Hiking was on the agenda for today, and we set out early for the Annaberg Sugar Mill ruins.  On the way there, we found a tour being led by the Golda, from the National Park Service.  When we joined it, she was leading a group along the trail, explaining about different trees and medicinal plants found on St John.  This was a stroke of luck for me, as it is something I am very interested in.  Growing up, my mom was always using some home remedy on us, and we always had a aloe plant for burns.  I even have 3 aloe plants on the boat I use frequently for cuts, burns and scrapes.  I was very anxious to learn what else was out there.  Golda gave us a great tour, showing which plants to watch out for (Machineel tree poisonous), and which ones were good for you.  In the islands, she told us, everyone drinks some kind of herbal tea everyday, even the children.  She pulled a small, green plant from the side of the road.  This was called the Love Bush and was very good for your heart.  She also showed us the Buttonwood tree whose leaves were good for getting rid of toxins.  Islanders eat Barracuda, which is considered toxic, yet they don’t get sick.  She said the reason was tea from the Buttonwood tree.  Drinking the tea either before or after eating Barracuda will get rid of the toxins in the fish.  Golda had all kinds of medicinal plants to show us, and it was amazing there was so much of it around us.  After we left Golda, we took the trail up to the Annaberg Sugar Mill ruins.  The ruins sat atop a small hill with picturesque views of Jost Van Dyke and Sophers Hole. 

An older gentleman, Mr. Clive Dale, was weaving baskets and we stopped to watch him.  He looked at me and said “You’ve been here many times” as a statement, not a question.  I said that I hadn’t been here, but I had been to the BVI’s manytimes.  He told me I came on a boat, and I said yes, a sailboat.  It was a little weird, as if it was like he knew me.  I told him I really liked the British Virgin Islands, and he smiled and told me that was where he was from.  He noticed I was holding the leaves from the Love Bush plant, and I told him that Golda had given them to me.  He asked me if I was going to make tea and I said yes. He said the tea was also good for the liver and kidneys. When I mentioned I needed to get a book on medicinal plants, he reached into his bag and pulled out a juicer book.  He has several juicers at home and juices most of his vegetables.  He showed me the dark tea he was drinking, saying it was Milk Thistle.  This I had heard of. He stopped his weaving and walked me down the trail to show me where it was growing in the wild and picked some for me. Later he brought us down another trail to show us the tree he cut the wood from to weave the baskets he was making.  He fascinated me.  It was like we knew each other from somewhere.  We toured the ruins some more then headed back to the beach. I made tea that evening from the Love Bush and it was really good!! 

After the mill, we went back and relaxed on Maho Beach.  The beach in front of the campground here, is pretty but small.  It was my turn to climb the 164 steps (yes 164!) to buy the drinks and bring them back.  As I was enoying my Carib, in a glass bottle, a male beachgoer comes up to me and informs me that the National Park Service doesn’t allow glass bottles on the beach.  “The Park Ranger was just by here so you’d better be discreet.”  I gave him the “Why exactly are you talking to me?” stare.  Undeterred he added, “And try not to break it.”   Well thank goodness he got to me in time.  I was just about to give a rebel yell and lob my bottle at a loggerhead turtle!!

Annaberg Sugar Mill     

 We arrived at Maho Bay, St John after a particular nasty 14 mile passage.  Anne, from Blue Runner, had warned us the seas outside the harbor at St Thomas were bad, but we waited for the best of the bad weather windows.  This one called for waves 7 to 9 feet, which normally we wouldn’t have gone near, but we were sure that meant way outside, not right next to the coast where we would be.  Boy were we wrong!!!  We were less than a mile offshore and we took a pounding!!  Combine the waves with nearly 30 knot winds and you know 14 miles is an awfully long way!!!  The waves weren’t only high, they were close together.  Hitting them straight on wasn’t as bad as having one pontoon start to fall off one side of the wave!  I went inside to check on the kids and noticed a hatch was open. Someone was watching over us, as no sooner did I shut the hatch above the dining table, then a huge wave buried both bows, shooting water all the way back to the cockpit.  There was so much water going over the side windows that it reminded the kids and I of going through a car wash!! If I hadn’t shut the window when I did, all that would have been in the cabin. The bright side was we only had to endure this less than 2 hours.  As soon as we made the turn to at the end of St Thomas, the island of St James blocked the waves, and all we had to deal with was the wind.  That and the boat traffic.  I don’t remember seeing that many boats heading in different directions at one time. You really needed to pay close attention.  Soon we arrived at Maho Bay and picked up the required mooring ball.  St John is really so beautiful!!!  We’ve spent a lot of time in the British Virgin Islands, and once a long time ago, on a charter, we spent a night at St John, but I really don’t remember it being this beautiful!!  It feels so good here, it’ll be hard to leave!!

Yes, we are still here!  You would think we’d have cabin fever by now, but we are enjoying it.  We caught up with Anne and Chris, off the sailboat Blue Runner.  Last time we saw them was at Ocean World in Dominican Republic.  They are working for Blue Water divers for awhile before they go cruising again. We all had dinner at Fat Turtles.  It was nice to see them again, and hopefully we can get together again before we leave here.  Also, on Superbowl Sunday, we were watching the game at Fat Turtles, (they had a huge blow up screen on the lawn) and we ran into Kristen and Hans from the sailboat Whisper.  We knew of them from their friends Jacumba, and heard them on the crossing from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico.  It was nice to finally meet them.  They stopped by our boat later and we gave them our other generator.  It wasn’t working for us, but we hope Hans could get it running. 

Other than that, we have just been hanging out, waiting for good weather.  It’s not bad weather in the sense of a lot of rain, just a lot of wind, and outside the harbor, high waves.  Yesterday we went to the Frenchtown Deli, in Frenchtown for great deli sandwiches.  Every night, we head into shore so the kids can play football.  Sounds kind of tame, but we are enjoying ourselves. 

One thing we find very interesting is the earthquake activity around here.  If you go to www.weatherunderground.com and put in Charlotte Amalie, it lists earthquake activity.  Everyday since we started watching it, there has been an earthquake in the BVI or Puerto Rico.  They aren’t that strong, ususally 3 to 4 in magnitude, (although about a week ago there was one near Ponce, Puerto Rico at a magnitude of 5), but I find that very interesting.  Living in the city, you tend to forget the earth is truly alive.  You see the trees, the grass, the flowers, and you know there are living things growing from the earth, but most people don’t think about the earth itself, down deep, moving and alive.  I think it’s fascinating, but maybe that’s just me!!

Tomorrow we hope to be in St John’s if we can get good weather.  We’ll have more pictures then.