St. John is one of the beautiful Virgin Islands of the Caribbean owned by the United States. The island is just across the channel from St. Thomas, but it's a completely different experience that its nearby neighbor--one that is quieter, slower, and more rural. This is because about 2/3 of St. John is protected as a national park. In addition, although the small island is about the size of Manhattan, but only has about 4,000 residents.
Although cruise ships dock in nearby St. Thomas, many often include shore excursions to St. John. While on a cruise on the Disney Magic, a tour boat picked us up at the ship for the 30-minute ride to St. John, where we boarded a safari truck for a driving tour of the beautiful island. While on the Arabella sailing ship, we anchored in Caneel Bay our first night on the ship and in Cruz Bay our last night on the ship. Both were wonderful anchorages and had marvelous nighttime views of St. Thomas and St. John.
St. John (c) Linda Garrison


St Croix’s Buccaneer Hotel sponsoring Buck Island Sea Turtle Research Project
For years in a row, The Buccaneer is pleased to continue its commitment to turtle research through this program.
Under the auspices of the National Park Service, volunteers from Florida Institute of Technology, University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Central Florida, North Carolina State University, Texas A&M and Texas Maritime Academy will monitor leatherback, hawksbill and green turtle activities at Buck Island National Monument. The Buccaneer provides support through accommodations and meals for volunteers. For more turtle information, see http://www.nps.gov/buis/naturescience/animals.htm.
For information on The Buccaneer, http://www.thebuccaneer.com.
My wife and I really love the informative travel app Explore St. John. It has loads of spectacular photos, links to videos, lots of informative information about hiking, nature, and snorkeling and diving.
We used it on a recent trip to St. John and particularly valued the useful advice as well as the links toTrip Advisor, Wikipedia, and mamy local websites we would have had great difficulty finding on our iPad.
I looked up the URLs where you can buy the app. Here they are:
iOS version (iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini, IPodTouch):
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/explore-st.-john/id428169483?mt=8
Android version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sutromedia.android.guide.exp.st.john