That Time We Talked About Craig’s St. John Trip

This is episode number 118 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're glad that you could join us this week. We got a really cool episode for you guys because I just came back from a really cool trip.

Yeah, man, you've, uh, you've been gone. which is always good. And you even—

you didn't miss me a bit.

No, no, no, no, no, nobody did.

Nobody did.

But, um, it's been good for you. And I mean, you got away during COVID Like, that's a pretty big deal.

I was, I was pretty proud of that. Yeah, yeah, it was like— well, and I gotta tell you, it was, it was, it was pretty intense, uh, as we landed.

Okay, so—

And I'm trying to remember where we— when we landed in St. Thomas. Okay, is, is the island we landed on. Um, And I'm trying to remember how many episodes ago it was we even talked about this because I was talking about how I had to go get the COVID test, right? Um, and it had to be— it couldn't be more than 5 days old, right, before we landed in the island.

Okay.

Um, and, and, and so anyway, anyway, once, once we landed on the island, it was, it was sort of like walking into, um, a weird post-apocalyptic kind of world. I mean, everybody was in yellow jumpsuits, everyone had the full face screens and the masks. And as we were— one, like, you know, it's, it's, it's not as big of an airport. It's not an international— I mean, technically, yes, it's an international airport, but it's not a big airport by any stretch of the imagination.

Right. I mean, were you walking on the tarmac to get out? You walk off of the plane down the stairs?

Yes.

Okay.

So, which, which, by the way, is way more efficient than the way that we usually do it at the airport.

Oh yeah.

Because you're able to— there's 2 exits off the airplane on the tarmac.

Right.

So it just went a lot faster. It went a little bit slower for me. There was a couple of ladies on the plane. I guess they didn't realize we were going to have to get off on the tarmac and they had done all carry-on luggage.

Oh, goodness.

And they were going to— it was pretty obvious they were going to have a hard time carrying their luggage down the stairs.

Right.

I was like, ladies, I got this one.

I may not be good for something, but I can do this.

I can mule some luggage. So I got all their luggage down the stairs. helped them down the tarmac with that. But like, once we were down the tarmac, man, I mean, like, it was— I mean, like, they were, they were separating the, the sheep from the goats.

Oh.

Um, because you, you had to have your, your COVID test in hand. And not only that, I mean, like, they're temp checking everybody.

Okay.

And, and so like, there was like 3 different sections they would like divvy you up into. Like, one, like, do you have your negative COVID COVID test, yes or no? Yes, this way. No, this way. Oh, and then those would split off as they were temp checking people.

Okay, so some people didn't have a negative COVID test with them, but that's dumb.

Well, it, it, that depends, right? If you're visiting the island, yeah, that's pretty dumb, right? If you live there, yeah.

Oh, they let you in? Well, because you live there?

Because you can go quarantine at home.

Sure.

And like, you're like, what do I care, right? I'm gonna go quarantine at home for— and then, and like, honestly, what are they gonna do, right?

I mean, like, they're gonna send you home, right, and tell you to quarantine, which is, which is pretty much what you want to do anyway if you live there.

Yes.

Go home.

Yeah, yeah. So, but I mean, like, interesting to note, like, they're not having— last time I checked, and while we were there, this was the case— they were not having any sort of outbreak.

Okay.

So, St. Thomas is the big island. We stayed on St. John, which is the little island. But you can't get there by plane.

OK.

At the time, St. John had zero cases. Wow!

That's impressive.

And St. Thomas, I think, at the time, had like 40 cases. I may be remembering this wrong.

Yeah, but whatever the number is, it's higher. Probably because St. Thomas, A, has an airport, and B, just is bigger.

It's significantly bigger.

Right.

And so just for comparison's sake, and I, again, I need to go back and like double-check my numbers, um, but, and I know my numbers on St. John are correct, but because we saw the sign and we're like, you got to be kidding me, um, St. Thomas I think has 60,000 people.

Okay.

So, and it's, I mean, like, if you, you know, you can fly into it, so it's a pretty big island.

Sure.

60,000 people, which is not a whole lot of people, right? St. John has less than 5,000 people.

Oh my goodness.

It's like 4,900 people, right around that, right around that number.

Wow. Yeah, that's, that's like half the number of people in that hometown I grew up in. Yeah, which was really small.

So I mean, like, for, for like, like local reference for us, if you live in the area, like, that's the number of residents in Wood Forest.

Oh my goodness.

That's like a neighborhood.

Yeah. Right?

Yes. That's a Houston neighborhood.

Yeah.

I mean, that's crazy.

That's nothing.

No. Once you're on the island, you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

It's not that big.

It's not that big. No, no, no. It's 8 miles across.

OK. So is Woodforest.

But it's mostly mountains.

Oh, yeah. I've only seen pictures. I've never been. Yeah, whenever you look at it, you see ocean and mountains pretty much, right? Yeah.

And so, I mean, well, just right off the bat, like, massive, huge, tremendous, large shoutouts to our, to our hosts, uh, Julie and Jack. Oh, who were incredible.

Okay, so explain this to me.

So this, this, we did this as an Airbnb.

Oh, okay.

And so we, we, I mean, like, very randomly found— I mean, like, we did, we did a fair bit of research for this trip. We'd been planning it for a while, and then once, once we booked it, we kind of realized that we'd really found the right place. And, and, and Jack and Julie host a place called Coral Bayside. And, and one of the things that you realize once you're on St. John is like the places that are worth staying typically have a name.

Okay.

They're named estates.

Okay.

And this is one of them in Coral Bay.

Okay.

And what's, what's important about that to note is where you come into the island is the complete opposite side of the island where we stayed. So we flew into St. Thomas, had to take a boat to St. John. The— where we— where the boat docked to drop us off on St. John, we had to go on the complete opposite side of the island to get to Coral Bay.

Okay.

And so where the boat drops you off is kind of like where all the shops and the restaurants and the party is happening.

Yeah, probably because That's where the boat is.

That's where the boat is, right? That's where all the traffic is. So it's just, it's convenient.

Yeah.

Coral Bay is very, very quiet and just gorgeous. Um, and where we were staying, I mean, it was a private room. We had our own balcony, um, and it looked out over Coral Bay.

Okay.

Um, and so bays are a big deal in, in St. John. I mean, that's where you go to do things, and it's usually where you go to Snorkel. Coral Bay is a little bit different, and that's where all the boats are. That's where they typically dock for the evening. There's just a lot of boats in Coral Bay, but it's just a really pretty bay. The sun comes up around the side of the mountain in the morning. Um, but anyway, at Coral Bayside where we stayed, um, one, they were just really, really sweet people. I mean, just incredible people to stay with, very thoughtful.

Um, so they— so, so To kind of make sure I'm understanding this correctly, this is like their house and they, and they're kind of— they live there too? You've got your own room?

So they have a, a really big house, okay, that they've sectioned off into 4 different areas. Okay, so it's, it's either 2 or 3 stories, and I, I couldn't get the lay of the land from the other places, but they were staying in the place above us. Okay, but we had a private room on the side of the cliff that had our own balcony. And so we had our own bedroom, our own bathroom, little kitchenette.

Nice.

Um, so I mean, like, it was— I mean, it was, it was all the space that my wife and I needed.

So it's like a little studio, basically.

Yeah, that's exactly what it was like. Um, but, you know, so when we get there, in the fridge— um, and, and this is— this is— this will be important later on— but like, in our fridge was a 6-pack of local beer.

What is the local beer there?

That was the Island Pale Ale. Or the Island Ale. Sorry, the Island Ale. And then Julie, who helps run the place and hosts the Coral Bayside, had baked us a loaf of mango coconut bread. Um, for us to enjoy while we were there.

That sounds fantastic.

It was.

Yeah, it sounds great.

It was, it was really, really good, but we couldn't finish it in our entire stay, so we snuck it on the plane and took it.

Good for you.

Yeah, it was, it was amazing.

So you couldn't finish it because there was so much of it? So much.

Yeah, okay, so much of it. Um, and so before we even get there, you know, they're communicating with us like, what are you guys interested in doing? What do you want to do on your trip?

What would you like to have?

The other The other thing is, is they have like 2 or 3 Jeeps available to rent while you're there.

Okay.

And they have them cleaned and ready to go, and they walk you through the whole process, and then they tell you the good places to go drive. And then Jack tells you, look, if you don't bring it back muddy, you haven't experienced the island.

Oh my goodness.

So he's telling me like all the trails I need to go drive while I'm there, and these are 4-wheel drive Jeeps.

I mean, sure.

And I'm like, well, now we have to go, right? So we did. Yeah, we did. We went and did all the trails that he, uh, that he recommended.

Are these Automatic Jeeps? Are they standard Jeeps? No, they're automatic. So we— my wife and I went to Jamaica on our honeymoon, which by the way, in the fridge whenever I got there was Red Stripe.

Oh, of course, of course.

So, um, they had other things too, but that was the main stuff. But we, we did a Jeep excursion and it was, uh, my wife and I and then one other couple, and then there was the guide. So The guide basically said, hey, there's 5 of us, um, and I think he had someone with— so 6 of us.

Uh-huh.

And so y'all will ride in one Jeep and then I'll ride in another one. You just figure out who, who wants to drive, and whoever wants to drive can drive. It's like, sweet, I want to drive. And the other guy was like, yeah, I think I'd like to drive too. It's like, great, we'll just switch off. And, uh, he gets in and goes Oh, it's a stick. I was like, yeah? And he goes, I can't drive this.

I was like, yes!

So I got to drive the whole time because it was a stick. So I was just curious.

Yeah, no, they were, they were automatic. Um, well, I, I would have been fine with a stick. I mean, that would actually probably would have been a little more fun.

Yeah.

Um, but anyway, so the, the reason that we, we felt like we stumbled upon a gold mine, um, was One, St. John and the Virgin Islands in general do not observe daylight savings time.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. So that means at 7 o'clock it's dark.

Sure.

This time of year.

Yeah.

Um, everything closes there at 8.

Oh.

Um, and half the time the other— like, even if it's like a normal thing, they're not open anyway.

Okay, so, so this is like the bars, the restaurants, everything?

Yes.

Closed at 8.

The only thing that might be open is there, there was a grocery store that was pretty close to where we were staying, and they were, they were typically open.

Okay.

And so like if you were in dire straits, I think that was open till like 10 o'clock.

Okay.

But everything else is closed at 8 o'clock no matter what.

Wow.

There was only one restaurant near us that was open Every day.

Wow.

And that one was Skinny Legs, and that was the one that was like, hey, you got to go try Skinny Legs. And it was good, but okay, pretty much all they had was burgers. Okay, they had great burgers. Yeah, and great drinks.

Sure.

But that was it. Yeah.

Especially if you're like, hey, seafood, right?

And, and so one of the things that this place offered is Julie is a chef.

Oh. Okay.

And so what she tells you before you get there is like, look, I'm willing to cook for you every night.

All right. But you, you're sitting there going, I don't know what that means.

Right.

Like, does that mean we get mac and cheese?

And like, they have, they have pictures of some of her dishes on Airbnb. Gourmet mac and cheese. It's definitely not mac and cheese.

Okay.

Um, and, but I'm also, I'm a, uh, I'm an adventurous kind of guy.

Sure. I want to try as many places as I before I get off the island. Right.

The problem I run into is the only place open is Skinny Legs.

You literally can't do that because they're not open long enough.

We didn't really realize until we'd, you know, been on the island a couple days.

Sure.

The first day we get there and we're like— she's like, well, why don't I go ahead and make you dinner because you guys aren't getting here till like 7:30 that night anyway. We're like, well, we'd really like to find a place. And she goes, yeah, but nothing's gonna be open. And we're like, Oh yeah, please make us dinner.

Right.

And so she makes us this like amazing grilled shrimp Caesar salad.

Oh wow.

I'm like, oh my gosh, this thing's delicious.

Yeah.

And, and so the next night we go out to dinner, we like, we go to Skinny Legs. We're like, well, that was really nice. And, and so like what she does is every afternoon she'll, she'll text message you and she's like, hey, this is what's on the menu for tonight, do you want this?

Okay. Oh, and so you get to make a daily choice?

Yes, basically.

Nice.

And, and so we ended up getting dinner from her 3 of the nights that we were there.

Yeah, sounds like it.

We were, we were blown away every time. I mean, like, the second night was like this skirt steak Asian dish with like crushed peanuts and noodles, and it was so, so good.

Wow.

Um, probably, probably my favorite dish while we were there was the— it was the skirt steak with the Asian noodle salad. Wow.

Well, and, and it's It's important to note here that most people probably don't know this about you, but you're a foodie.

Oh, yeah.

Most people who are just listening to this podcast right now probably don't fully understand that.

I would be happy to do a full food podcast.

You're right. Yeah.

I would love to bring in some of the chefs that I know and talk. In fact, we should probably do that at some point.

Let's do it. But that's my point, though. For you to sit here and say, like, it's that good. This isn't like— I don't want one of our listeners to go, that's, you know, Craig, he's kind of simple, you know?

No.

Not whenever it comes to food.

No. And Julie is definitely like, like, she knows what she's doing.

Yeah.

Like, there is a tremendous difference between grilled shrimp and grilled shrimp that are cooked well.

Oh, yes.

And that are fresh.

Agreed.

And so here's the other thing, man, is like The third dish that we had were fish tacos. I'm hard to impress with fish tacos.

Unlike your wife with tacos. She just likes tacos.

If there's tortillas involved, she's just there. But fish tacos in particular are tough for me. One, because a lot of people around here try and do them, and they're terrible.

What is the reason for that? Is that because they use tilapia? Is that because they use—

If they're using tilapia, I'm just automatically out. Um, and it's not because I think tilapia is a bad fish. It's not a great fish by any stretch of the imagination.

Yeah.

Um, and that's why they're using it.

Yeah.

Um, and, and they're also using it because it takes on, it takes on flavor really well.

And, and it's not super fishy, you know? No, no.

But like that, again, like, like if you tell me that you're using tilapia, I'm like, well, you're a lazy cook. Right. Um, and like, I've used tilapia.

Sure.

I get it.

Yeah.

Um, because it's easy.

She used grouper.

Oh my God.

Okay, so I, I will tell you, probably what— I'm not a huge fish guy. I, I, I'll eat some fish. Yeah. And, and fresh fish is, is way better. I mean, I just can't hardly stomach anything frozen. That is just— I don't like it.

It's hard.

It's hard. Um, but grouper.

Yeah.

And, and especially like blackened grouper, to me, is one of the best. Oh, it's so good.

It was, it was grilled. Okay. It was fantastic.

I bet.

I can't speak to its freshness. It tasted good. It tasted like fresh fish.

I'm sure it was.

She also had this avocado pepper sauce that was, if I recall right— Julie, if you're listening and you want to fact-check me, I think it was from Puerto Rico.

OK.

But it was an avocado pepper sauce.

Interesting.

And it was just to die for.

Huh.

And she also made homemade salsa, homemade slaw, and I think there was one other thing that was homemade on there as well. But anyway, like, every piece of the taco was just delicious.

Wow.

And it seemed like she was booked up every night doing some sort of catering event or something like that. Her food was just fantastic. And just, I mean, just, and it was, it was, I mean, the price was on point with everything else that we'd seen on the island.

Okay.

And the quality was just way above and beyond anything else. I'm like, this is stupid. I mean, like, why would we eat anywhere else at night, right? I mean, we can have it like delivered to our room, right? And it tastes delicious.

Yeah.

Um, and I mean, like, they were just like, hey, this is the place to go. The, the other, the other part of this trip that was— that just blew us away was they say, hey, you have a private beach for one day while you're here.

Okay.

Um, which day do you want to eat? The only day you can't have is Sunday.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, I think we took it like our second day or something like that. Um, incredible.

Wow.

Absolutely incredible. We ended up, um, it was, it was just a little bit further away from where we were staying. Um, and I mean, we, we literally just had this private section of the beach. They sent us, uh, With everything, and they had like a little bag ready for us to go with everything we needed for our private beach stay, with our umbrella and our chairs and everything. Nice. And that particular beach, we ended up meeting the person who owned that beach, and she was like, "Hey, come back anytime you want. Here's what we have available for you guys on different sections of this beach. You can you know take out a paddleboard. You can take out a boat. You can

da da da da da. Just leave a donation." It'll be fantastic.

Wow.

Um, and I'm, I'm blanking on her name. I want to say it was like Tila or Thila or— man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna— I'm messing that up.

But I probably butchered it twice.

I gave her a great review on TripAdvisor.

There you go.

Um, but that was, that was actually the first. So 4 different times at 4 different beaches, I ended up swimming with sea turtles. Oh, and that was the first one.

Wow.

Um, so yeah, just, I mean, just an absolute— and so like, but like, what's important to like understand is what they were telling us as we're like, you know, having conversations with them is where they're kind of at the beginning of their busiest season.

Okay.

And we were there like mid-November.

Yeah, I mean, so you're, you're saying through our holiday season they get busy?

They say December is their biggest month of the year.

Is that because people are escaping?

Yes.

Okay.

They're escaping winter.

Yeah.

and coming to where the equator is.

Sure.

Basically.

Yeah.

I mean, because it was— and it'll, it'll stay like 84 degrees.

Yeah. See, that's the other thing is like if you go during the summer months, it's super hot.

It'll be, it'll be a little bit warmer.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, but like there, when, when we were there, it got to be like 85 degrees during the day and like 74 at night.

I mean, I—

and she was like, this is kind of what it's like all year long.

Wow.

Um, but it's really convenient for people to come down here in December because it's— you can be at the island.

Sure.

And it's not cold. And like, you're not gonna, you know, they— and they— I mean, like, you are kind of rolling the dice a little bit during the winter months because you can have some rainy days.

Sure.

And we, we saw some people online who were like, uh, this, this really stunk. We had our whole week here at St. John and it just rained out of the 5 days we were here.

Yeah.

Um, and, and, and that'll happen.

Yeah.

I mean, you can't control the weather, right? Um, but it was— man, it was such a— the, the beaches were beautiful and diverse.

Okay.

Um, and when I say diverse, I mean like, um, if you've been to the beaches in California, right? So we had beaches that had sand like the ones in Los Angeles, right? And, um, what is, uh, where's Pepperdine at?

Malibu.

Malibu. Um, you know, like those, that deep kind of thick chunky sand.

Yep.

Um, and then we had beaches that were kind of like the ones in Florida, real fine sand.

So that, so you had, you had sand you could throw at people.

Yes.

And sand you couldn't throw at people.

You couldn't throw it.

Okay.

And then we had beaches that were nothing but rock.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And like when I say rock, I mean like the The Japanese round black stones.

Okay, so not, not like what you'd get like North Carolina specifically, which is— it's pretty— those are pretty rocky, but those are more like pebbles. You're talking about like— you're talking about like almost river rocks?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, that was the whole beach for like probably 300 yards.

Wow.

That we— and that was one of the hikes that we took.

So you gotta have shoes.

Oh yeah.

Whenever you were on that beach. Yeah.

And we're like, what is this? It was just one beach that we, that we stumbled upon.

Huh.

Um, and then there are some beaches that just have like big jagged rocks sticking up around in the sand. I mean, like, it was, it was very, very diverse. You can find all kinds of things.

Um, like even, even like giant rocks that your wife might dare you to jump off of, but you really thought you might not.

Yep.

But you did anyway.

But I did anyway.

Okay.

Yep.

Just, there's just something that came in my head. I don't know where it would have come from.

Yeah, if you go on Facebook, you might be able to find that video. Um, my only hesitation when doing that was like, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about that one because like, you don't— it's, it's really difficult to get your depth when you're standing on top of the rock. And I'm like, right, if I get hurt, she's not gonna come get me.

No, no.

And like, I know the hospital is on the other island that's on the other side of this island that I have to take a boat to even get to. So like, you start doing a little bit calculation of like—

Not just depth, But there's coral in there too, right?

And urchins that can impale you for sure, that are poisonous. So you got to watch out for that. There was one beach that I went to where I think I swam out about a good 60 yards to about a 25-foot deep coral reef. And some of the urchins that I saw in there were like 3 times the size of basketballs. And I was like, oh, dude, That would hurt if I got thrown up against one of those.

Right.

So, I mean, there's stuff there to watch out for. I mean, there's manta rays and stingrays and all that kind of stuff. I only ended up seeing one of those while I was there, but beautiful fish.

Sure.

The sea turtles were especially cool. The first big sea turtle I found had 2 nurse sharks attached to it.

Oh, really?

Yeah, which was kind of funky to stumble upon. Lots of really, really big sailboats and yachts. In fact, we ended up seeing— I forget the guy's name, but he's like, he's a real famous billionaire that's been quarantining since February, like self-quarantining on his yacht since February.

Wow.

And he's, he's in St. John right now.

Of course he is.

And so we actually saw his yacht from across one of the, across one of the bays. Goodness.

Um, so I mean, I'll just say this. I don't care how nice your yacht is. Yeah, if you're on it since February, you don't want to be on it anymore.

Probably not. Probably not.

I'm just saying it. I don't care how nice your yacht is.

I say that, but like, if you're circling St. John, yeah, you might be able to endure. It's, it's just so gorgeous.

I just want to get off.

So let me, let me, let me run through like a little bit of the history here. Just for folks that maybe haven't ever been, um, St. John is the only national forest in the Virgin Islands.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's basically one giant park.

Okay.

I mean, that's— it's almost its entirety is a national park.

So it's very protected?

Yes.

Okay.

Very much so. Um, and that was— I want to say it was like back in the '40s. It was a deal that one of the Rockefellers brokered with the U.S. government, and—

or—

and like, so he brokered it with the U.S. government and with local officials. So he convinced local officials to be like, hey, let's turn this into a national park. And then he went to the U.S. government and said, hey, let's turn this into a national park if you'll let me open up a resort.

Okay.

And so there is a resort there on Caneel Bay that hasn't been open, from what I understand, since 2017.

Oh.

Um, and that's one of the things you notice as you go to— as you do go through the island is there are still some houses that do not have roofs. Or have not been rebuilt from 2017. So like while we were going through Harvey, they had their own hurricane, and I think it was Irma, right, was the hurricane that they had come through there.

Okay.

Um, that just decimated, right, so many properties, right? Um, and it just completely wiped the island clean almost. Um, and it took out that resort.

Wow.

That hasn't been able to reopen still.

Goodness.

Um, which is And that's, that's part of why they have such heavy protocols on you coming into the island is because they know that if corona gets too heavy and that they've got to shut the island down. And that's exactly what's been happening on neighboring islands very, very close. The British Virgin Islands, you can't go.

Yeah.

I mean, you can't. They're completely shut down.

Right.

And they know what that's done to the economy there. And they're like, we don't want that here.

Right.

And so we're going to, we're going to be very strict on what we allow. and what we don't allow on this island in order to protect, you know, what's, what's allowing us to, you know, live, right? Which is tourism.

Sure.

Um, and so they're, they're very, very protective of that, and with good reason.

Yeah.

Um, and so cheers to you, St. John, for, you know, keeping it open. I'm glad we were able to enjoy it.

Yeah.

Um, but any— anyway, so that, that's, that's of note because, you know, and it usually takes about a half hour to drive anywhere because you— everywhere is through the national forest, which is the smack dab middle of the island. Everything sort of exists around the perimeter.

Okay.

Of that.

So, so do you have to— like, is it gated? I mean, you have to go through the gates or whatever? No, it's just—

no, because they assume once you're on the island, they've— I mean, like, where are you gonna go?

You have to go through it.

I mean, like, you, you can only run for so long, right? I mean, if they want to find you, they're going to find you, right? So, um, I mean, like, you just You literally can't— there's not that many places to flee. So like, they kind of have you.

Yeah.

Um, and they have like a— there's a whole national park like where the, the rangers— and like, we ended up seeing one of the rangers. They, they actually, I mean, like pulled up right to us on one of the bays that we were— it was at Hawk Nest Bay, and they were out there testing the water for something.

Huh.

Um, so Interesting. Yeah, I mean, so they're pretty active and they're keeping an eye on stuff. And our hosts even told us something like, you know, follow the rules because if they catch you, they'll find you.

Yeah.

You know, if you're doing something you're not supposed to be doing. But there's interesting things. So, you know, it used to be huge sugarcane plantations.

Oh yeah.

On the islands down there. And that's where the whole rum culture comes from.

Sure.

I mean, that's what helped allow that to, you know, become successful back in the day. Obviously, that's not going on anymore, but you can go hike to a lot of the sugarcane ruins and things like that. But some of the aftermath of a lot of that that was going on— so they have a pretty healthy whitetail deer population on the island.

Really? Interesting.

So a lot of the plantation owners used to ship those in so that they could hunt them. And obviously, they weren't very good. So there's a pretty healthy whitetail population.

Oh man.

Uh, there's also a pretty healthy wild donkey population.

Wild donkey?

Yes, they are everywhere.

Really? Yeah.

Um, and you know, it's just late, you know, leftover, uh, livestock.

Sure.

From, from those old plantation days.

Right.

Um, and, and people on the island just, uh, sort of accept them as—

Well, yeah, I mean, what are you gonna— you're gonna shoot a donkey?

Yeah.

I mean, like, really? So, and even if you do, what are you gonna do with it? And, and there's As far as I can tell, there's no predators on the island.

I mean, other than just the environment itself. It's not crazy friendly to donkeys, but more so than to horses, which there are some on the island, but not wild.

Okay. But there's also a lot of wild goats on the island.

Again, leftovers from those days for meat and dairy and things like that. But I mean, it's not weird to drive upon a herd of of goats while you're driving through the mountains.

Wow.

And they're just kind of hanging out on the road.

Yeah.

And they're just kind of looking at you like, what are you doing here?

Right.

So the other one that I thought was really interesting are mongoose.

Really?

There are mongoose on the island.

Yes. So, wow.

Um, and, and this is, this is a misstep that some of the plantation owners made back in the day.

Do you call a lot of mongoose, mongeese?

I don't know what you would call a bunch of mongooses.

Mongeese?

A flock of mongoose. Okay, that's all I got. Um, but, uh, so apparently the way, the way the story goes is because they had the sugar plantations, they were having a real problem with rats.

Oh.

And so the plantation owners went and imported a bunch of mongoose to the island hoping that they would help deal with the rat issue, which, you know, like monkeys— mongoose.

Now, now it's in your head.

It's in my head.

Now you don't know.

I think it's mongoose. Mongoose will eat rat and like the other like rodents.

Okay.

Um, but the issue is, is that mongoose are daytime feeders and, uh, rats are nocturnal.

Oh, so they Don't see each other. Right.

And so it's a problem. So the rats continued, but the mongoose didn't really have any natural predators, and so they just thrived on the island.

Wow.

Which, I mean, like, I mean, from all, like, everything I can tell, I mean, pretty much everything that's done well on the island has been introduced as a no-competition, you know, right, invasive species.

Um, by the way, it's mongooses.

Mongooses?

Yes. Did you look this up? I did.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

That's a stupid way to pluralize that.

I guess, but it is what it is.

Mongooses.

Like, I don't know how many of you have like seen a mongoose lately. I think they kind of look like a rat.

Yeah, so it's not the, uh, the cartoonish Ricky Ticky Tavi.

No.

That we've known to—

No.

That we've all come to love.

They're— yeah.

Part of the reason we're spending so much time talking about this is because there's interesting things that I found about the houses there.

Okay. Yeah, because this is a show about homes.

Right. The homes there are definitely interesting. Fun fact number 1 is they're very particular about turning everything off during the day when you're not there.

Okay, so like electric types of things?

Yes.

So just conservationist, that's the word I'm trying to say. Or is it out of necessity? Probably both. Because I mean, I know that one of the things that we definitely take for granted here in the United States is our grid's pretty good.

Yes.

So we don't have to worry about, you know, Am I using too much electricity at my house?

What our host told us— I definitely get the vibe of conservationism there. We'll see some houses from time to time that have solar systems installed. That being said, what they told us is that electricity there costs about 4 to 6 times what it costs here. You are definitely incentivized to be as conservational about your electricity as possible. Most houses do not have conventional air conditioning systems.

Are they swamp coolers, or are they more of a fan type?

Almost everything that I saw was using a mini-split.

Oh, yeah!

Because they're so much more efficient.

They are.

We were talking about it on that episode with Jehu and JoJo. Everything's moving that way because they use so much less Sure. And they're much more efficient and, and all these kinds of things. And so like almost everything that I saw there, if they had a system, was a mini-split.

Yeah. And especially for like what you're— the place you were staying in, you, you're renting out different rooms, different people are going to want the temperature different ways. That's the only way to control that.

Well, and I mean like if we're gone all day and like the temperature on the island just doesn't fluctuate all that much.

Sure.

So I mean like it was really easy to like crank down our at night, right? And just leave it off during the day because it doesn't matter. Yeah, because it's not gonna get— it's not gonna bake it like an oven, right? Um, so it was no big deal. And so we were— and like, um, you know, we, we tried to be really conscious about, you know, making sure that everything was off. But they even told us like, look, I mean, like, when you're gone during the day, we're gonna come check.

Oh.

And I didn't blame them. Yeah, I'm like, if I missed something, like, by all means Turn it off. Right. They were really paying it. You think about electricity being expensive, which made sense. We were looking at the gas prices at the gas station. I was like, oh, my gosh, $4.50 a gallon?

Geez!

That's what it costs to get it there.

You've got to ship it over.

There's only 5,000 people living on the island, Kevin. How much gas are they going to use?

Not that much. Yeah, unless you're taking those Jeeps out to get muddy.

Every day.

Every day. You know, those are gas guzzlers.

So, I mean, so we were, we were there 5 days, okay? And we drove every single day. Yeah, up and down pretty steep hills, and we used half a tank of gas.

Wow. I mean, it's just not that far anywhere if it's only 8 miles, right? I mean, it may take you a long time to get there, but 8 miles is 8 miles. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just not that far. I mean, really, where— whatever was burning it was on the hills.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that was it.

Yeah.

So I mean, like, it just makes sense.

No, it does. Yeah. And so let me ask you this, were they— did you notice a lot of LED lighting? Were they— or was that— Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's interesting to me because, because I've noticed that in, in some of the third world countries that I've been in. I was like, yeah, y'all don't have anything, but you have lots of LED bulbs, lots of LEDs. So I don't know if they're less expensive to do that, or if they're just going, look, the cost difference is not even a question, we're going to. And not to mention, if we want to have 2 lights on at the same time, we got to have LED.

Not only that, I mean, like, statistically, those LEDs last longer. And so, like, and one of the things I noticed really, really quickly is, like, you live on St. John, Amazon's not a thing, right? Like, there's no 2-day shipping, right, to St. John.

Yeah, that sucks for them.

It's a different— if it's a It really is a different lifestyle. Sure. And so like, and like I was, uh, I, I like while I was there on the island, uh, one of the things that Jack does is, is he goes around the island and he helps people with their car trouble.

Okay.

Like if they have a flat or, you know, whatever, he goes around and helps them. And I noticed he uses Ryobi tools.

Oh, nice.

I was like, hey Jack, do you know that Ryobi has a new, uh, power inflator that'll work with your battery so you can like air people's tires up? And he's like, yeah, I mean like we really don't get any new tools here ever. Oh, and I was like, oh man.

Next time you go, you have to take him one.

I absolutely have to take him one.

Worth it. Yeah.

He even talked to me a couple of times about, if I need lumber, I've got to go on the other side of the island and all this kind of stuff.

We're complaining about lumber prices right now. I can't even imagine.

I can't imagine. So, so like all that to say, I mean, like it's just a different way of like, I need something, like it's gonna be 2 weeks, right? At least minimum.

Yeah.

And so like those, those kind of services, I mean, like, because sometimes I'll order something on Amazon and I'm like irritated because it's like not there this afternoon.

Yes.

You know, and like, I think a lot of us have kind of become accustomed to that.

Oh yeah.

And but like, that is just not the way they live.

I mean, That's not the reality. Well, you know, we used to not live that way, and we were fine. We were fine. And part of it is just thinking ahead, and part of it is just knowing it's gonna take time to ship this. It's gonna take time to go, you know, I don't have this in my town, I gotta drive over to this other town to get it, um, whatever it is. And that was just kind of life.

I mean, well, and they were even telling us, I mean, like, they got to go to the doctor, they're like, hey, we got to go to the Big Island.

Yeah.

And I was like, what?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah, like there's probably not a doctor here, right?

And, and if he is, it's probably not the one you want to go to.

He's over there.

Yeah, it's like—

which, which is a 30-minute boat ride, by the way.

Yeah. Wow.

At best.

At best. And, and it's not free. Nope, you got to pay for that unless you have a boat. And, and some people, I guess, do, but Yeah. Wow.

But even then, I mean, like, your boat's probably not as fast as that boat.

No.

Because most of the boats I saw there were sailboats.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so at that point you're, you're judging, okay, I can go at this time on this day. Yeah, because that's the way the wind is going. Yes.

So the, the other thing that was really big is water.

Okay.

There's not— I mean, like, you would think on an island, yeah, there's a lot of water.

There's not a lot of water.

Interesting. Most of the houses have cisterns.

Oh, so they collect their water?

Yes.

Okay.

Um, and in fact, we— and like, it was, it was really mind-boggling to me. I kept seeing ads for like these apps and devices that you could add to your cisterns so that you could manage the water levels in your house.

Oh, really?

Yes.

Oh, that's cool.

And like, our, our room was actually like— and it's like a lot of houses are built around the cistern. One to keep them cool, keep the water from evaporating, and different things like that. But that's where people get their water from.

Wow.

Um, because I mean, like, there's not like public utilities or water— like, I didn't see a single water treatment plant while I was there.

Wow.

Most houses are their own water treatment plant. And so like, they even, they even took extra time to walk us through like all the steps that their water goes through from their cistern to filter it to make it safe to consume.

Wow!

That's bizarre! Yeah. Imagine if you could only use the amount of water that you collected from week to week.

Gosh! Well, you better hope it rains. I know they're in a rainy climate.

They're in a rainy climate.

But still, you better hope it rains. Otherwise, you could die. You could. Yeah, literally.

So I would imagine, I mean, like, it's, it's pretty normal for those people to stockpile like bottled water and different things like that, and for there to be services that can, you know, fill you up if you need to. Um, but I mean, that, that's a different way of living right there.

Yeah, it is.

Um, and you, you better, you better figure it out pretty quick. And like, as I was, as I was driving around the island, I mean, like, there was like 2 kinds of ads that I saw. One One was political people trying to get into office, and the other one was cistern management.

Wow! That's interesting.

Apparently, there's been a lot of technology built around cisterns.

Which makes sense.

If that's where your need is. Because it's not just them. There's multiple islands down in the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean. I can't imagine St. John is the only one that's using cisterns.

Most of them, you know, I would imagine most of them on St.

Thomas are, St. Croix, St. Martin, which those are the American Virgin Islands. Um, and I would imagine all of those are operating on a cistern system. I mean, like, they don't have water treatment plants. No, maybe St. Thomas does.

Yeah.

Um, but like, I can't—

yeah, yeah. Wow.

So, and we did hike to the only The one that— the only one that I could find online, at least, uh, the only fresh water source on St. John.

Oh wow.

Because I'm a, I'm a nut for, for waterfalls.

Yeah.

And it was the only waterfall I could hear tell of on the island, so we hiked to it.

Yeah.

Um, that was great.

So yeah, I had to jump into that one as well. Oh man, it sounds like you had a great trip.

It was a fantastic trip. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely go see, go see, uh, Jack and Julie, uh, eat her food, stay in their place. Um, you know, Coral Bayside is just an incredible place for us to stay. Um, and, and, you know, the other thing that you'll realize real quick is like the fact that they have vehicles to rent.

Yeah.

Is incredibly valuable for the island. Um, otherwise you gotta rent from a company. And that you have food available prepared for you at the place, as well as people who are willing and able to give you accurate and reliable information about the island that they've— I think they've told me they've been living there for like 20 years now.

Wow.

Um, you know, so they really know their stuff.

You know, that, that's got to be really, really helpful resource.

Oh yeah.

I mean, definitely whenever you go to a place you don't know, just having someone who kind of knows what they're doing, uh, we kind of had that opportunity whenever we had gone to Jamaica. We had a special kind of service available to us that we had one guy that was helping us during our trip that was there. And just kind of the knowledge of what's going on— hey, go here, don't go there, try this but don't try that— you know, that, that's just really, really helpful information. Oh, for sure. And to have that in a host, that's well worth the money that you spent, I'm sure.

Oh yeah, that like wants you to text them and want you to communicate with them and want you to ask them questions. They want you to have a great experience.

Sure. They want you to come back.

We're already trying to figure out how we can get back.

Sure. I will say that every time you say Coral Bayside, I think of Saved by the Bell. I'm just saying, I do.

Bayside High?

Bayside High.

Maybe that's how they should market themselves.

Slater. Yeah, the Bayside. Anyway, Bayside Tigers. That's what they were, chilling at the Max.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, what else, man? Did you— did we miss anything? Because it sounds like we pretty well covered it.

I'm sure we missed something.

Probably. I mean, your wife would have been like, well, you forgot this and you forgot that.

Yeah, I mean, like, we— there was a lot of great beaches. There were some other great restaurants that we tried while we were there.

Sure.

Um, it's, it's an island worth exploring.

Yeah, for sure. Cool.

Um, hiking, snorkeling, fishing, whatever. I mean, like, on— like, whatever outdoor activity you might be into, it's worth trying on the island.

Cool.

And if nothing— I mean, like, if nothing else, you know, it's an accessible snorkeling place.

Sure.

For people that may not be as confident in deeper waters. Okay, lots of options. Lots, lots of options.

Okay, yeah, cool. Is there a golf course?

There's not a golf course that I know. See, again, like, the resort has been closed since 2017. Okay, that's the only place I could think of that might have a— um, I say that, so there's, uh, the Caneel Bay, which is— that's where their resort has been for years and years that shut down. Yeah, the Westin has one on the south side of the island, but I'm not sure that— I don't think they have a golf course. Okay, and I think the The issue is that, you know, it's a national forest. It's like, yeah, you probably can't do that there. Um, not only that, like, it's difficult to imagine terrain on that island being friendly for a

golf course.

It's—

I mean, like, it's pretty much water, sand, and then hill, mountain. I mean, like, it's— I mean, it's—

Interesting.

There's not— there's not a lot of flat area Ever?

Well, you will probably be interested to know that there are 3 golf courses on St. John's.

Is there really? Yeah, there are.

Yeah, one, one of them is called Mahogany Run. Uh-huh.

Uh, and are these like full, like 18-hole courses?

Uh, well, now that I'm looking at this, I'm— I may be— this may be wrong. I may be wrong. Um, because I think I'm looking actually at St. Thomas.

Uh-huh. That would make more sense.

Uh, I'd have to look into that a little bit more, but, um, there's, there's some nearby.

Jack and Julie are probably gonna listen to this episode.

And yeah, that's on St. Thomas. The ones I was looking at were on St. Thomas, so you're probably right. I don't, I don't think there are any on—

I mean, those are the only 2 places I can think of that might have one, but like, I didn't see anything. And like, I was, I was pretty close to those areas and didn't see anything that even looked remotely close. Like, it Like a golf course.

Yeah, I think, I think it's—

if golf is your thing, even if they did have one, if golf is your thing, I would imagine that is not your place to hang. Yeah, because like St. Thomas, I mean, like one of the, one of the couples that we, that we met, that we shared a taxi with once we got off the plane, which that's a big thing by the way, you don't just get a taxi by yourself.

Oh yeah.

They're like all bus, like sure, like minivan kind of taxis. Sure. And like they want you to stack as many people in them as possible.

Sure.

Um, the couple that we were riding with, one of the couples we were riding with, was going to Margaritaville. So I mean, like, yeah, that's, that's more of like a— and I know it's not knocking Margaritaville. I mean, we've got one here, right? Um, but I mean, it's, it's very touristy.

It's very touristy. It's not— it's great. Yeah.

But it's not local. That's if that's the experience you're after.

It's, it's not like the local thing to do. No, no.

So, and that's, that's always more of what we're interested in, is like, where do locals hang out? What, what are the— like, where would they tell you to go?

Yeah, well, um, in doing, uh, 29 seconds worth of research, um, there are no golf courses on St. John.

Okay.

You have to go over to St. Thomas.

That makes total sense to me.

Yeah, so, and now you know.

Yep.

So, well, cool. Well, uh, Yeah, thanks for giving us a report. It's been— I mean, it's really interesting hearing about, about a place that I've never been, and I would assume that many of our listeners have not been either.

So, and all of you should go.

Yeah, and if you've got other questions, I mean, I'm sure that you're willing to answer them.

So I'm happy to answer them. I'm sure, you know, send them on over. Jack and Julia are happy to answer them. We're gonna link up their, uh, the, the their, their place on Airbnb.

Okay.

Yeah, people can find that.

Yeah, absolutely. Because it sounds like they would be a great place to stay.

So like, if you're, if you're a couple looking to, to have an amazing getaway with you and your significant other, do it.

Yeah, it's a no-brainer.

It's an absolute no-brainer for that island.

Well, and if you need more information or want more information than what we're giving you right now, info@homeownersshow.com. You can get us, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook. Don't try Twitter. Um, although we're on there. Um, so yeah, and I just heard recently we're on Spotify. We, uh, is that the one? No, what do you think of Audible?

Oh, we're on Audible now.

Audible? Yeah, man, y'all, we hit the big time. That's right.

I mean, like, I don't know how more legit you can be than to be on Audible.

Exactly, exactly.

Well, either way, here's what happened is I was, I was, I'm on Audible all the time.

Yeah.

I mean, that's how I get a lot of my reading done. I had something pop up in my feed that said, hey, we have podcasts now. I was like, surely not. I did this quick search and I was like, holy heck, we're on Audible! There we are.

Very nice. Well, yeah, if you are not already, subscribe, please. Subscribe. That way, you don't have to ever miss an episode. We've got all kinds of stuff. Now you can subscribe on Audible. Absolutely.

Well, and so here's, here's one of the things that I— one of the reasons I wanted to mention that is on Audible you can actually leave specific episode reviews. Oh, um, so like it's not just like a review for the podcast, but like you can like, I really liked this episode.

Interesting.

And so you can leave a review for that one.

Cool.

Um, and so like they're, they're making it a little bit more macro in their review process of podcasts, which I mean, like, you know, it could be a little annoying for people because it's like I'm not getting as many reviews as I used to for like my entire podcast.

Yeah.

Um, but I mean, like, you're actually getting like specific feedback on episodes.

Each episode. Yeah, that's pretty good. And speaking of, if you haven't, please take a moment, go leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. That would be really, really helpful for us. Um, and yeah, we're on YouTube as well. Notification bell, subscribe there as well. Hit that notification bell, that way you get notified as soon as—

Like, you hit the subscribe button and then the notification bell. That way you don't miss the episode. Right, right.

because they'll send you a message that says, hey, the new episode. In fact, we, uh, just—

it'll let you know when we're going live too.

Yeah, exactly. And which, which happens every Thursday at noon, um, but except for last Thursday because—

So not every Thursday.

Almost every Thursday because it was, it was Thanksgiving and I just, I thought I had uploaded the episode. I apparently didn't. So whatever, um, it went today, went live today. So anyway, uh, It's up there. No matter what, thank you for downloading the episode. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it. Uh, we're here every single Tuesday, whether we are on Thursday or not. We're here every single Tuesday on the podcast. Uh, we can be found anywhere podcasts can be found, apparently. So yeah, thanks for, uh, thanks for spending your time with us. We hope you enjoyed it, and until next time, we'll see you later. See ya.