'.....out to the windy beach, Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow...' to quote from Hey Mr Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan
Let me try to explain the uniqueness of this heavenly island. The sand is soft and powdery, the water is just the right temperature, refreshing but not cold. The sea is crystal clear and calm, with hues that range from light turquoise to green and dark blue. The beaches lie within protected bays, surrounded by green hills and bordered by tropical vegetation such as coconut palms, sea grapes and beach machos. The views are spectacular and from just about every beach there is a panorama of islands, cays, rocks and other small bays. All this magnificence is protected by the Virgin Islands National Park and remain natural and undeveloped.(described with the assistance of a wonderful pictorial book entitled St John Beach Guide by Gerald Singer).
St John's sand comes almost entirely from the coral reefs and therefore is finer and softer than continental beach sand. It is produced by the force of waves and currents acting on the coral reef as coral, calcareous coral algae, the shells of various sea creatures and sea urchin spines (which make up the little black grains of sand). Additionally, the reef grazing fish, particularly parrot fish, produce a significant amount of sand.Parrotfish exist on a diet of algae, which they scrape off the surface of coral with fused teeth and then they grind the coral and algae mixture to a fine powder. The algae is absorbed as food and the remainder is excreted as sand....how fascinating! There are other reef grazing fish (eg blue tang) that also produce sand in this way and about one ton of sand per acre of reef per year is produced! The sand is therefore a waste product of the reef and it would suffocate the coral if not for the action of waves and currents. The sand collects on the perimeter of the reef and when the large ocean swells generated by storms and cold fronts in North America reach the northern shores of Islands such as St John, they become steeper and break on the shore. This pounding moves the sand from the storage areas around the reef to the beach. In the summer months, the southern coasts undergo the same process, caused by the action of trade winds and/or tropical storms.
To balance this process, sand is constantly lost but not laterally because of the protected bays. The dry sand gets blown past the line of vegetation to become soil and the wet sand is constantly washed back and forth, getting finer and finer and eventually the sand goes into suspension and goes back out to sea. Hurricanes or strong tropical storms are the means by which not only significant sand can be lost but also cause the destruction of large sections of reef. The worst threat to beaches comes from damage to the coral reef!
Before leaving Cruz Bay, we did a big snorkel the next morning, went to lunch at the Caneel Bay Resort in the adjacent bay and wandered the extensive grounds of the resort, which was once a sugar mill and sugar cane plantation. The stone ruins are well preserved and the resort's top restaurant called ZoZos is located in the sugar mill building, commanding a panoramic view of the bay. We checked out the gift shop and unfortunately I managed to leave my prescription sunglasses in the change room. In spite of all efforts to retrieve my valued cruising specs, they have not been returned.
Back on board we motored around the headland to Hawksnest Bay, yet another beautiful bay. We undertook a big snorkel again, first of all to Gibney Beach and then onto Hawksnest Beach. Here we could see some exquisite beach homes set just behind the fringing foliage. We have since read that Robert and Nancy Gibney in 1946 honeymooned on St John and later built a home, where they lived with their 3 children. It was the beatnik and later hippie era and today the beach still attracts an offbeat crowd. In 1957, some of the Gibney land was sold to J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atomic bomb) and his wife Kitty. Today that home is a community centre for the people of St John. We continued swimming, the best coral being seen on the return to Trilogy. We stayed the night and next morning set off for Trunk Bay, where the coral and fish life is legendary and the beach is as white as snow. We snorkelled to a rocky outcrop and were stunned by the very large tarpin fish, at least a metre long, that were cruising around. Back along the rocks, we experienced something of a phenomenon. Absolutely thousands of small silvery fry created almost impenetrable clouds, schooling in different sizes but all mingling and floating in the shifting water. Apparently motionless, they would then part, criss cross, reform in unison, as medium size fish delighted in swimming through the masses. Some clouds were vertical in formation and from below there was an undulation of the forms that seemed to mimic the contours of the seabed. On the way back, we also witnessed the tarpin now cruising under the schools, lifting the clouds in response to their movement, but there was no evidence of the small fish being targeted for lunch.
By the time we got back on board, the wind had come up and we once more left the mooring and motored around to the nearby Francis Bay, which offered good protection from the strong NE wind. The boys swam to the beach but reported midgies ashore and also small stinging jelly fish in the water. There was a beautiful sunset and we relaxed over a delicious Beouf Bourguignon dinner washed down with a Chilean Merlot. It doesn't get much better than this, we had to agree!