When was your last visit to St. John? Wondering what’s up? Here is the latest

After a relatively uneventful hurricane season 2019 – except for a surprise visit of Hurricane Dorian – St. John is pretty much back to it’s beautiful pre-Irmaria self. Dorian was supposed to be a tropical storm passing well over 100 miles away and ended up being a category 1 hurricane that went right over us. The forecast advisory only changed at 8am in the morning at by noon all hell was breaking loose. Thankfully Captain Steve had secured our 32FS Regulator really well “just in case” and everything stayed in place. We are very grateful for that since he had just given our boat a major makeover buffing out and repairing all the scratches and dents that remained from Irma.

DOWNTOWN CRUZ BAY

The key places that were still closed since Irmaria, Beach Bar and Joe’s Rum Hut (now named Rum Hut with a slightly more upscale menu and look) have just re-opened so Cruz Bay town is pretty much like it was. Beautiful large Coconut Palm Trees have been planted along Cruz Bay beach and it looks great. Planting them was a major undertaking, check out the video here.

The wine shop Island Cork that carries more than 200 different wines now added a Bistro with great snacks it is a great place to unwind and have a terrific glass of wine with some fantastic treats.

The Parrot Club expects to reopen there within the next few weeks, and upscale dining venue  Waterfront Bistro has plans to reopen later this year.

Sushi Bar Umami is gone there now is a Tap & Still which some of you might now from Red Hook, St. Thomas.

The gravel parking lot by barge exit that had been closed for maintenance since October has also just re-opened and parking is currently free there (YAY!). There also is a new paid parking in the place where Lumberyard used to be that is the best / closest parking if you go on a charter for us unless you can snatch up one of the few free spaces by National Park Dock. If you are in that area, also check out the Eco Station St. John which offers recycling and refills for cleaners, shampoo etc a great approach to tackle the trash problem on our little island.

BEACHES AND RESORTS

The Westin is up and running and everything is looking great.

Caneel Bay Resort and Cinnamon Campground remain closed with no opening/rebuilding date. You can park at the former Caneel entrance and pay for a golf cart transfer to Honeymoon Beach or you can rent a paddleboard from us and paddle to the caneel beaches by paddleboard.

Concordia Eco Resort near Salt Pond has new owners and they are rebuilding.

A new bar has opened across the road from Maho (“Maho Crossroads”). Some love it others hate it, overall Maho is busier than before and parking can be a challenge. In return Cinnamon is very peaceful and quiet with ample parking now that there is no campground.

Yes, we are missing a lot of the beautiful Palmtrees at some beaches and sadly the National Park does not consider them “native species” so they are not replanting them. However a lot of the shrubs are gone so many beaches like hawksnest that were narrow before are now much wider.

2020 boating destinations

BVI

Everything for our main destinations in the BVIs is pretty much back to normal,  Corsairs at Great Harbour, Jost van Dyke (pictured below) has been completely rebuilt since the hurricanes and is looking great!

Foxy’s Taboo (Diamond Cay, pictured below) has also been rebuilt and Pirate’s on Norman Island is back open, Willy T. have moved back to Norman Island so aside from the ever increasing BVI customs fees (at the moment about 75-95$ per person) everything is like before or even better.

We can only imagine how bad the hurricanes and storm surge must have been on one of our favorite places, Anegada, as it is very low with almost zero elevation but you will not be able to tell, everything has been rebuilt and looks amazing and a lot of the big palm trees at Cow Wreck beach (pictured below) survived the storms.

 

USVI

Lime Out

The new Limeout floating taco bar that was located in the East End near Hanson Bay is closed due to permitting problems / deny of mooring permit at the location. It remains closed until further notice while they search for a better location. Abi’s at Green Cay /STT is also closed and it does not look like they will be reopening.

So for now Pizza Pi the pizza boat remains the only “bar stop” on the USVI trips. So the full day trip can be a pretty long day on the water as you are not leaving the boat except for snorkeling, so we have added a new USVI trip that is the 3/4 day St. John which is 6 hours and enough to bring you to the key sights on St. John in the North and South without going all around the island.

More to come…

New USVI destinations are however in the works among others a new resort/restaurant on Lovango Cay as well as a floating lounge in Pillsbury Sound.

Lovango Resort and Beach Club

New destination on Lovango is opening this week (Feb 2, 2020)

Phase 1

ZoZo’s H2O Restaurant (opening Feb 2020)

Casual dining at the water’s edge, this is the perfect lunch, full-day or dinner excursion. Lunch and early dinner served daily from 11am-6pm

This is a possible stop on our 3/4 day or full day St. John trip.

Phase 2

The Lovango Beach Club (opening December 2020)

The first of its type in the USVI! The Beach Club will provide restaurant services, an exotic beach destination with services:

Beach facilities, water sports, beach games, large oceanfront swimming pool, cabanas, changing facilities with locker rooms and showers for boaters

Daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal memberships

Phase 3

The Lovango Resort & Beach Club (opening December 2021)

An island resort community with discretely-located accommodations. Your home away from home is designed to maximize your privacy with spectacular views. The resort will include attention to wellness and picturesque wedding venues. Hotel guests may enjoy all the benefits of the Beach Club.

This stunning resort will be fully self-sustainable providing its own solar and wind power for electricity and a reverse osmosis plant for all of its fresh water needs.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE

Follow us on facebook.com/rockhoppin or instagram.com/rockhoppin_charters for updates.

Mark your calendars, the iconic Pizza Pi boat that serves fresh pizza made on the boat is re-opening for the second season under new ownership.

They have done a complete interior overhaul. These changes will allow them to increase capacity and dramatically reduce wait times. The changes include:

• • Installation of new 20kw generator to support additional capacity.

  • Installation of an additional oven that will increase pizza producing capacity by ~65%.

  • Complete redesign of galley and forecastle for increased refrigeration, storage and overall greater efficiency.

  • Improved space for displaying and storing merchandise.

  • Installation of new sound system with Wakeboard and JL speakers.

Where is the Pizza Boat?

The Pizza Boat is at Christmas Cove off Little St. James. There is great snorkeling nearby or when go there for dinner on a sunset cruise.

How to book a Trip to Pizza Pi

We can visit Pizza Pi within the following trips

• Half day trip St. John 
• 3/4 day trip St. John
• Full day trip St. John
• Sunset cruise. Sunsets are especially beautiful during the winter month
• Day trip Jost van Dyke (if you don’t want to spend the whole day on Jost, you can snorkel in the morning, head to pizza pi and then to Jost for the afternoon)

Looking for a little St. John Fix at home? We have new T-Shirts in lots of sizes and styles.

We are all for using local businesses and had our first shirts locally screen printed. For a small business like us it however turned out impossible to manage the stock and have the right colors and sizes and shapes available for our guests, when we keep them on the boat they get moist when we keep them at the house the hurricane messes them up and the shipping to the States for orders is expensive and time-consuming (as we have to fill out customs forms).

So we are now printing the shirts states side on demand and they will be shipped directly from there to you. That gives you a much wider choice of styles and colors and super easy online ordering, pay via card or paypal

There are 3 different designs (click on items in list to see all variants):

I am the Captain T-Shirt  (unisex tee, slim fit women’s tee, long sleeve, baseball tee, hoodie and women’s tank)

Rockhoppin Shirts in lighter colors (with dark print) – unisex tee, slim fit women’s tee, long sleeve, baseball tee, unisex triblend tee and women’s tank)

Rockhoppin Shirts in darker colors (with light color print) – unisex tee, unisex triblend tee, long sleeve, hoodie, youth tee and women’s tank)

Hurry this campaign is running for 2 weeks if we print 5 of each of the 3 designs, it will continue for longer

 

It has been a few turbulent months for Willy T. and their owner Ewan Anderson. The legendary floating bar Willy T. that used to be moored at Norman Island / The Bight for 35 years was destroyed when the 2 category 5 hurricanes hit the BVI and USVI in September 2017.

A new vessel was secured at retrofitted to match the original Willy T. with a lots of improvements (like larger and now with septic holding tanks). Upon arriving in the BVI after a 1600 mile voyage in May 2018, Willy T. was declined anchorage at their former spot on Norman Island, you can read more about it here and here.

After a giant wave of support in social media they thankfully quickly found a new spot which is at Great Harbour on Peter Island and have re-opened last week in June 2019 but after a few months was magically allowed to return to it’s original spot.

The Willy T is a party spot with their traditional island drinks are fantastic and always served with a generous pour of rum and a smile. Dark & Stormies, Rum Punches and Bushwackers are  the drinks of the day and as the afternoon wears on, shooters and body shots become a great source of entertainment and intoxication. It’s a truly magic place where memories are made.

“R” rated jumps off the top deck, laughing, screaming, music, happy hour, all leads to a great time on the Willy T. A quick google image search will give you an idea of the party that is going on there every day. And check out our video below from the infamous jump off the top deck:

More information: http://www.williamthornton.com/

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Ready to go and check out the new Willy T?

Book your Day Trip from St. John to Peter Island/Willy T. here

You can use the calendar below to directly make a booking (select date and hit book now). Not sure yet? Then you can also send us a Booking Enquiry with this form or via email to rockhoppinusvi(at)gmail.com

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Online Booking

Or the form below to to make a booking. Select your date and pay a 150$ deposit. The rest is due on day of charter (after trip, cash, card or cheque). All prices include captain and fuel. Not included: BVI customs/mooring fees and gratuity

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Norman Island”, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

It has been a rough ride being hit by 2 category 5 hurricanes within 2 weeks in September 2017 and we are finally back online with high speed internet via a satellite dish we mounted on our roof terrace. The fiber optic cables for DSL and TV are still down in January 2018, 4 month past hurricane.

The maximum gust measured on St. John (before meter blew away) was 277mp/h (!) and the highest sustained windspeed was 207 mp/h, the highest sustained windspeed ever recorded anywhere in the world! These are numbers from local meters that were blown away in the storm so they are not part of the official recordings or statistics. In the official statistics, Hurricane Irma and Maria rank 2nd and 8th in the list of the strongest ever recorded Atlantic Hurricanes.

Our house, boat and paddleboards faired pretty well and sustained only minor damages considering the incredible wind speeds. We towed our 32 FS Regulator Powerboat out of the water and had it on a trailer in the boat yard, Captain Steve secured the trailer with sandscrews, straps, chains etc. to the ground and trees and yes, it stayed in place (some trailers were tipped over or went down the hill backwards).

The boat was hit by flying debris like pieces of roofing and rain that was pushed through any cracks with 200mp/h damaged some of the electronics like sonar depth/fish finder but it’s otherwise fine. A total of 450 boats were destroyed on St. John alone so we were very lucky. We have had only about 5 charters since the storm and are  currently performing some maintenance resuming charters February 1st.

Apologies if you emailed us and did not hear back we did not have internet for months and some messages might have been lost due to mailbox full or accidently deleted when going through 65.000 unread emails with a lot of them being spam. Please re-send your message and we will get back to you asap.

Is St. John ready for visitors past Hurricane?

We would say definitely yes, if you can live without cable tv and don’t mind little inconveniences like missing some missing street signs. Over 90% of the houses have power now. The Westin and Caneel Bay will remain closed until 2019 but there are lots of villas and apartments that survived the storm and are available for rent. All grocery stores are open, there is plenty of food and produce.

A lot of restaurants were destroyed but there are enough bars and restaurants open for a fun night out. All hiking trails and beaches are open and the water is clear and has been declared safe to swim. Some of the beaches are actually nicer than before (wider due to sand deposited by storm and downed shrubs) and there are actually some new beaches that have appeared since the storm  (due to sand deposits or places previously unaccessible due to vegetation). Everything is quiet and relaxed there is no struggle to find a parking space at beach and everybody is happy for any visitor showing up. The only place a little more crowded than before is the Starfish market parking its always full, lots of locals go there to conduct there business on the public wifi.

Repeat visitors will enjoy re-discovering their island, finding new beaches, driftwood sculptures on the beach and having different views from the hiking trails. I know a lot of you have helped with donations etc. but the best thing you can do for St. John is to come back and spend lots of money at the local businesses

As for our friends in the BVI they were hit pretty bad by the storm as well, but a few places have reopened so no matter if you want to go to Anegada, Virgin Gorda, Norman Island or Jost each place will have at least one bar or restaurant open. If you prefer to stay local, Pizza Pi and Abi are open as well.