Lonely Planet top 10 US travel destinations

The U.S. Virgin Islands recently received the top spot among the 10 U.S. travel destinations that should be on your radar in 2012. Even better is their mention of us!

"In a year when travelers are apt to still be watching their wallets, this is our #1 choice for an American tropical getaway. It’s eternally 80 degrees, rimmed with white-sand beaches on turquoise water, and, yes, it’s a US territory."

To see the list: Top 10 US travel destinations for 2012

Local article about the list: St. John Source

Exciting New Maho Bay Clayworks Classes Kicking Off in January (Tradewinds article 1/2/2012)

Ready to get those hands dirty and learn something new for the New Year?

Look no further than Maho Bay Clayworks where owner Gail Van de Bogurt is kicking off three new exciting classes this month geared for each skill level, from true beginner to advanced.

Saturday, January 7, is the first class in the new “Sculpting the Figure from Life in Terra Cotta” series, being led by well-known St. John painter Les Anderson. While many residents are familiar with Anderson’s realistic portraits and vivid Caribbean landscape paintings, this is the first time the East End artist will be leading a class in clay.

“Les has been coming to the Clay Studio for a while now and working on a bunch of different projects,” said Van de Bogurt. “He brings his knowledge of art, art history, the human figure and anatomy to the clay studio for this class which features a live model. This is a great opportunity to work with a very experienced artist with a wonderful understanding of anatomy.”

“He loves the human figure and has a great understanding about it,” she said. “It’s really fun to work with Les.”
Participants will ideally have some experience with clay and figure drawing, Van de Bogurt added.

“First of all to work with a live model you have to have a certain level of maturity,” she said. “And it would be really helpful if people had some experience with clay and drawing the human figure. It will be really hard to start completely from scratch for this class.”

Van de Bogurt is hoping to attract some local artists who may not have worked much with terra cotta, she explained.

“We’d like to attract some artists like Les who normally work two dimensionally,” she said. “Many of the great artists in the past, like Degas and Picasso, worked in clay and bronze and different three dimensional materials. It would be a great class for artists.”

Anderson’s figure class, with assistance by Van de Bogurt, starts on Saturday, January 7, and runs for four Saturdays. Each class will meet from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Maho Bay Camps pottery studio. The class fee is $250 which includes materials, firing and four additional open studio sessions.

For those with no experience with clay, mark those calendars for Tuesday, January 10, when Kaye Thomas will start a four session Potter’s Wheel for Beginners. The class will meet from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. over the next four Tuesdays and students will learn the basics of the pottery wheel.

“The class will cover centering and making tumblers, mugs with handles and bowls on the potter’s wheel,” said Van de Bogurt. “It’s geared totally for beginners and students will learn all of the steps to make stoneware they can actually take home and use.”

The tuition cost is $200, which includes clay, glaze, firing and four open studio sessions in addition to the classes.
Anyone interested in true fine art recycling will not want to miss Van de Bogurt’s special four day workshop on Vegetable Oil Firing. Maho Bay Campground’s dedication to recycling inspired resident “technical wizard” Dan Kreofsky to construct a kiln burner capable of firing stoneware pottery operating on used vegetable oil from local restaurants, explained Van de Bogurt.

“Dan designed a burner made of plastic pipes and things you can pick up right at the hardware store which uses compressed air and used vegetable oil to fire the kiln,” she said. “The great thing about it is that it has a much smaller carbon footprint and doesn’t produce as many carbons as burning wood for the firing. And it’s a great way to recycle used vegetable oil.”

Van de Bogurt and Kreofsky used 60 gallons of used veggie oil from Cruz Bay restaurants to fire their first trial and watched as the temperature rose to over 2,340 degrees, according to the Maho Bay Clayworks owner.

The workshop runs from January 18 through 21 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and costs $200. Participants will learn about burner design, ideal glazing, kiln loading decisions and hands-on oil firing. There will also be a firing party and kiln unloading, set for January 23.

Veggie Oil workshop students should bring their bisque ware, or once fired pieces, to be glazed and fired. For more information on any of the classes or to register call Maho Bay Camps activity desk at 776-6226, extension 212, or call Van de Bogurt at 514-6594.

We've been seeing a lot more of these planes sitting at our airport on St. Thomas lately, which is a good thing! Most who have flown Jet Blue have great things to say about the company, whether it's their friendly attitude or in-flight tv options, they just seem to do air travel the way air travel should be; friendly, comfortable, and stress-free. Heck, their motto is "you above all."

Most of you in the New England area should know by now that Jet Blue has recently added a direct flight from Boston. A quick check today for flights in February revealed some pretty good deals for those of you freezing in Boston today: departing Friday February 3rd and returning on Sunday February 12th (why stay just 7 days?) was a total of $442 with taxes, 1st bag flying free, and it's direct! And did we mention it's on Jet Blue? Doesn't get much better than that.

up in the trees

Ever wonder how we have such incredible and natural looking views all around Maho? It's thanks in large part to one of our maintenance staff members, Woody. With a property spanning 14 acres its more than a full-time job maintaining and keeping the vegetation at bay that grows here in the tropics. Fortunately, Woody likes to spend his days up in trees, trimming branches and clearing views. Often times you'll be walking down the boardwalks and hear a rustling in the trees, but instead of looking up and seeing an iguana it will be Woody, securing a spot in a tree 20+ feet in the air. Selective tree climbing and trimming comes naturally to Woody and plenty of guests will find reason to thank him for it this season. Rumor has it he at one point made his way from Harmony to Little Maho beach, without stepping foot on the ground and all via climbing through trees.

Since we use radios here at Maho it's not uncommon to hear staff ask where certain staff members are working at any given moment. The radio call for Woody can often be: "maintenance to Woody are you available to give a guest a ride to Harmony, or are you treed?"

The next time you're enjoying that incredible view from your tent, the dinning pavilion, F-pavilion, the store, activities or any other spot at Maho you can probably thank Woody, as he's the only one of us crazy enough to spend his days so high off the ground.

If you find Woody "treed" here at Maho say hi & thank you!

Pictured below he is working just off the Maho driveway, below the dining pavilion, and about 10-12 feet off the ground.

its been a hard day's work

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas here at Maho typically give us the time we need to take care of a few major projects before the high season gets into full gear. One of those projects that I'm sure will make plenty of guests happy in the coming months is the new layer of asphalt on the lower part of our driveway.

Each season the driveway leading up to Maho gets it's fair share of abuse though all the guest vehicles, taxi cabs, delivery trucks, and pouring rain. For the most part though, aside from a few potholes here and there, the entire driveway holds up pretty well. Unfortunately the lower part of the driveway leading up to Maho saw more than it's fair share of abuse from heavy tracked vehicle equipment leading to the new villas being built. Add to that the massive amounts of runoff from the construction site during heavy rains and you have a road that is in desperate need of repair.

Getting asphalt from St. Thomas to St. John, arranging a steamroller and driver, buying plenty of shovels and rakes, and getting enough staff together to rake the asphalt off the truck and onto the driveway takes quite a bit of coordination, and perhaps a little luck.

If anyone needs a good idea of what it felt like last week for 3 hours in the mid-day St. John sun laying the asphalt then it may be time to re-watch Cool Hand Luke. Pictured below we have 6 or 7 of us shoveling and raking it out, with plenty of steam rising from either the road or ourselves!

Holiday decorating

It may not be cold, and there may not be snow on St. John, but we still like to decorate for the Holidays! Last week was the official holiday decorating party for staff & guests here at Maho, with the restaurant getting a full treatment of lights, garland, tree, bows, ribbons, and of course a few of our own hand blown ornaments hung on the tree and around the restaurant.

If you look closely you can see some of the incredible ornaments made by our glassblowers, including a hummingbird. And if you'll be down this season for the holidays you'll have to pick up a few ornaments for next season.


No decorating party would be complete without eggnog (adult style) and cookies:

will it rain?

One of the most common questions we get via email from guests arriving in a week would have to be about the weather. Understandably, having beautiful weather while on vacation is a big deal. Would it be too much to ask just to have nice sunny days while down here? Working 50 weeks a year to enjoy 1 week of vacation in paradise, it should almost be a guarantee the weather be perfect during your vacation!

With most places in the states, the weather forecast doesn't change drastically throughout the week. Checking the weather each morning gives you a pretty good idea of what it will be like for the rest of the day and even the next few days.

Here in the islands the forecast is pretty much always the same: partly cloudy with a 20-30% chance of rain. Translation: 1) we could have a beautiful sunny day +/- a few clouds and no rain 2) we could have a beautiful sunny day with 3 or 4 ten minute rain showers 3) we could have sunny skies and zero cloud cover in the morning, a tropical downpour all afternoon, and a beautiful clear-sky sunset in the evening! I would say about 80-90% of our weather falls into something similar to above.

Will it rain while you're down here? Absolutely, I would definitely bet on it. Will it be a total disaster the entire week? The odds are not good. But just because there's a 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% chance of rain for the day, doesn't mean you won't have a beach day. Heck, you'll probably still have a full beach day when it says 80% chance of rain. When I started this post 10 minutes ago the forecast was: partly cloudy in the morning, then clear, chance of rain 20%. The actual weather outside: The sun is shinning and I can't see a cloud anywhere in the sky, there is no way it could rain today. But will it? you bet it will!