by Cody O'Connor
This is a story of how to go to St. John’s for a month and not pay for a place to stay, well not with currency anyway. I heard about it from my friend Joe Van Dyke which is also the name of an island down there. Joe did it for a month a few years ago. It is a program in which you work part of the day maintaining the resort on the off season. I was there during the month of October. The program is only during the months of May to November.
I applied for the program between December and April and you can only apply online. On MahoBay.com there was an application that was user friendly, asking your employment history, interests, education, hobbies and the positive effect you’ll have while working there. In smaller print it said the following:
Almost all work at Maho is outdoors in our 90-95 degree, full sun
high humidity environment and day-to-day living involves lots of steps.
(162 between registration and the beach, over 2900 total steps in camp)
But it wasn’t that hidden from the applicant, I mean, it is a island after all. But perhaps the best selling point is the following introduction to any applicant. It’s not hard to imagine trading a month of your life working for free in exchange for a little paradise.
This is an economical way to experience the Virgin Islands and its gorgeous surroundings. In exchange for free lodging, we ask for a commitment of one month of work in one of our various departments. Your placement will depend upon our needs and your skills. We look for enthusiastic people (or couples) with skills that will help us keep Maho Bay Camps up to par during the off season and help prepare for the high volume winter. Apply on-line today!
I started out early morning, last October 1st from Wilmington. I arrived just after six a.m. at the airport in Wilmington with new luggage, a few books and a portable DVD player. I brought some discs to watch on the long flight. As luck would have it, my flight was diverted from a twelve hour ordeal to a six hour pleasure flight. But shortly into the flight the DVD player caught on fire and became a useless piece of on-flight luggage. I could imagine the plane going down mid flight and wishing that I had brought something more floatable than a DVD player. But the short flight I took as a good sign. For the most part it was.
The plane landed safely in the afternoon and I exited the terminal looking for transportation to the ferry which would take me to where I would reside and work. It would be a while for the cab ride to the ferry. First thing off the plane I see a bar and head in.
Then my cab arrived. A friend told me I would need Dramamine for the ride, but didn’t really understand until I was holding down airplane food. Inside the car I bounced around and felt the force of winding curves on the road. I managed to keep everything down. Years of practice paid off from drinking too many Jager shots and trying to remain vertical.
We arrived at the ferry to St. John with barely a minute to spare. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough cash on me. In the frenzy I drop my bags like a Spring Breaker and rush to an ATM. I get the needed cash and luckily return to find my bags are still there. I am the last person to step foot on the ferry, but I am happy to have made it. After arriving from the ferry onto St. John I pull out the phone numbers to call for the ride to Concordia Reserve, where I was to stay for the next month.
It was before five p.m. so I look at the number and pull out my cell phone. I dial the area code and stop. The prefix is not there. I call the other number for after five o’clock. No answer. It’s a good thing as soon as you get off the ferry there are a surplus of bars. I make for one with barely a thought. I meet Erin and she takes my order. After a delicious burger and a few rum drinks at a place called at High Tide I call the after five number speaking to the person who would pick me up.
She was thirty minutes away so there was plenty of time for another beer. Jennifer picked me up. Everyone called her “Nif” and so did I. She is a tiny little woman. They only call her part of her name, Jennifer. There were other Jennifer’s where she worked so that was another reason. She is the director of the resort and an incredible person. She was better then any tour guide, pointing out everything and gave great advice as we drove the exhaustingly winding roads. It seemed as if we were adrift in a boat, rising and falling on the hilly paths.
Any nausea I felt quickly left and was replaced by awe, awe from the scenery. After thirty minutes we arrived at Concordia. I was given a quick tour and run down of the work share program. I would be working six hours a day, and doing whatever Nif the director tells me to do. To her credit, she is smart about new workers. She finds out what you do in real life and puts you doing something you would enjoy. There are plenty of tasks in varied disciplines to be completed. I met the only other members of the program, French and Wendy, a couple from Maine. They both are retired and have been to a number of countries doing volunteer work.
After a quick meeting the next morning, I was free to explore. I got some info on the VITRAN, the public transportation on St. John. I grabbed a dollar in change and waited for the bus. My first stop was Cruz Bay, the most commercialized part of the island. Nif, the director of Concordia, is going to bring me and two other workers to Maho Bay to get some groceries, which is key at Concordia since you have almost a full kitchen in your eco-tent. You can prepare a variety of meals, all you need is imagination.
After waiting and waiting for the VITRAN I catch the bus and make it to Cruz Bay. Not knowing anyone or where to go I see a bar and head for it. I order a rum drink, the special and begin to people watch.
Island life is something I am still in awe of. Stating that it’s laid back is an understatement. St. John is overly laid back. The weather is always just right for drinking. People walk by and are more interesting than anything they can drum up on television. The bartender where I’m drinking drinks faster than me and that really sets the tone for this place. I finish my food and have a couple of beers, pay and start out walking.
It seems that every bar I pass by has their own collection of regulars complete with a weathered bartender. I have to get back to Concordia, so I track down where I can grab the bus. It finally arrives and I get one. But, as usual, the bus leaves late and is dead set on taking it’s time. There’s no doubt I am going to be late.
Nif drives past the bus, seeing me on board. She turns around to pick me up. I get off the bus. This turns out to be great because I am hungry again. And I have no groceries yet.
We make our way to Maho Bay through the winding and hilly roads. Goats and donkeys are milling around at every turn. Stopping at a market I am concerned at its size but it has the basics. After some shopping we are off to get dinner. Nif and I place our orders and take in the pavilion while we wait.
Shortly thereafter names are called for food pick up. The name Cosly gets called out, again and again. Trying to help I yell it out.
“Cosly!” I yell a few times. I lean over to a couple that are waiting as well. “Are you Cosly?” Their names aren’t anywhere close to that. After saying Cosly a few more times the bartender decides to tell me it’s my food order.
“My name is Cody, not Cosly,” I say figuring the order isn’t mine. The chef calls me over to read the name. I do and it looks like Cosly and from there on I am to be known as Cosly. I get my food and sit down with the other and it tastes excellent, because it is and because I am hungry. We all get to talking. And the conversation is better then the food. We make several friends during dinner easily. This isn’t really hard because everyone is so friendly. There is a vibe to the place that seems to put everyone at ease.
After eating my first stop is on the beach, Salt Pond Bay. Seeing a trail I begin to walk it. After walking nearly twenty minutes I keep hearing movement every few minutes. I stop and look behind me, thinking it might be small animals or something similar. I walk again and there’s the sound again. Is something in the brush following me, curious as to who I am and what I’m doing here alone? Finally, after closer inspection, I see that the erratic and scratching sound is definitely something within the brush. After close inspection I discover the source of this sound. As I am walking by dozens of hermit crabs are withdrawing into their shells and falling down rocks. What a strange way to escape.
The trail is relatively easy to continue and nothing else happens of importance. On the beach I lay out a towel and take in the crystal clear water and the blinding reflection of the white sands on the beach. Amazingly, the beach is nearly empty, mostly a few people scattered about and taking in a day of snorkeling. Salt Pond Bay is apparently the best place in the Caribbean to go snorkeling. It was so good I most of the day.
I step off the beach and suddenly a car stops besides me. From inside the car a woman yells to me.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“Maho Bay,” I reply.
“That where I’m going. Hop in.” One day in and I am already privy to happy coincidences.
Upon arriving at Maho Bay I head straight for the beach which was just as awe inspiring. The water is beckoning and I drop my towel and head in. It seems as if time has stopped here. It has for me because I don’t have my watch. But, aside from modern structures, it seems like a forgotten place, which may be the allure of St. John. Not so much for tourists, but for those who seek it out to stay and work a while. Here, the world is a different place, devoid of traffic noise and crowded aisles at Wal-Mart. Like being a cast away on a deserted island with decent amenities, it is a place to slow down. There is no use for a cell phone here. Internet service can be slow at coffee house. I send a text message to everyone back home and send two e-mails. It is as though things were set in different motion to purposely slow a person down. Swimming in the nearly invisible water I forget where I’m from for a little while, bask in the appeal of being a cast away. A stranger in a strange place that is almost too beautiful to describe.
I step out on the beach and stay as long as I can. It’s October and I am resting on a beach far away from Wilmington, far away from the Brooklyn of my youth. I remember leaving for the airport and it was cold at six that morning but I know that October there will be different from here. My only contact to back home will be a few text messages and a few e-mails. I will be working soon to pay for my room and board.
I turn around a look at the island behind me and my curiosity gets the best of me. With a map of the island and no sense of direction I set off to explore. I walk for about an hour or so, passing greenery and brush. After nearly an hour I realize I went in a complete circle. It seems so predictable. Like in the movies when people are lost I do the same thing. The sad thing is I’m on a fairly small area. I survived New York City for twenty-four years; surely I can figure this out. Then I discover where I went wrong. I start off again, this time making it back to Center Line Road, a path of thoroughfare that crudely intersects the nearly seven mile island.
The irony is weighing on me and I laugh internally. In the Marines for eight years I hiked a lot with packs and gear and here I was getting winded. Trudging forward I make it to the bus stop and within a short time get on the bus. We are riding along soon after, in a bus back towards my new home and I feel far way from the world. The roads are so curvy, way too narrow for two cars to pass let alone a bus and a car. The only thing keeping my breakfast down is the fact that the scenery is amazing, Bay after Bay of picture perfect vistas.
My job consists of working six hours a day, doing general maintenance throughout the resort. The coordinator, Nif, found out what we liked to do in order to assign work tasks. I have experience in building so I built cabinets and made sure the power stayed on or changed out light bulbs. Six hours a day is not a long day but it was hot everyday and could be taxing. The sun really beats down and there was water at different locations.
Concordia Resort is an eco resort. All the water used there is rainwater and has to be filtered in order to drink. Basically the whole resort survives on solar power. There are no hot water heaters. The resort utilizes the sun to heat water and it gets so hot you have to add cold water to it in which to shower. A large black barrel contains rainwater and it heats up with the sun blaring all day reaching temperatures of 70-80 degrees. It’s October and the temperatures reach into the 90’s and drop between 60 and 70 degrees at night.
You work a lot during the day; it’s so hot its taxing on the body. Without transportation I walked everywhere. It was hot and humid hot. The strange things is its 90 degrees but you’re not sweating your ass off, getting used to it quickly, but you’re not sweating unless you’re working,
I stay in what’s called a tent but is more like a small condo made of wood and the roof is canvas. It has a wood frame with a loft in it and a full kitchen, there’s no stove but there’s two burners, a refrigerator and pots and pans. There are two beds, its one of the rooms you’d stay on the resort if you went there. There are bigger places to stay if you are a tourist that are nicer with ceiling fans. During the season these ‘eco-tents’ can range from $155 to $175 a night and off season are $95 a night with “amenities that combine simplicity with the most up to date, sustainable and site sensitive technologies that are redefining ecotourism…(providing) more creature comforts and conveniences with private toilets, showers, solar energy and more elaborate kitchen facilities in each unit.”
It’s a small island with plenty to do but after a day of work people drank. Rum is real cheap and food is not. Buying groceries or eating out is where I spent the most money. For example, a can of Hormel chili in the states is 89 cents it would cost 1.89 on the island. Food is generally two to three times more expensive than in the states, the most expensive bulk of my money spent was on food. You can pay dollar a drink but fifteen to twenty bucks on food.
There’s a grocery store in Cruz Bay which is 45 minute ride but you don’t buy anything too perishable. If you buy milk you buy Parma lade which stays good on a shelf forever. I got really lucky in meeting Jeremy who was in between medical school. He was 24 and showed me the island. We went hiking and saw the different Bays whose crystal clear white sand beaches glowed under the hot sun, making the blue water higher in contrast. Jeremy showed me this market in which to buy goods. We’d get coffee, shop, then go somewhere and drink and take a bus back. Outside of work there was a place we called home, Woody’s. It was a tiny little bar, most are on St. John’s. They had a great happy hour, serving dollar beers and dollar mixed drinks.
Time alone was good. I read a lot. The sun went down early, around six, and by seven it was so dark you couldn’t read. I’d turn on a few lamps to get enough light. Alone time was great, listening to the ocean crash on the waves.
Night life is no different wherever you go but everyone here is from somewhere, primarily the States. One person I knew was there for thirteen years, most of the others around three years. As I met people no one asked me a game score or political questions, everyone could care less. No asked about back home and it wasn’t because of the Internet access either. Using that was akin to smoke signals because it was real slow and cost a lot at the Internet Café. People there are cut off from the world on purpose and they like it that way. Island culture is the best way to describe it. Let your mind wander at the thought. It was good to be an outcast, to be lost for a while, even if it was on populated island.
There were people hiding out from the world, with sordid pasts and that’s why they were there, to not be found. I’m not talking murderers, but people with problems in their life and intent on getting away from them. The people are so far away from wanting to live anywhere like back home in the states. They prefer the simplicity and minimalism, the small community they create for themselves. But it’s no imagined utopia either. The main source of revenue is ninety per cent tourism. A couple of tiny farms exist but you can’t grow anything substantial.
Ad like anywhere there’s people there’s corruption. There are cops but they’re shady. There’s the island mafia in which every bar pays protection money. Politicians are bent too. The same no matter where you go.
But for anything that’s bad there’s more than enough to make up for it, the cheap drinks or the wild life around every turn. I liked the donkeys in the middle of the road on a hair pin turn or the goats crossing the road randomly. They were exemplary of the essence of freedom on St. John’s. People drive fast but people on a road don’t care if a car is coming, they don’t move. It’s tricky because the roads are tiny dotted with hair pin turns. They barely fit two cars. It’s crazy, I would never want to drive there. The flipside is that anyone living there will gladly pick you up and drive you at least close to where you want to go. So, there’s a lot of hitch hiking but you can’t put your thumb out for a ride because it’s an obscene gesture. I never asked why but it’s analogous to giving the middle finger. When a car comes along you have to point in the direction you want to go.
Everywhere along the island its history is on display, from a plaque at the ferry depot or at the bays where there’s info about the wildlife. Most of St John is a state park with many protected areas. Along the roads there are remnants of old brick structures and homes. And then there’s the animals.
Donkeys, chickens, and goats are everywhere. And bushcats, who are wild but tame. They’re quite shy, a little different than regular cats but with longer legs. They may be descendants of house cats brought over and now run wild. Some hang around Concordia and they get fed regularly.
There’s a lot of rocky mountainous terrain - trees, dirt, rocks and an abundance of spiders, insects and little tiny ants. The ants are so small you can barely see, the size of a needle’s eye, really. If you have any piece of food, any crumb from your mouth that falls onto anything there’s a thousand of them in seconds. It’s imperative that you clean up really well, removing any food from your person.
The people running things don’t want you to throw your food in the trash. If you don’t finish your meal we didn’t throw it in the trash cans. We were told to throw the remaining food on the ground, just throw right out of the eco tent a la the Middle Ages. There’s so many animals on the island they’ll eat. Especially hermit crabs, thousand and thousands of the little creatures. They’ll basically eat anything being scavengers, especially coffee grounds. They love them for some reason. I’ll put them in one specific spot and leave for my six hour work shift, come back and the coffee grounds are gone. There will be forty hermit crabs there eating away, cleaning up. Eggshells, bread, anything that’s not trash, the animals running around the island will make it disappear like the most efficient of garbage men.
And then there’s scorpions.
Thursday. Let me state it differently. I woke up to a beautiful Thursday morning. Today is the day I am going to do my last load of laundry on St’ John’s. And this is a kicker in case it was mentioned previously. The washing machine and dryer are next to the pool.
I have plans to go to happy hour at Woody’s. The plan is to have a relaxed day, getting things together and wishing others well and saying goodbyes. As I am getting things together I feel a pinch on my forearm only to look down and witness that a scorpion has stung me. I was moving a bag and the scorpion was underneath. I didn’t know what to do so I just washed and washed it, hurting badly. It just stung like hell, taking fifteen minutes before the pain eventually went away. It was as though someone stuck me with a needle and moved it around while still in the skin and muscle. For those curious, it doesn’t tickle. Imagine a magician putting that big fat needle through his arm and gasping in phony pain.
But the fight wasn’t ending there. I reach for my flip flop and make towards the scorpion that looks up at me and I swear it is grinning. The scorpion tries to move but I drop down and get to work like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. The result is something barely worth sweeping out of the room. Running cold water on my arm and cleaning the wound I discover the hard way I am allergic to scorpion bites.
I finish getting my stuff together to continue laundry detail. After setting up a load to wash I show my arm and tell my war story to Nif. I stand by the dirty road waiting for VITRAN taking me to happy hour one last time. The cost is only a dollar, but the trip should come with Dramamine tablets.
I get calls every so often from Concordia, with job offers to come and work full time on the island. It is tempting, the allure of bright blue water and sunny temperatures and those with the same shining disposition of island life far away from the hustle and bustle of this world. I think of that sign on the wall behind the bar I frequented too much, drank too much cheap rum. We’re all here, cause were not all there. This is the unofficial motto of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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