The Summer Youth Employment Program is still looking for St. John businesses to hire an intern, and it’s a good deal for both the kid and the boss.
The program needs help in hiring 30 students, ages 15 to 23, territory-wide for a 6 week, 30 hour per week internship. Businesses pay the first three weeks of the student’s salary and funds appropriated by the Legislature pay the rest.
“This year especially, the program is good because businesses are feeling the pinch. You get a chance to help mould the workforce of tomorrow, while getting a half price deal on some summer help,” Senator Craig Barshinger tells us. “We want to pair students with willing employers in a relationship that can hopefully lead to long-term jobs for some of them.”
Barshinger says they have plenty of students signed up but they are still looking for business partners. Any licensed business in the Virgin Islands is eligible. The program sets wages at $6.55 to $8 per hour, depending on the student’s age.
Interested? Call the Senator’s office at 793-8061 or 693-3546.
Big Fish owner Christy Dove is ready to move on, and that means closing her four year old Coral Bay boutique.
“Things haven’t picked up as I’d hoped, and I figured it was best to shut down now before I start losing money,” Christy tells us. “It’s been my dream business, but I’m moving off island. I may reopen Big Fish in the future, either in the states or here on St. John, but I’m taking a breather from retail until things turn around.”
Unable to escape the draw of tourism, after 13 years on St. John Christy is moving to Orlando, but her family is staying and she’ll continue to be actively involved in the family business, Book-It V.I.
Big Fish plans to close on or around July 1, and until then everything is on super-sale. Big discounts for both tourists and locals.
We wish Christy the best of luck in her new adventure, and she assures us she is leaving with mixed emotions.
“I’ll miss the whole gang at the Cocoloba Complex. We’re a pretty tight knit family and Coral Bay just might be the most entertaining place on earth!”
See our interview with Christy back in 2007, here!
Mongoose Junction has decided to advertise with us, but before we introduce you to the stores and restaurants there, we thought it would be appropriate to introduce you to Glen Speer, the architect who designed and built Mongoose Junction in 1978 and, ten years later, Mongoose II.
Glen moved to St. John in 1968, and has designed dozens of villas and buildings on the island. He is also single-handedly responsible for reviving the Danish stonework that is so prevalent in construction around the island today.
Glen met with us at his not-so-secret secret hideaway, his garden oasis and home behind Mongoose Junction.
The Front Yard building, which closed last year, is gone, demolished this week, making way for the owners’ new project.
The landlord turned the real estate into Smith Square Parking, a short term parking lot, in February, but Frankie Smith told us at the time they had other plans for the property.
After many curious years, we finally got to Water Island recently, and discovered its Honeymoon Beach. It’s a beautiful beach! Complete with a generator-powered rum hut.
Captain Brandi will tell you all about Water Island in a couple of days, but first, visit Water Island’s Honeymoon Beach for a minute or two, below!
There’s a new mosquito swatter around, and it’s kinda dangerous.
That’s it. The bright yellow one. Unlike the ones most of us know and love, this one has no outer layer of screen on either side of the electrified wires.
Okay, maybe “dangerous” is a huge exaggeration, but you can sting yourself. And now that we’ve said so, you know you will try.
No wonder these things fry those mosquitoes. If you zap yourself (either MTV Jackass style or accidentally) you will definitely yelp.
Battery operated candles have become all the rage at rental villas.
And why not? They don’t blow out, the newest ones are very convincing, they’re inexpensive and the batteries last a long time. Days, really.
The problem is, they are too convincing. Every time we go to our house, we find one and sometimes several that people have actually tried to light. If it has a switch, don’t light it!
There are a few days left to enter Caribbean Travel+Life’s vacation sweepstakes for a free trip to St. John during Festival. Looks like accommodations for four at the Westin plus airfare and a concierge guided tour to “experience Carnival as the islanders do.”
If you haven’t snorkeled at Turtle Bay on Buck Island St. Thomas, put it on your list for your next boat trip. On this day, the coral was healthy and teeming with fish, and Turtle Bay also lived up to its name.
Put on your mask and fins, and check it out, below…
You’ll notice something’s missing on the way to the airport. The torturous series of speed bumps along the airport road are gone.
And since that means you will get to the airport a couple of minutes sooner now, why not spend that time at yet another duty-free addition past security and inside the gate area.
Next to the recently opened duty free store with booze and perfume is the Cardow Jewelry kiosk. It would be a shame to go home with any money left over.
Atlantis Adventures, which operates Atlantis tour submarines throughout the Caribbean and in Hawaii and Guam, will cease its St. Thomas operations at the end of May.
We regret never having done this, but we did recently observe it surface, offload passengers to a waiting boat, and take on new passengers from another, before submerging again near Buck Island, St. Thomas.
This was a totally random and unexpected encounter. Imagine sitting there in your boat minding your own rum when a submarine surfaces right next to you. We almost fired the cannons.
Watch one of the Atlantis submarine’s last St. Thomas dives, below!
Karen Opsahl-Roberts is hoping someone will find her missing turtle, who was washed away during all the recent heavy rains. She lives in Chocolate Hole North, on Pebble Way, and thinks the turtle may have ended up in a neighbor’s yard someplace.
“We had the turtles in a pond surrounded by a rock wall, but rainwater gushed down a gut and knocked the wall over,” she says. “The two turtles got swished away in all the muddy water but I was only able to catch one.”
She says both turtles, a male and a female, are about 8 years old and she was just giving them a calm and safe place to live out the rest of their lives.
“I’m told that she can survive, and I hope someone spots her.”
