Maho Bay Hermit Crab Report

Soren & Max visited with us here at Maho last week and created "The Hermit Crab Project" - a video & learning experience about hermit crabs. They interviewed hermit crab "experts" - Maho Bay Staff! - with Ben, Laura & Lance all getting their 5 minutes of fame. Their excitement with exploring and understanding something new is fascinating, and their ability to retain information almost word for word about something they enjoyed learning is fun to see.

Annaberg School Gets Cleaned Up!

The St. John Historical Society recently cleaned up the Annaberg School ruins which are just around the corner from us! Be sure to check it out on your way to/from Waterlemon.

From the St. John Tradewinds Newspaper:

"Nearly 20 members of the St. John Historical Society donated more than 40 volunteer hours in the V.I. National Park on Saturday, January 14. Members wielded machetes, clippers and weed whackers in an effort to clear the brush from the Annaberg School, one of the most significant historic sites on St. John. VINP interns Aleta McKeage and Casey Durchholz were also on hand to assist in the clearing.The Annaberg School was established in 1839 to educate the children of enslaved workers on St. John. Beginning in 1983, the SJHS logged 1,700 hours of volunteer time over three years to clear and stabilize the site and has continued its stewardship ever since."

one man's trash is another man's........profit?

When living in the islands you tend to become a little disconnected from the news and current trends. By the last day of vacation most are very curious as to what they've "missed" for news over the past week while at Maho, just imagine how much those of us that have been here over the entire winter have "missed!"

Maybe we don't have time for it or maybe it just doesn't fit our current lifestyle: all the snorkeling, swimming, beaching, boating, hiking, sailing, and diving that we do - where would catching up on the 2012 election fit in that schedule? wait, is this even an election year?

For the past year or so we've been collecting used fryer oil and burning it when firing our pottery kiln. The setup and idea is great: burn something abundant and something all restaurants are paying to get rid of on St. John, and do so in a cool way: creating pottery! I mean, who else has a vegetable fired pottery kiln? So when guests ask us questions like "why would someone be crazy enough to just 'give' you their old vegetable cooking oil, people pay a premium and even steal the stuff from restaurants in the states" we tend to look confused. Apparently used fryer oil is in high demand! - well that's news to us! The NY Times article is very interesting, especially for those of us that didn't know stealing vegetable oil is now a serious business, costing some restaurant chains millions each year.

Pictured below is our wood kiln (retrofitted!) for oil burning. Oil used for the firing come from us, as well as other St. John restaurants. The kiln is fitted with 4 burners (like the 2 pictured), which help it reach the 2,300 degrees needed for each firing.

sand scupture Sundays

Each week here at Maho Bay we host a sand castle building contest for our guests. This tends to be most popular with the kids, though we don't discriminate based on age! The contest starts each Sunday at 10am and runs until noon, at which time the judging begins. By the looks of some of the castles pictured here with such attention to detail and quality you'd have to believe the prizes are quite substantial, and they are: 1st prize each week is desert from our restaurant for each of the winners, retail value of $6.00 each!

Max & Soren won last Sunday for their hermit crab castle (pictured above).

things that go bump in the night

The last couple of nights here at Maho we've been hearing strange noises between the hours of 8pm and 5am. Those of us living in staff section and guests staying in upper "E" section have been listening to very loud "thumps" randomly every 5-30 seconds or so, the sound of what could be a faulty screen door? perhaps the wind blowing a roll-down against wood? a pirate with a peg-leg dancing on the boardwalks? The actual culprit? Bats! Lots of Bats!

When daylight broke yesterday morning everyone living under the large Genip tree in staff section found their tents and boardwalk covered in half-eaten genips! While genips are certainly tasty and fun to eat, nobody could have eaten as many as we found along the boardwalk and ground. It must have been the work of "fruit bats," as we have now named them. This was confirmed last night, as the original bats told all of their friends about the wonderful genips to be had in upper staff section, resulting in a whole colony of bats setting up shop eating the ripe genips. This wouldn't be so troubling if when they ate the fruit they were considerate enough to drop the seed on the ground. Instead the seeds keep falling on our boardwalks, creating quite a noise.

One possible solution this morning was to cut down all the fruit in the tree, but there was a slight problem: the tree is huge and towers over the entire area with thousands of little genip fruits. Guess we'll have to wait until the fruit is no longer to their liking, or they finish the entire fruit in the tree!

Pictured above is a genip seed on the railing, with the outer shell peeled off, below on the boardwalk is a sampling of what we dealt with this morning.

good deeds for the day

Donny, one of our maintenance crew members here at Maho, took it upon himself to do something really neat for us on his day off today: pick up trash!

Starting at Maho he decided to walk down the driveway, jumping into the woods now and then to grab the stray bottle or plastic bag that had drifted out of sight. The driveway itself is shared by many, not just us here at Maho - The National Park Service has a house near our property, along with 5 different houses and villas. But regardless of how much traffic there is on the road, it still boggles my mind how trash actually arrives on the road to begin with.

By the end of the driveway Donny had collected 3 bags of trash, 1 car battery (really?!), and a couple of steel poles.

The next time you see Donny around Maho buy him a beer and say thanks! (but make sure it's while he's off the clock!).

@Work: Sail Pepper

Each Sunday one of our local newspapers does a feature/interview with someone here in the islands about their work and life. It's a piece that has become a favorite of mine over the years each Sunday, and this past week we were pleasantly surprised to see two faces very familiar to us here at Maho: Fred Renner & Renee Proctor, otherwise known as "The Peppers."

Fred & Renee love to have a laugh and make people laugh, so I thought for sure we'd see one of their classic jokes within the piece. Those of you that have sailed with them before know what I'm talking about.......try asking them what they did before doing charters the next time you're out with them and I guarantee it will be something different than what was in the interview. My favorite? Renee: "I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned because I couldn't concentrate." With Fred adding: "Oh, I thought you were squeezed out?"

For more of their lighthearted humor (and better jokes!) you'll have to sail with them yourselves this season here at Maho.

For a preview of the couple you'll be sailing with and their "job" check out the article here.