The roast beef sandwich that the Beach Bar added a few months ago is hands down the best hot roast beef sandwich in the world. (This heady pronouncement is very likely influenced by WHERE this sandwich is served.) It’s called The Big Dip. Beach Bar food is all really pretty good. Consistent too. Here. What’ll’ya have?

Here’s new Commissioner of Tourism Beverly Nicholson Doty being interviewed by CW Channel 11’s Julie Chang at NY’s South Street Seaport during the Caribbean Fair this week. Part of us hopes she said “St. John? What’s St. John?” Reminding 13 million people about St. John makes us nervous. Big props to Beverly though because she’s out there. Just keep telling people how great St. Thomas and St. Croix are. She can mention St. John, but only if she says there’s an “are you cool” test you have to pass to get in.

Here’s a much better picture of the proposed Cruz Bay roundabout. This one’s available for public viewing from the actual, genuine United States Department of Transportation. Don’t you love the cute little fuel-efficient sedans graciously and politely working their way through the traffic pattern? (For reference, the midnight blue Audi cabriolet is parked at Dolphin Market, while the maroon Toyota Prius is coming down the hill from happy hour at Pastory Gardens.)

There’s a public input hearing on the roundabout next Thursday. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall when people start asking HOW EXACTLY WILL THIS BE BUILT?.  If you’re on-island, be a fly on the wall. Sure to be entertaining. Mark your calendar. Legislature Building from 6:30 to 8:30 pm.  Park your Bimmer behind Subway.

UPDATE: WETA confirms this will air Sunday at 1:30, even though it was not, as of Friday morning, listed on their Website’s program guide.

If you live in the DC area you can see the Steve Simonsen documentary about the history of the Virgin Islands National Park on TV. PBS station WETA will air “Establishment of Virgin Islands National Park” Sunday (that’s this Sunday, June 17) at 1:30 pm. Simonsen, along with Bill Stelzer and Bruce Schoonover, made the documentary as part of last year’s VINP 50th anniversary. You can also always buy your own copy.

If you missed On-StJohn TV’s interview with Steve about the documentary, you can watch it here.

A DPNR boat in Cruz Bay on a recent day with an officer slapping notices on abandoned boats.

Would you swim in Cruz Bay?  You might get the chance sometime in the future.

Boat owners in Cruz Bay were recently served up a rude awakening when DPNR started slapping them with notice of vessel inspections and orders to get their boats out of the bay. For some of those beautiful, old, derelict pieces of crap, moving them may be a problem. Enforcement is now on hold, but the plan is to clear the boats out and put swim buoys in.

Even boats with proper permits would theoretically have to move 50 feet off the beach, which would be an obvious problem for boat businesses in Cruz Bay.

 Like all things, this will get resolved, but it has caused confusion and raised conspiracy theories…like Grande Bay is behind it all.  Maybe so, but we hear turning Cruz Bay into a swimming beach has been informally talked about for many years.  It may sound gross, but assuming it can be cleaned up, imagine it. Food nearby. A couple of bars. A dive shop. Not a bad place to lay around. St. John is lacking a beach with commercial amenities and it might actually be a great little beach.  Assuming it could be cleaned up. Cuz right now, we’re happy to leave Cruz Bay to the sharks and Wade’s ankles.

Why don’t we go to this beach more often? This is the King Daddy of North Shore beaches, and it is beautiful. Cinnamon is sometimes hot, and sometimes windy, but it is huge and entertaining. We’d love to camp here sometime, though we hear the waiting list is long. Cinnamon Bay deserves two beach breaks. Part One, below.

US Airways folks were surprisingly candid in a New York Times article that goes behind the scenes to try to explain why airlines over-sell flights. It’s actually pretty interesting stuff. It won’t make you feel any better if you’re bumped off an oversold flight, but at least you’ll understand why the airline did it. Read this soon. The Times only leaves stuff up for free for a couple of weeks. The story is here.

 Breaking news from Cruz Bay: Kicking out the boats, and sharks on the loose!  Stay tuned!

The big news at Cyril E. King Airport this month is the new luggage belt. Whoopee. Yes, this is a welcome thing, considering one of the two luggage belts has been off-again on-again out for the past two years…but really we’d all just like our luggage to actually GET to Cyril E. King airport.

Best plan? Don’t check luggage. There are acceptable exceptions. Expensive gear, or food stuffs (don’t get us started on that) or big gifts you’re bringing to somebody…okay. But if you’re checking luggage because you have lots of clothes you’re bringing, F! Seriously. You can get all the clothes you need for a week on St. John in a carry-on.

Wanna improve things at the airport? Start with bigger rum drinks at that welcome stand. Throw in a stale cracker and it’s like taking communion.

Okay, a new Patrina story. One more, and then we’ll stop.  Here’s an email we recently got:

“We watched a funny scene during Woody’s happy hour today. Two guys standing, watching the crowd at Woody’s. One guy sets his drink down. Patrina slips in, sucks his drink down through the straw and puts it back on the post, unnoticed. The guy then finishes the drink and proceeded to chew on the straw.”

Cheers!

No passport required for the U.S. Virgin Islands. That hasn’t changed. But you probably heard about the State Department’s decision to ease passport requirements for a few months while it catches up on the big backlog of passport applications. It’s gonna confuse people even more. The passport requirement is now waved for Canada, Mexico and the rest of the Caribbean through the end of September. But to get back in to America, you have to have documentation to PROVE YOU HAVE APPLIED for a passport. This also has nothing to do with all the places that require you to have a passport to visit anyway. Like the BVIs. AAA says only 27 percent of Americans have a valid passport. Find out how to get one, or renew one here.

Oh boy. It’s official. The island’s newest big development is underway. Pond Bay Club, on Chocolate Hole, has been a decade in the making, and main roads are now being cut (minus the expected ceremonious groundbreaking fanfare.)

Hold on folks. At least give props to the Estate Chocolate Hole Landowners Association, which has been holding this developer’s feet to the fire for years. ECHLA has some clout here, and it deserves some credit for keeping this project in check.

We also hear developer has actually scaled BACK the scope of the project, and is working with the architect to make it “a more West Indian, less South Florida-looking project.” Well, that’s what we hear anyway. Read about Pond Bay here.

We used to write in guest books. Now we have a guest book people write in. And we circle it like a nervous bomb squad for hours every time we go to the house until one of us finally screams Okay! I’m reading it! And then it turns out to be the highlight of the evening. We can only speak for us, but I’d guess most people LOVE reading all the comments in their guest books. (And theoretically, we could rip out bad ones.)

Guest book etiquette: Write something about the house, write something about what you did, include the highlight of your trip and, if you want to be really cool, reference something somebody else wrote in the guest book. Guest books are sometimes full of fun tips and ideas. Oh, and mention the mosquitoes. You can’t have a guest book entry without mentioning the mosquitoes.

Guest tip: If the guest book has lots of pages ripped out, don’t unpack.

Today’s Beach Break is a little off the beaten path. Although there’s a well-beaten path to get to it. Haulover Bay is past Hurricane Hole on the road that takes you to the East End. In fact, look for the sign that says East End, and you’re there. It is the skinniest part of the island, with bays on both sides of the road. Haulover is on the North side of the road, an easy, flat 5 minute walk through the woods. There’s a beach on the South side of the road too. We’ll get to that one later. Check out Haulover Bay, where there’s great snorkeling and few, if any, people, below.