Tory Lane and Sara Stevens swam into Salt Pond this weekend, almost exactly two months after they started their ambitious goal to swim around the entire island, making them the first couple of ever complete the 35 mile adventure.
“Saturday was the perfect day to swim around Ram Head, and it feels good to be done,” says Tory. “And now we are planning for the party to celebrate.”
The party, which will be sponsored by both St. John Brewers and Woody’s, is scheduled for October 17 at Gibney Beach. Tory says there will be music, beer and food for sale, and money raised will be donated to a yet-to-be-decided organization.
“The party’s a little later than we wanted, but it gives us time to start on our second lap around so we can swim to the party!” Tory says.
Here’s a chance to experience kayaking, a nice hike and some great snorkeling, all in one afternoon.
VI Ecotours, which runs kayaking outings on St. Thomas’ Mangrove Lagoon and to Hassel Island, also operates a fun afternoon tour out of Caneel Bay which includes a very easy introduction to kayaking and a guided hike across the Caneel grounds and along the Turtle Point Trail, with plenty of time left for snorkeling at Scott and Paradise Beaches before kayaking back to Caneel Bay.
Meet VI Ecotours owner Sybille Sorrentino, and lead guide Scott Begley, and take the tour with us, below!
What do you get when you take a mango cheese cake, stuff it into a flower flour tortilla, deep fry it, roll it in cinnamon sugar, top it with caramel and chocolate and serve it with ice cream and whipped cream?
The Xango.
Deadly delicious. Do you know where you can get it? (Hint: There’s a theme going here.)
Do you know where this sign is? We’ll take you there next week for a little steel drum music. (And show you the proper way to stick your head in that banana!)
After two and a half years, and at least one legal challenge, the affordable housing Calabash Boom Apartments is ready for its first residents, and there is an open house this weekend.
The Reliance Housing Foundation, which also developed the Bellevue Village Affordable Housing project on Gifft Hill, will be showing off the 2,3 and 4 bedroom apartments that are still available.
Open House tours are Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Tourist Trap is having a 40th Anniversary Woodstock party Saturday, August 15.
“We’ll be showing the new, deluxe, with never-before-seen footage,, 40th Anniversary Woodstock DVD in Bose surround sound,” says co-owner Cheryl Geller. “Bring a chair. We’ve only got so many.”
Cheryl and Larry will give away prizes for the “Best 60′s Threads,” and “Best Woodstock Rock Star Look-A-Like,” and they’ll be selling burgers for $5, hot dogs for $3 and pinchos for $4.
The party starts at 1 pm. Cheryl says they’ll wrap it up around 7. (“-ish.”)
This is Gibney and her new owner Kyle, the chef at The Balcony. Well, actually, her name is Ella-Gibney. “My wife named her Ella just before your readers named her Gibney,” says Kyle. “But we’ll call her both.”
Kyle moved to St. John from New Jersey in January and says he’s always had dogs. “This was been the longest I have ever been without a dog, so I thought it was time,” he says.
And this little one below is now named Ire Mango and is heading to California with new owners. So far, six of the ACC puppies have found homes.
“It’s amazing. This is usually a tough time of year to get adoptions,” says ACC president Diana Ripley. “And we’ve had a lot of tourists coming in to walk dogs. It’s really helping to get the dogs socialized.”
We couldn’t track votes on St. John, but if you’d like to see how stateside readers voted state-by-state, click here! (Note the Oregon hippies.)
Odessa, is a great, old-time St. John house just above the beach at Hart Bay. You’ll find Odessa on Iguana Road, just off Chocolate Hole East.
This is a classic, older West Indian-styled beach house that is charming, and the owner has done some nice updating.
There are three bedrooms, multiple decks, a pool and a spa, lots of frangipani, cactus and big old trees all around the property and it has a private path straight to Hart Bay Beach.
The things we like best are the breezes, the surf sounds and the gigantic views. We shot this couple of minutes of video on a horribly hazy Sahara dust afternoon, and even then the views were gorgeous.
See for yourself, below. And find out more about Odessa, here.
