That’s St. John Sun Times art director Tony Judge (center) and wife Polly. With friends Andy and Adam, visiting from Australia.
You can tell they are from Australia because they are wearing gigantic sunglasses. Everything is gigantic in Australia.
Art directors can’t just sit back and drink. They have to constantly be making art. So there’s Tony’s afternoon at the Beach Bar, artistically lined up for all to admire. A good afternoon’s work, we’d say.
Rum and root beer is kind of like Brooke Shields and MJ. It really doesn’t sound like they would work well together, but now we all know better.
St. John Brewers’ bottled root beer has been available on St. John for a couple of weeks now, and we’ve finally given it a shot. (No pun intended.)
Brewers Kevin and Cheech are very savvy, and they know their hometown market. Since root beer alone would probably have a limited appeal, they are marketing it as a mixer for rum. The slogan is “Rum’s got a new friend on island!”
You know what… It’s very tasty! What’s missing? Maybe a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The root beer straight is really good too. A&W good.
Here’s another Jost van Dyke favorite. At Sidney’s Peace & Love, on Little Harbour (it’s British), the lobster was alive just before he became your lunch and your drinks are as strong as you want to make them.
Lion in da Sun charter boat Captain Josh Slayton landed the winning catch in this year’s Kingfish tournament on St. Thomas Sunday.
And not only was the 58.78 pound fish the winner, it was the biggest fish in the 21 year history of the tournament.
Josh was out with his friend, Captain Chris, of World Class Anglers, to whom he modestly gives most of the credit for knowing where to find the big guys.
At the weigh in at noon, they were the last fish on the scale.
“They came over and cut open the belly right away to see if we had stuffed it full of bowling balls, and Chris offered up his own personal knife for them. We had nothing to worry about of course,” Josh says. “It was such a great feeling to have people walk up to our fish and hear them call out of their friends to come down and look at it because it was so big.”
The crew won the Best Female Anglers as well, after Tarn Hildreth caught the most fish by weight of any other female.
For their prize, they got $2,500 in cash, hotel stays and gift certificates to restaurants and marine stores.
“Chris and I made up the lure two days earlier specifically to catch Kingfish for the tournament,” says Josh. “ We made it from scratch and painted it ourselves. Of course I can’t tell you how we did that – trade secrets and all.”
Another familiar St. John face is heading back to the States.
Karissa Card, at JJ’s Texas Coast, is returning to Northern California, giant redwood country, to be close to family. But she’s going home with more than just a St. John t-shirt. She’s bringing home a fiancé.
We’ll definitely miss Karissa’s usual greeting. She never says Good Morning or Good Afternoon. It’s always “Two Red Stripes, guys?” (Our answer never changes either.)
One of Wharfside Village’s original retailers is moving to the Dockside building this fall after 20 years at its current location.
Freebird owners Randy and Barbara (and resident pooch Rafi) say they want to take their jewelry store to the next level, and will relocate to the former Columbian Emeralds location, right by the ferry dock.
So why make the move?
“With the economy the way it is, we’d like the community of St. John to know that we are investing in the island’s future,” Barbara tells us. “And what’s not to like about the new location! We’re excited about being so close to the ferry dock where all the island’s visitors will walk by.”
Freebird hopes to relocate by September. In the meantime, they are having a “Moving Sale” with 25 percent off most of their inventory.
How did Randy and Barbara end up on St. John? Read our interview with them, here!
The new grocery store on the South Shore Road has been open for a few weeks now, and it’s great!
St. John Market is clean, well stocked and reasonably priced. And there is gobs of parking.
“We’re as pleased with the way it turned out and with the customers as the customers are with the variety and quality in the store,” manager Karen Granitz tells us. “We’re still getting a feel for what customers want, and we will have our deli up and running soon.”
The produce is great, the wine selection’s pretty good and you can get a good chicken breast there. (We’re not fans of Starish’s chicken.)
The auditing firm of Beck’s and Beck’s has reviewed Steak-Off contestant submissions and has determined that the host erred in announcing the winning steak recipe.
The winning lime juice, brown sugar and steak sauce concoction came from On-StJohn.com reader JT. Lee’s baked onions won the side dish competition.
There will now be two fashionable readers walking around Cruz Bay swinging Bongo purses. Congratulations to both.
A couple of months after some new speed bumps sprouted on Great Cruz Bay Road, there are now some serious speed bumps in Chocolate Hole North. Six of them in all, on Traveler’s Trail, Pebble Way and Rock Ridge Road.
The steep switchback on Rock Ridge Road by La Papaya also has a new coat of asphalt, as does the main entrance off of South Shore Road.
In case you’re shopping for speed bumps, these six, as well as all of the re-surfacing, came to a total of about $70,000.
We used to hate speed bumps. Two of these new ones are on either side of our house. We like them now.
Island photography buff Pretlow, from Big Planet, was out and about during Festival with camera in hand, and has posted dozens of really great “people” photos.
Don’t know Pretlow? We’ll introduce you to him soon.
In the meantime, check out his photos, and see how many faces you recognize. You might even see yourself! Pretlow’s Faces of Festival, here.
The barge team, which was down to just two operating barges last week, lost another member Tuesday morning when the Coast Guard took one of them out of service. That leaves one barge making the runs, and that means waiting as long as two hours to get yourself on board.
The General II cannot accommodate everybody who is waiting in Enighed Pond or Red Hook when it arrives, so the line is long and the waiting is hot.
It looks like the Roanoke is getting some repairs in Red Hook, so it may be back soon.
But boy is that frustrating. A trip to St. Thomas and back, counting time on the water, was costing people as much as 5 hours of travel time Wednesday.
