January 2004 - Virgin Islands National Park - Twelve WNG members escaped the cold of winter for a week on the warm tropical island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Flying from various locations in the States, we met at the airport on St. Thomas and boarded taxis for the short ride into Charlotte Amalie, the capital and largest city of the Islands. From there it was a short and scenic ferry ride to our destination, St. John Island, the least developed of the three main U.S. Virgin Islands.

Our accommodations were in a reasonably priced small hotel in Cruz Bay, the largest town on St. John, but still a small town by any standards. Using two rented vehicles, we spent the next week exploring the island. Over half of St. John is protected in the Virgin Islands National Park, established in the 1950's through a single donation of land by Lawrence Rockefeller. This philanthropic act preserved thousands of acres of tropical forest and beaches that would otherwise have gone on the real estate market like the rest of the islands. We are lucky to have such a large area of wilderness left undeveloped in the Caribbean. Most of the National Park is not virgin forest, but rather secondary growth which has taken over abandoned sugar plantations. Still, there are many large trees, vines, shrubs, and tropical plants of all kinds, with the associated birds, butterflies, insects, and mammals which live among them. Due to the prevailing winds which bring rain to the island, the northeast side is very tropical with lush plant life, while the southwest side is very dry and rocky, supporting desert-like plants.

St. John is very hilly with elevations ranging from sea level to over 1200 feet. On such a mountainous island the amount of rainfall can vary greatly from one place to another, depending on the presence or absence of mountains nearby, the direction of prevailing winds, plant cover, and other factors. The U.S. Virgin Islands were formerly owned by Denmark, and purchased by the U.S. in 1917. During the Danish occupation, sugar production was the main activity, and large plantations worked by black slaves operated until the abolition of slavery in the mid-1800s. After that most of the plantations fell into disuse, and ruins of sugar mills, owners' estate houses, and other plantation buildings are still evident all over the island, giving us a fascinating glimpse into the daily life two centuries ago.

We hiked on several trails, seeing ruins of sugar plantations deep in the forest, petroglyphs carved in rock by prehistoric Carib Indians, gigantic trees with huge buttress roots, termite nests several feet in diameter, and wild mongooses. The mongooses (weasel-like mammals) were imported from India to control the rats in the sugar fields, but it didn't work - the rats are active at night, while the mongooses are active by day. Our longest hike, on the Reef Bay Trail, we happened upon the ruins of a large sugar mill just in time to take shelter from an unexpected rainstorm; the only rain we had all week.

We spent nearly every day enjoying the peaceful, beautiful white sand beaches and the blue crystal-clear Caribbean waters. We swam and snorkeled, seeing a variety of corals and other marine invertebrates, including the long-spined Diadema urchins and beautifully colored tropical fish. Occasionally a barracuda appeared to give us an unexpected nature moment.

One day was spent visiting historic Charlotte Amalie, and another day was occupied by a trip to Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, a two-hour ferry ride from St. John. On Virgin Gorda we visited a much-photographed scenic area called The Baths. The Baths, not so-named for the reason you might expect, but rather for it's large assortment of huge basalt boulders which were formed deep underground from magma, and, which are called batholiths (from the Greek bathys and lithos, meaning "deep" and "stone,” respectively. Stone Mountain, by the way, is one of the world's largest batholiths.

St. John was a beautiful, unique, natural experience, but we must admit we were not "roughing it. We slept comfortably in air-conditioned rooms, and ate well every night, enjoying seafood and other gourmet dishes at the many excellent restaurants in Cruz Bay. However, we saw parts of the island which most tourists to St. John don't see, and we gained a real appreciation for tropical forests and for the U.S. National Park system in general. Due to the increase in cruise ships visiting the islands and consequent influx of tourists, along with the increased affluence of our society and subsequent real estate boom in the Caribbean, we are reminded of how fortunate we are that such a beautiful area of forest is protected. We should all follow Lawrence Rockefeller's example and support preservation of wilderness and open space, even if we can only do it in small ways.