid color, but when they get wet, a sea turtle pattern emerges. Later, we went back and I got a second pair, and Glenn got a pair. Here, I splashed some water on myself so you can see.

Then we went to the Starfish market, bought groceries and lots of bottled water, and headed home.

The rest of the day so far has been exquisitely lazy. We stood in the pool for a while – it was cold but you got used to it, laid out on lounge chairs, and did some reading. 

Later, we went to a cool shopping center called Mongoose Junction, bought some t-shirts, and stopped at a cute bar called Sundog where I had a Gecko-colada (which is like a pina colada only it is made with melon liquor so it is green.) It also came with a tiny plastic gecko. 

Here's Mongoose Junction - we ended up coming back here numerous times during our trip.

Then we had dinner at High Tides right on the beach at Cruz Bay. The food was ok, but the view was fabulous.

I should also mention that almost everytime we went to Cruz Bay, we parked at Slim Man's Parking, which we both found fascinating. It was a tiny parking lot, and the attendants packed cars in there like you wouldn't believe. And somehow, by some miracle, every time you went to pick up your car, they could get it out by only moving one or (at the most) two cars! It was like some sort of magic trick.

Sunday, July 13

Sunday we just lazed around until after noon. Petra told us that it had not rained “in months” so we were surprised with some occasional sprinkles. We joked that surely everyone on the island was rushing to shower and flush toilets as the water supply was replenished.

We decided to do a little exploring and drive north and head through the national park. We went through Hawks Nest Bay, Trunk Bay, Cinnamon Bay, and Maho Bay – just kinda checking out the scenery. Glenn had talked about doing an easy hike, but we discovered we didn’t have cell service in the park and he couldn’t remember where the easy hikes were, so we decided to do that another day.

At Maho Bay, we saw two wild donkeys which was cool. One was on the side of the road, and the other was lying on the beach, surrounded by girls in bikinis who were taking selfies with it. I thought it was cool that the donkeys are the exact color of the sand.

We did take a little walk on a rocky and secluded beach that went to Waterlemon (yes, that is spelled right) Cay, but it was hot and we turned around before we got there.

Back at home, we just hung out by the pool and read. After I finished my book, I decided to get in the hot tub. Glenn was preparing to join me when it started to pour down rain. I was already wet, so whatever, but Glenn just stood under the roof and took pics and made fun of me.

When it cleared up, we went into town and walked down the beach to go to dinner.

We went to the Lovongo Rum Bar where we got pizza (yay! They had gluten free ones too!) The restaurant was on the second floor and we were overlooking the Cruz Bay Marina.  

We saw a guy stand-up paddleboarding in the bay with a black and white cat sitting on the front of the board. They pulled up to a big sailboat that was anchored, and the cat jumped up into the boat (as apparently it had done many times) and the guy tied off the paddleboard and used the ladder to get on board. Just a fun thing to see. Glenn got a pic of it once it was settled onboard.

As dinner was ending, it started pouring down rain again. It finally stopped and on our drive back, there was a stop in traffic at the bottom of a steep hill. We soon found out why, because when it was our turn to drive up, the wet road had become like ice and we were sliding all over the place and spinning our wheels.

I should mention here that we did pay extra to rent a Jeep, and 95% of the cars we saw on the island were Jeeps. A bunch of people had gotten out of their cars and one guy walked down to us (which seemed very dangerous) and told us to put the Jeep in 4-wheel drive, but Glenn didn’t know how and it was dark in the car…he opened the door so the light came on and we located the 4-wheel drive and were finally able to get up the hill. But it was a white-knuckle drive for sure.

Monday, July 14

Early this morning, I woke to another storm (seriously, no rain in months?!) and a tree branch was banging against the window and the wind was fierce. Even on a normal day here, the wind howls through the house like a banshee – I have never heard anything like it. I was afraid the window was going to blow in.

We headed out to Maho Bay for some beach time. The water was turquoise and cool, the sandy bottom soft.  However, it was too people-y for us. We sat in some beach chairs to relax and people sat right next to us and began blasting music. I couldn’t really read my ipad in the sun, and people were throwing balls around in the water, and I was like, “you know what, our pool deck is a much nicer place to hang out,” so we left in less than an hour.

We saw another donkey and a mama and baby goat on our ride back.

Also exciting, Glenn spotted a sea turtle from our deck in the Bay below (which honestly just looked like a speck) but he was able to zoom in and get some pics of it. This is now Glenn's super power - spotting sea turtles from miles away.

Monday evening, Glenn had made special anniversary plans. We took a short ferry ride from St. John’s to a private island resort called Lovongo, where Glenn had made dinner reservations. As we waited for the ferry, we met a nice couple around our age (Dave and Daphne) and made fast friends. They took this pic of us.

Anyway, we got to the resort and it was gorgeous! Mom and Dad won’t get this reference but it was like something out of White Lotus, and the staff there welcomed us warmly, and the waiter and manager each in turn came over and chatted with us for a long time. Everyone here seems very friendly. We sat at a table underneath a Fabulousa tree (with fragrant bright orange flowers) right next to the water and there were tiny white lights strung everywhere. The food was amazing, and then we walked around the resort, which was spectacular but there was nobody there. 

View from the water as we were leaving.

After dinner, we took an earlier ferry back than we’d planned – it went over to St. Thomas before stopping at St. John’s, but the ride was lovely and you could see all the stars.

The only bad point is that the St. Thomas marina smelled so bad…I mean like it was an open sewer bad. Apparently there is Sargassum algae/seaweed that produces putrid gasses and we were all gagging and begging the captain to get us the hell out of there.

On the way home, it started pouring again, and we once again had to deploy the 4-wheel drive, but at least it didn’t rain on our excursion.

Tuesday, July 15

Today, we have done very little. It is super windy and we’ve basically been reading by the pool all day. I’ve been waking fairly early for me (7:30) because it gets so bright in our room; our window blinds look as if they have been attacked by panicky cats. So, I’ve been taking mid-day naps. We stopped at the grocery store in town to stock up on some more water and provisions.

Breaking news: I was attacked by a chicken.

We went to dinner at a place called Longboard, a partially enclosed restaurant, and picked a table in the corner. When I went to pull out my chair, a chicken that I hadn’t seen came flying up at my face, squawking, feathers flying, hit me in the arm and propelled itself out the open window. Naturally, I screamed bloody murder and everyone in the restaurant turned and looked at me, but it happened so fast, and the chicken was gone, so everyone just thought I was a crazy person. So I said, “Sorry everyone, I was hit by a chicken” which is something I never thought I would say.

In a similar incident, Glenn went to open the front door of our place and he was attacked by a large black butterfly, which we thought at first was a bat. More screaming ensued.

Sorry, no pics of either of these dramatic events.

Wednesday, July 16

So today, Glenn booked us a private sunset sail for our anniversary, which was amazing. Captain Mike picked us up in an inflatable boat in the harbor and took us to the sailboat. We sat in bean bag chairs in the front of the boat and set out on a lovely sail. Capt. Mike made us drinks and provided snacks (cheese and grapes) and we toured all around from around 4:30 til 7. 

We again saw the paddleboarding cat, which Capt. Mike was familiar with. He lives on the boat and even has a big exercise wheel.

At one point, we sailed by Caneel Bay, which is where Mom and Dad stayed (sometime in the 90s I think?). Sadly, the resort was destroyed by Hurricane Irma in 2017 – there are still a lot of structures there from the resort but they are now completely overgrown by vegetation. 

The Capt said it was amazing to watch how quickly nature just up and overran everything. The good news is that apparently, just recently, the Park Service bought the Caneel Bay property and have opened the beach to the public. We didn’t see any people on the beach, which looked beautiful, so I don’t know that word has spread yet.

Right as we pulled back into the harbor, storm clouds moved in. Capt. Mike – a great guy – was like, I’m going to try to get you back to shore as quickly as possible, so we just jumped into the rubber boat (he said there was no time for the ladder) and took off. We got soaked, but oh well, it was fine.

Now, soaking wet, we ran into one of the restaurants on Cruz Bay – Karma Beach Club – which was beautiful but had bad food and service. But we were in good spirits anyway – it was a great day.

Karma Beach Club

Thursday, July 17

Anniversary day! So I had asked Glenn to plan the day, but nothing went as planned. We were going to go to lunch in Coral Bay on the other side of the island and then head to Hansen Beach, which a waiter had recommended to us. The drive over there was long and terrifying – as all drives here are, and then the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed. It seemed like most places were closed – I guess we are off-season. Coral Bay looked nice from a distance, but smelled poopy the closer we got to it. We never found Hansen Beach. We were starving and ended up just driving back towards home. We had a meh lunch at a place near us (Shambles) and called it a day.

That night we had a nice dinner at 18 64 (the latitude and longitude of St. John) and I had a pork chop that was the size of a soccer ball. We also discovered coconut grits, which are sublime.

Friday, July 18

Glenn got up early and decided to take his own adventure, driving back to Coral Bay in an attempt to find Hansen Beach. He did find it, and it was closed, and meanwhile he said the drive to it was extra terrifying and I would have killed him if I had gone.  He came back to Cinnamon Bay and took a little hike to see the sugar mill ruins, and then came home. Here are pics from his excursion.

 

Camoflaged faun.

Glenn took this pic for me since I was amazed by this giant boulder on the side of the road.

We went back to Cruz Bay Landing for lunch, where we once again saw Pegleg, as well as a chicken our waitress said was called Caroline, and her brood of about 6 tiny chicks.

After lunch, we went to Caneel Bay Beach.

On the walk to the beach, you'll see some more Caneel Bay ruins up close. It looks like an ancient castle.

I was worried I was no longer a beach person, but apparently, we just needed to be a the right beach! Caneel was beautiful and there were not many people there at all. The water was cool but not cold, and clear, and we bobbed around and waded and stole about 5 tiny pieces of coral/shells (the sign said NO! but we are OUTLAWS!), and it was just a gorgeous afternoon.

That night, we went to the Tap Room for pizza and then headed to the Westin, where I had booked us two tickets for Night Kayaking, which had clear, light-up kayaks, and promised to be a gentle excursion (which it was) to see fish.  We had a good time – a young marine biologist named Morgan was our guide and had lots of fun facts about the island. Also, everyone put on some glow in the dark face paint. We basically just puttered around the Westin marina. The lights on the kayaks draw bait fish and then, as promised, big tarpon came after the bait fish, swimming directly underneath us. It was only a 50-minute tour, and I wanted to stay longer once we found the tarpon. But it was a fun and unique way to spend the evening. The pics we took were not great, but the best we could do.

This is the pool at the Westin.

Morgan, our guide

When we got back we sat on the pool deck and listened to music underneath an amazing display of stars.

Saturday and Sunday, July 19 -20

Saturday started in a dramatic fashion, as I woke to a frantic text from Glenn that he had lost the Jeep keys in the ocean. My natural inclination was to freak out at him, but the fact that he had admitted this disaster to me made me think he must be very upset already, so I told him it was okay, and that we'd figure it out, or just live here forever. 

Anyway, me writing this story would take forever, so when Glenn got home, he recorded his tale of woe as he told it to me. Here is the video recording - it doesn't really show anything other than our view, just listen. (Parents, turn up the sound!) Also, there may or may not be some profanity in here. Apologies.

https://youtu.be/lBOitOsh9iE

This is where he lost, and ultimately found the keys!

Once he was safely home, we decided to stay put and just relax all day, which was lovely, and then we bookended our trip by going back to the Windmill for dinner. 

The next day was a super long travel day which was a lot like our trip getting here but in reverse. Also, we had a whopping 8-seater plane on the way from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico this time. I was told to sit next to the pilot in the co-pilot's seat, which I declined. There was some woman traveling alone and I said, why don't you put her up there? (I know, I am a terrible person, but I was saving myself.) Glenn and I sat behind the pilot, and it was another terrifying ride. 

Neck fan and earplugs in place.

At one point, the pilot took his iPad from underneath his seat and I saw him open up a map. Uh, don't you know where you are going?! Don't you do this trip multiple times every day?!

Anyway, guys, that's about it. Sorry for the longest blog post ever. We had an amazing time and we survived the trip home. Hope you all enjoyed the blog!