Scotia Bank executives made the rounds at the real estate offices this month, promoting a new, really unprecedented loan program it clearly hopes will jump-start dead land sales on St. John. There’s a record 291 pieces of land for sale on St. John right now, and only nine land sales so far this year. Compared to 49 sales in 2006. The last boom year for land sales was 2003.

Here’s Scotia Bank’s deal, good through Aug 31, unless the bank decides to extend it. Buy a piece of land with 5 percent down. The 20 year note carries a rate of 7.99 percent up to $550K. (For reference, when we bought in Chocolate Hole in 2002, the un-negotiable terms were 30 percent down, 10 years, 8.25 percent.)

Just for fun, here’s the math. Say you find the perfect lot for $400,000. Cough up a $20,000 down payment (versus $120,000 at 30 percent down), and it will cost you $3,176.11 per month. The cost of admission is a whole lot cheaper, but that’s still a lot of Red Stripes.   

This is one of the most beautiful spots on St. John, although we doubt the slaves working here had much time to enjoy it. The views from here are amazing. This tiny plot of land is steeped in history (and there are plenty of plaques to tell you all about its steepy-ness.) Follow the signs from the North Shore Road and park in the lot. It is an easy, easy, five minute walk. Plan on spending some time here, depending on how contemplative you get. No history in today’s installment. No interviews. Just a few minutes of some very beautiful images. Annaberg Ruins, below.

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.