Nick in New Hampshire submits his St. John-inspired license plate. He’s a pirate at heart. That means when he wakes up in the morning, he’s groggy. (You get it, right?)
Which reminds us, if you see a bottle of Pyrat rum on St. John, treat yourself. It’s pricey, but smooooth. We’ve only seen in at Pine Peace. Have you seen it other places?
What’s your best pirate joke? Post it. A Pirate Radio bumper sticker to the best one.
We’ll start. “What does a fashionable pirate wear? Arrrrrmani!”
St John has plenty of two things: sun and wind. And if you’d like to get off the grid, write to Bill Clinton. The former president (pictured above, talking energy with the wife on St. Thomas, 1997) has a brilliant idea for an energy experiment, and St. John is actually very close to being on his radar for it.
He suggests taking an entire state, or an entire territory, and using it as an alternative energy testing ground. Solar, wind, cow farts, etc, etc. (St. John has cows too.) He says Puerto Rico would be a great testing ground. We think he should think smaller. St. John. A world without WAPA.
Only problem is wind turbines are the size of high rises. Where’s an unobtrusive place to put them? The North Shore gets lots of wind. Good. Settled then.
You can read Clinton’s “rock the world” ideas here.
Noah’s Little Arks purveyor Joe Morris, aka Dinghy Joe, has been made an honest man, marrying longtime partner Kim. The wedding was at the Nazareth Lutheran Church in Cruz Bay. The star-studded reception was held at the glitzy St. John Waterfront Bistro. Kim’s beautiful. Joe cleans up nice.
It isn’t the kind of night hours these owners were used to keeping when they ran the old Front Yard, but Jake’s, the new place that moved into the old Chilly Billy’s location, is now serving dinner.
The lunch menu is extended to the evening hours. Kitchen closes at 9. Restaurant at 10.
Simple stuff. Burgers, wraps, Philly’s, etc. Check out the Jake’s dinner menu, here.
On-StJohn.com has brought you nearly 900 minutes of video viewing since the site debuted in January 2007. Remixing a 22 second clip of a man dancing in a grass skirt and a coconut bra has shattered all viewing records.
We have obviously set the bar too high.
New feature: Embarrassing tourist video. You submit. We’ll mix.
On-StJohn.com reader Rob ( a.k.a on some of the travel forums as nogooddaddy or pipanale) made a promise to dance the Conga - in a grass skirt and coconut bra - to Ruth at St. John Spice a year or so ago as part of his (no one will EVER remember this) birthday planning for his next trip.
Ruth isn’t one to forget. Ruth calls her chips.
A year has gone by. It is time to pay up. And Ruth’s camera was set to video.
Mind you, Rob seems like a mild-mannered family man with a wife and daughter and a very snarky Website. But this took guts.
Warning: This is not for the faint of heart. See what happens when you make promises on St. John, below…
Now that’s a catchy name! It’s the name of a tree with spiky growths all over the trunk, one of which is on the property.
Monkey No Climb is a brand new, two bedroom cottage on Bordeaux Mountain. A newly paved road takes you right to the villa, close to 1,100 feet above sea level. Both bedrooms have king beds and air conditioning, there’s satellite, WiFi and a hot tub, and absolutely amazing views across the Sir Francis Drake Channel.
Monkey No Climb just entered the rental market, and the calendar is wide open. If you’ve never considered Bordeaux Mountain, do. It’s a great, central location and this is a great little cottage. And how about that view? Check out Monkey No Climb, here!
Thursday night’s heavy rains clashed with a muddy Pond Bay worksite, resulting in a very brown Chocolate Hole salt pond.
If there is properly installed silt fencing at the Pond Bay project, it isn’t working so well. I there’s not properly installed silt fencing, somebody’s got some explaining to do. (Thanks for the pics, Rob.)
So work is officially underway on the Cruz Bay Roundabout. Here’s a repost of the plan. That intersection is kind of a roundabout anyway. All the spokes, minus the actual circle. (Chicken scratch not to scale!) $7 million and two years. Just like a new villa.
…But beaching and boating are probably replaced by jigsaw puzzles and video slots for the next day or so. (And you thought you’d never set foot in one of those places.) The latest official forecast says Puerto Rico will get 4 to 8 inches of rain. Disturbance 92, a Tropical Wave, is brushing along the Virgins, on the verge of becoming Tropical Depression #6 and may be on its way to getting a name - Tropical Storm Fay - sometime after it leaves the territory.
The former Tage space has been transformed into the new home for chef Walter Hinds, former chef at the still closed Stone Terrace. Hinds Restaurant is testing out its menu and it’s definitely high-end dining. Here’s a peak at the new Hinds Restaurant menu.
It all sounds pretty tasty and creative - the kind of stuff you’d hope he would bring to the table himself and explain all the different parts to you, Iron Chef-like. But it takes a confident chef to open a restaurant on St. John in this economy with a $42 steak and a $49 lobster tail on the menu. And the restaurant is “cash only” to boot, at least right now.
The menu is salivating reading. Pretend dinner’s on us, and have fun looking at it, here.
The health inspectors are satisfied and have finally shown up to say so. Joes’s Diner reopened Tuesday afternoon. JJ’s Texas Coast re-opened its doors this morning. Grouper burger, anybody?
If you’re not staying at the Westin, that doesn’t mean you can’t go to the Westin. There are nice restaurants, a huge pool and, while it’s not Maho Bay, there’s a nice beach. The grounds are beautifully manicured and it’s a nice place to - gasp - go for a run. There is usually plenty of parking, too.
Go early in the morning, or around sunset for a drink and stroll along the tiki torch-lit beach. Very cool. Take a quick drive in and out, below!
Several Cruz Bay restaurants were hit with closure notices last week after a visit by health inspectors for what we hear were minor infractions, and are still waiting for permission to reopen.
The inspectors usually make the rounds on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the restaurant owners haven’t been revisited since early last week, leaving popular places like JJ’s Texas Coast, Joe’s Diner and Uncle Joe’s Barbeque unable to reopen.
That’s no good for hungry customers and it’s a really rotten way to treat restaurant owners who haven’t been able to do business for the last week. That kind of treatment could put a guy out of business.
It may not be the most original name, but it does get the what and where straight forward. Cruz Bay Pizza (the former Senorita’s Pizza) is now open for business.
It is CLEAN, and its menu has some interesting non-pizza choices as well. Salads, subs and wraps, fish and chips, stromboli and calzone. Check out the first stab at a menu and prices, here.
