"Wakey, wakey" I gently poked Dave, "time to go hiking...".
Towit he replied "What? What did you say? Coffee??"

"Would Johnn Horn have had a coffee do you think?" I queried?

We were being held gently yet firmly on a mooring ball in Waterlemon Bay, and looking forward (after coffee of course) to the plans we had made to meet up with fellow travellers, fellow Canadians here on vacation, and Sailing Banyan fans: Catherine & Henry (SV Mowzer)) and go hike the Johnny Horn Trail.

Which leads me back to the original question of just who was Johnny Horn? And did he drink Coffee??

St John (USVI) is chock full of walking trails criss-crossing the island. One of them being the Johnny Horn Trail, which connects Waterlemon Bay, in a 2 mile across and 400 foot incline/decline across the island, reaching Coral Harbour on the other side.

"Where we can have a hamburger at Skinny Legs" I whispered (or would that be considered a bribe?) in Dave's ear.

"What? Hamburger's?" He opened one eye, "Why didn't you say so? Let's GO!" he jumped out of bed, and started to get ready, as I handed him his cup of coffee.

So back to Johnny Horn. He was born Johan Horn, and was the "Chief Book-keeper and Merchant of the Danish West Indies and Guinea Company of St Thomas, and second in command to Governor Gardelin" in 1733".

Englishman John Charles (former actor who became a small planter on St. John), said the following of Horn: "He had a grimace for a face, lies for eyes, noes for a nose, arse cheeks for face cheeks, fears for ears, whips for lips, dung for a tongue, and to all who knew him it seems strange that he has but one horn for a name".

After a description like that, who wouldn't wonder who Johnny Horn was??

We picked up Catherine & Henry, beached our dinghy and secured her to the tree, where the stillness and quiet of morning had not yet woken anything up but the green rustling of leaves.



Scoping out the map and trying to orient ourselves, however, we had Catherine & Henry along who had walked this trail before and lived to tell the tale, so we knew we were in safe hands.



This was easy walking along the pre-established and well-trod trails, and whoa, some ruins along the way interrupting our getting to know each-other type of conversation.



Exploring the site and clambering through the rocky ruins,



the views simply astounding,



of what used to be someone's home, prize possession perhaps,



a place where people collected over meals and drinks and chores?

Actually, not so. What we were standing on used to be a Danish Guardhouse. As you can see by the views, this guardhouse perched on the perfect hill-top location of Leinster Point, guarding two critical water-way passages (the Fungi Passage and The Narrows), "The guardhouse was equipped with cannons and manned by 16 soldiers".

("Umm, Fungi passage??")

"Well, I'm sure that the soldiers would gather here over meals and drinks and chores too !!" I thought to myself.

We continued along, hiking and chatting,



stopping for a moment or two to admire fellow travellers along the way,





(or perhaps it was simply to catch our breath, as we were moving steadily upwards, and we hadn't done this since... oh, the Grenada Hashes??).

At the end of the road, in Coral Bay, the beautiful Moravian Church was waiting to greet us,



and we walked around for a bit, exploring...



...enjoying the feel to the town, stopping to laugh along the way,



get re-directed,



and eventually came to rest our weary butts at Skinny Legs, where we ordered what was declared by the Dave as "The. Best. Burger. Ever", with the very generous compliments of Catherine & Henry. Thank you so very much !!



This was indeed the best burger ever, done the way we ordered them, thick beef laying on the freshly baked bun that didn't overwhelm the burger. We had all ordered different states of done-ness, and we laughed to see that they all arrived properly identified for the waitress who was bringing them. One pickle on bun = well done. One slice of tomato on bun = medium well. Or something like that.

It is still overwhelming and humbling, admittedly a little strange to us as we try to comprehend the volume of people that read us, follow our adventures, read our blogs, and make contact with us. It brings a heart-felt smile to our faces, as perhaps we do know, having followed others before us.

Unfortunately, it was time to get up and get going, which meant a hike back up the hill, following the sandy pebbly road around twists and turns, the heat of the sun blaring down our backs, stopping every few minutes under the pretense of inspecting a rock or a leaf or a butterfly, but really, it was to catch our breath, and watch as Henry continued bravely onwards ahead of us. Behind us we were being overtaken by a hiker, who obviously had not eaten a burger before attempting this return walk, like we just had !!

Dinghy was waiting for us when we got back, and we immediately cooled off by a swim as soon as we got back to Banyan, followed by sundowners on SV Mowzer, where Dave attempted to try and help Henry with some chart plotter issues.

A short flat walk along the beach coastline the next day,



heading towards the ruins of what used to be the majestic Annaberg Plantation, had us stretching our weary but not achy muscles of the day before. We admired the Paw-Paw's along the way,



and arrived at the ruins, where we spent quite some time with the National Parks volunteer. He was interesting and informative, relating the varied history of this place that included the slave quarters, the boiling rooms, the kitchens, the mill... all of it had us glued to our spots at the top of the hill.



Interesting and fascinating, a whole different time, a whole different life,



and we were just a little sad to have to turn around and come back.

Since we have incoming family visiting us in Antigua early April, a schedule was starting to form, with the weather, as always, guiding us to action.

It was sadly time to drop Banyan's lines, say "Bye-bye, it's been FUNTASTIQUE" to Catherine & Henry,



"Hope to see you soon, enjoy your vacation & let's keep in touch!!"

We'd made a difficult decision to leave St John and the new friends we had met, not easy to give up the opportunity to re-connect with our old friends who were also exploring here, find ourselves missing the full moon party, the BVI's... and get moving.