She Came, She Paddled, She Conquered

Our Guest Services Manager, Erin McNaught, went to Tortola over the weekend for a Stand Up Paddle Race and took the Gold in the women's open division. Paddle Boarding has been catching on quickly over the last few years and you can now rent them here at Maho Bay during your stay. The BVI Beacon has the article referencing our staff triumph in what we consider to be an international competition!

Like Erin mentions in the article, you can see all kinds of cool stuff while paddling. Ginger in the Art Department even got to spend some time paddling with a spotted eagle ray which is really cool. It is a different perspective when paddling while standing up instead of in a kayak. So if you are looking for something new, see what the craze is all about and let someone know what you saw!

Cyber Monday incredible deal!

Getting a one year lease extension is definitely something to be thankful for, but we have another reason thanks to the USVI Department of Tourism!

There is an amazing opportunity for those who wish to come visit Maho or Concordia Eco and Premium Tents in January that has just been announced by the Department of Tourism. Travelers who book this promotion on Cyber Monday November 28, 2011 will get $500 instant credit/discount, $750 in gift certificates to use while on island, and the fifth night free. This is by far the best deal that has been offered by the department of tourism! In order to receive this promotion, you must book Air and Hotel together through Expedia.com, we will not be able to provide this package through our own reservations office. If you miss Cyber Monday, you can still book before Dec 9th and receive part of the promotion. We've taken the nuts and bolts of this directly from the DOT and it is below for further clarification.

For a 24 hour period on Cyber Monday (November 28, 2011) a very rich promotion will be offered. After Cyber Monday, from November 29 through December 9, a slightly less rich promotion will be available.This offer will only be available through Expedia.com

OFFER DETAILS

OFFER for booking window of NOVEMBER 28, 2011only:

i. $500.00 Instant Credit PER PACKAGE The booking must be a minimum of five nights, fall within the designated travel dates and be booked within the booking window. The instant credit promotion must be a package that has been combined with air and a USVI hotel. We will not honor back-to back room only bookings that have not been combined with air. The voucher must include the booking code USVICM11.

ii. $750 in USVI CERTIFICATES ($500 RETAIL, $100 DINING, $150 ACTIVITIES )

iii. 5^th night FREE

*FIVE NIGHT MINIMUM STAY REQUIRED

*BOOKING DATE: NOVEMBER 28, 2011 ONLY

*TRAVEL WINDOW: January 1-16, 2012 (travel must be completed by 1/16/12)

OFFER for the booking period of NOVEMBER 29 – December 9, 2011

i. $200.00 Instant Credit PER PACKAGE The booking must be a minimum of five nights, fall within the designated travel dates and be booked within the booking window. The instant credit promotion must be a package that has been combined with air and a USVI hotel. We will not honor back-to back room only bookings that have not been combined with air. The voucher must include the booking code USVICM11.

ii. $300 in USVI CERTIFICATES ($150 RETAIL, $50 DINING, $100 ACTIVITIES )

iii. 5^th night FREE

*FIVE NIGHT MINIMUM STAY REQUIRED

*BOOKING WINDOW: NOVEMBER 29 – DECEMBER 9, 2011 ONLY

*TRAVEL WINDOW: January 1-16, 2012 (travel must be completed by 1/16/12)

lease extention

The Maho landowners have just extended the lease through June of 2013. I agreed to this with great relief. This last lease extension will offer everyone an opportunity to enjoy Maho for two more winter seasons.

I will not accept another short-term extension. We will either get a long-term lease which will allow for some wonderful capital improvements and investment in new technologies or close at the end of the lease in June 2013.

You can imagine the stress and anxiety of our employees, boat captains, artists, concessionaires and all the small businesses who make Maho special, not knowing if they have a job next year and who need to prepare for their own future.

This additional year means a great deal to our guests, staff, and the Island of St. John. It means that we all get extra time to do or redo some of our most favorite things. It has been a tough year for many which meant the possibility of not visiting Maho one last time. We hope this will afford you the opportunity. There is a special magic here that cannot be found anywhere else, and we are all grateful to have just a little more time to enjoy it.

I hope you are as excited as we are about this extra time we have acquired. For all of you that have already booked for May 2012, have no worries. We will be changing those rates back to our standard low season rates and will adjust your reservations accordingly.

Once again, I am so pleased to be able to share this news with everyone and hope to see you at Maho.

Best,

Stanley Selengut

being an artist is hard work

Everyone here at Maho is incredibly excited to see our glass blowing facility back up and running for the season. Each year we shut it down for the "H-word" season, and start blowing again sometime in November.

To get things properly tested they decided to run a class with a few staff members, lucky us! The 3 of us that took the class had never tried before, but had plenty of "experience" watching the resident blowers over the past few seasons. Turns out actually working the glass is very difficult, much harder than the artists make it look. Simple things like gathering glass, rolling the glass, re-heating the glass, all become very difficult upon your first try. While using the jacks to separate a ball of glass from the rod or "punte" all I could think about was how easy the glass blowers had made it look and how impossible it seemed for me to do!

Fortunately the class we took (and the classes we offer for guests) started from the beginning, at a very fundamental level; learning your way around the glass shop and different tactical strategies for working helps considerably. Everything was done in a "dry run" at first before attempting to work the glass. The pieces we made started out easy and gradually turned more difficult as we learned the different aspects of working the glass. First we learned how to make a small rose, before graduating to the mixing of colored glass in making either a paperweight, a starfish, or a stamped soap dish. We all chose the paperweight, as it had a medium degree of difficulty compared to the starfish which apparently takes quite a bit more "artistry." Learning to twist the glass, flatten the glass, gather different colors and smooth the sides became very interesting and fun. The best part? whatever you create tends to look pretty good when finished - after all, it's a glowing ball of art that you created at the end of a rod, how could it not?

If you're visiting this season I highly recommend giving it a try, it will give you a completely new appreciation for what our glass blowers are doing during their demonstrations each night. It will also give you a glob of glass that you can say you created yourself! And if you have any artistic ability at all (not me!) you'll be going home with a colorful glass starfish.

Above: "gathering" glass from the furnace on a rod

Below: Applying color to the gathered glass. The color is actually shards of broken glass

Above: Stamping a sun catcher

Below: From left to right are the possible creations during the class, paperweights in different shapes and forms, a soap dish in the shape of a shell, and the ever-impossible starfish

big waves at Little Maho

Those of you that live on the coast in the states will probably get a good laugh out of this, but the waves in this video are monstrous to us!

During the winter we tend to get swells every other week or so, bringing "big" waves to our beaches. This swell is a few weeks early, and since it was mainly a north-northeast swell our own Little Maho beach saw some heavy wave action. Previous guests to Maho will indeed think these waves are much different than the 1-2 inch ripples that usually hit our beach. Those visiting Cinnamon Bay will find almost a direct hit from the swell, producing the kind of waves you can actually surf - something that doesn't happen often here on St. John!

If you happen to be visiting during one of these swells and feel like it's taken all of your beach options away; fear not: if we're getting heavy waves on the north side of the island it means that the south side should be perfectly calm.

We've been hit!

As if we weren't far enough off the grid and disconnected from the rest of the world already.............our phone system and internet here at Maho has been down for the past couple of days due to lightning giving us a direct hit. At about 2:30am Friday morning one of the loudest and most violent thunder & lightning storms made its way over the hill from Annaberg and towards Whistling Cay, but not before striking a phone pole and tent in staff section.

According to NOAA, the odds of being hit by lightning are about 1/1,000,000, though one staff member came dangerously close during this storm - the lightning came through the tent and struck the bed, just a matter of inches away from where he was sleeping. Needless to say, it was a very scary moment and night for all of us here at Maho as we started to access damage and deal with the emotional aspects of coming so close to being hit.

Nothing other than our phone system, internet, and one staff tent was damaged (though we're still in the middle of fixing everything!).

If you're trying to reach us please email. We have our internet back up and running, but the phone system is still down. If you're trying to make a reservation please send us the request via email and we will email or call you back asap.

mahobay@maho.org
reservations@maho.org

Top picture: where the lightning came through the tent, near the roof
bottom picture: portion of the mattress that was hit