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St. John was recently named to the top spot of not one, but two travel lists.

TripAdvisor named St. John the best island in the Caribbean as part of its 2013 Travelers’ Choice Awards. Here’s what they had to say:

“Ecotourism is alive and kicking on St. John. There’s more than enough to do on land, from watching for wildlife in the national park to hiking miles of trails or strolling sandy white beaches. Hit the water for amazing snorkeling, swimming, even underwater photography—of course. This is the Caribbean, after all.”

The award is based on traveler’s opinions and submitted reviews. TripAdvisor ranked St. John the second best island in the world earlier this year.

St. John was also named the top snorkeling destination in the Caribbean earlier this week.

Islands Magazine referred to St. John as “the belle of the ball” and even mentioned renowned local photographer Steve Simonsen in the article. Here’s a bit of what they had to say:

“When you spend the bulk of your professional life snorkeling the reefs of St. John, USVI, aiming your underwater camera at a succession of bikini-clad babes and creating images for clients such as Kodak, National Geographic and Playboy, a day off seems like a wasted opportunity. But if you’re CT+L contributor Steve Simonsen, you still grab your snorkel and head for the water. At Leinster Bay, you’ll hit belly-scrapingly shallow water just yards away from the path to Water­lemon Cay, where the skinny water is packed with millions of sardine-size silverside. The baitfish ebb and flow around you as you move, so don’t be surprised to find yourself dive-bombed by a pelican looking to fill its bill.

“In deeper water, vast schools of French grunts and goatfish move amid fields of Venus sea fans. On a recent four-hour masked marathon in Leinster Bay, Simonsen tailed a sea turtle as it grazed on grass and then tried to crack open a small conch, and he spied healthy young stands of endangered elkhorn corals five to eight feet in diameter.”

Now you know you’ve got a good thing going when you get two pretty cool awards in one week. Keep up the good work St. John.

In a nutshell, the National Park Service here on St. John is not happy but in a way, their hands are tied.

News of St. John recently spoke with Bryon FitzGerald. He’s the Superintendent of the National Park Service (NPS) here on St. John. FitzGerald started this position in March of this year. That’s when one of his staff members notified him about what was going on over at Denis Bay.

“What we found out back in March was that a bunch of trees had been cut down on what I would call the upper curve,” FitzGerald said. “At that point in time, we didn’t know with any level of certainty if they were on our property or not. We then went to identify if they were on our property or not. We believe that it is on our property but we do not have any definitive proof yet.”

Because the exact National park boundaries are in question, FitzGerald said NPS is having the property surveyed. He said that the property owner, Tony Ingrao, is also entitled to have the property surveyed. FitzGerald said that the NPS is also planning to have an ecologist survey the area. Once NPS determines the exact boundaries and the extent of the damage, they plan to work with Ingrao to mitigate the damage.

News of St. John has reached out to Ingrao on several occasions. He has yet to respond to telephone and email messages left with his office. Ingrao did, however, tell FitzGerald that he planned to work with NPS to mitigate the damage.

“He has told me that he will do whatever we ask him to do to mitigate whatever damages he needs to do to fix the damage to park property,” FitzGerald said.

Once the surveys are completed, NPS will ask Ingrao to replant trees, add soil to stabilize the ground and the banks, and plant ground cover to prevent further erosion from damaging the parkland.

As of right now, FitzGerald said, “there is no question that the dirt is coming down into the park.”

So how exactly did the bulk of the damage occur?

Ingrao installed two gabion baskets, which are steel structures filled with several tons of rocks and soil. They’re typically used in road building and for erosion control. Well there was one week back in May that had two days of pretty heavy rain. During that second rainfall, one of the gabion baskets gave away. FitzGerald said the basket, which contained soil and large rocks, slid down and took out National Park trees. At that time, FitzGerald met with Ingrao’s on-site representatives.

“At that time, a chunk of road was undercut so there was a huge amount of dirt that was still in danger of falling into the park,” FitzGerald said. He then met with a director of the Department of Planning and Natural Resources. “Between the two of us, we said you’re done. We said you’re finished here unless you can get in here safely and remove this dirt safety from the overhang, so it doesn’t get into the park”

“At that point, they knew they needed a retaining wall. I said as long as the wall is on the road and not park property, I have no complaints. They needed to dig down to get stability to make road. I again said fine, but said when you are done, I need you to cover dirt so it doesn’t wash down into park. They dug down and they covered dirt with the cloth. That’s still there today. They did plant the upper curve area to stabilize the upper portion until they get pavement. They have stopped work.”

(News of St. John witnessed numerous workers at the job site earlier this week, however, all appeared to be working on the home only.)

Now there is the question of permits. FitzGerald said he has requested to see a copy of the permits but as of yet, he has not been able to obtain one. One main issue he has in terms of what happening is that the NPS is not the permitting authority. The Department of Public Works and the Department of Planning and Natural Resources are. The three organizations are currently working together, FitzGerald said.

“The Park Service is not the permitting authority and we are working with DPW and DPNR,” FitzGerald said. “Now going forward, what should happen is when a permit is issued on property that goes through National Park Service property, we would certainly like to be notified.”

Again, FitzGerald said NPS has stopped any further damage from occurring within the park and that the damage assessment will take some time to complete. What he does know is that the damage is extensive. He estimated it to be roughly three football fields wide and deep.

Click here to see images and a video of the damage.

Click here to read about the fines Ingrao received.

News of St. John took a stroll over to the Denis Bay property, which was recently fined by DPNR for cutting into and building on National Park land. This is what we found:

A handwritten sign warning drivers that the road is closed:

Evidence of the cut:

The mechanical room that is said to have been built on National Park land. This was built across the roadway from the home:

The retaining wall built alongside the road:

Evidence of the landslide:

National Park Boundary Sign:

The damage was pretty extensive in our opinion here at News of St. John. Check out this video to see for yourself.

You can read our original story on this here.

Please check out News of St. John tomorrow to hear what the National Park Service has to say about all of this.

Looking to have everything there is to know about St. John in the palm of your hand? Well, there’s a new app for that.

Cimmaron St. John just released a new and extremely thorough smartphone app, and I have to admit, it’s pretty cool.

“If it’s on St. John, it’s on our app,” said David Conro, owner of Cimmaron St. John.

The app essentially takes all of the information contained in one of Cimmaron’s guest binders and expands on it. It includes details on restaurants, activities, island events, the history of St. John and more. The really neat thing, and this is for Cimmaron guests only, is that it also includes property-specific information too.

So let’s just say that you are spending the week over at La Jolla Caribe. Once you sign on to the app, you can see all of the information specific to that villa. The type of information available may include wifi passwords, safe combinations, as well as other security details. It’s a pretty handy feature to have on your phone in the event that it’s needed.

Again, the app is available to both guests and non-guests. It is free and can be downloaded on your smartphone.

Click here to download the app on your Apple product.  Click here to download the app in the Google Play store.

And for more information on Cimmaron, click here.

Looking for a night out on the town sans children? How about an afternoon over at the Soggy Dollar? Or perhaps some me time at Mongoose Junction? Well for those of you looking for a responsible and affordable on-island babysitter, there’s a new service just for you.

Kids Night In is a recently-launched babysitting service provided by Leslie McKibben. Leslie is an experienced pediatric physical therapist who moved to St. John earlier this year. The great thing about Kids Night In is that it comes to you.

“I have provided services (at guests’ villas) for a romantic night out, a day trip to the BVIs … and of course, a night of adult ‘libations’ without little kids’ eyes watching … Or when locals need help with a work schedule or a night to play grown up-style,” Leslie said.

But this isn’t just all about the parents having fun – The kids have a lot of options too. A few activities available are baking, scavenger hunts, hiking, pool fun, crafts, dance parties, games, iPad educational games and more.

Kids Night In costs $20 per hour plus $5 an hour per additional child. Locals receive a discounted rate.

Kids Night In is a fully-licensed business. It can be reached by phone at (321) 431-9113 or by email here. You can also check out its Facebook page here.

I’m not sure about all of you, but I’ve sure missed Cafe Roma over the past few months. Well, I  have some good news for those of you who enjoy Roma as much as I do – it’s coming back! But for one night only…

Hey, one night’s better than none, right?

Castaways is holding an event this Sunday night to benefit Cafe Roma in its rebuilding efforts. The event will feature some Cafe Roma favorites such as the Rajun Cajun, Penne Broccoli and their popular zeppolis.  The event will also feature live music, drink specials and more than $5,000 worth of raffles in addition to a silent auction.

Tickets can be purchased in advance for $20 at Connections or for $25 at the door. Raffle tickets are $5 each or five for $20. You can purchase raffle tickets at High Tide, Castaways, Across the Street or Connections in both Cruz Bay and Coral Bay. For those of you off-island, you can purchase tickets online here. You do not need to be present to claim your prize.

Raffle prizes include: $500 Kro-Gu Jewelry Gift Certertificate; Sadie Sea Sunset Cruise for up to 30 people; Nightwind Day Sail; 2 night stay at Tamarind Court; dinghy rental from Noah’s Little Arks; Cloud 9 sunset sails; “Kickin it Class” at the Westin; as well as gift certificates from Tap Room; Tamarind Court; Ronnie’s Pizza; Driftwood Daves; Simply Italian; Woody’s; Across the Street; Quiet Mon Pub; and Castaways.

The event is being held tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Castaways.

It may take some time, but the Port Authority is looking to install free wi-fi at three Port Authority facilities on St. John.

The Port Authority is currently soliciting businesses to provide “free and affordable” wi-fi at the passenger ferry, car barge and National Park Service docks. The catch, however, is that the free wi-fi won’t be super fast, but users will have the option of purchasing a faster connection for a fee.

According to the request for proposal, the wi-fi must not cost the Port Authority a penny. The minimum access speed for the free version must be at least 1.5Mbps while the fee-based service must have a minimum bandwidth of at least 5Mbps. The faster, fee-based option will allow video streaming while the free version will not. The wi-fi has to meet the needs of all users, which is great, and must be available 24/7 – also great. Lastly, the Port Authority needs to make a profit off of it. Hmmm…

The Port Authority is also looking to install wi-fi at the Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas, as well as the Red Hook and Charlotte Amalie Port Authority facilities.

Bids are due at the beginning of September and a contract is expected to be awarded in October. That begs a question of the day – when do you think this will actually be in place by?

Now this sounds like a lot of fun. For those of you lucky enough to be on the island this Saturday, be sure to stop by The Beach Bar for the 13th annual Bar Wars competition.

Bar Wars is a zany charity event that happens each August and features a lot of familiar faces. The event tests the bartending and waitressing skills of participants who happen to work at a variety of our favorite eating and drinking establishments. Each team has to work together to create, serve and drink beverages, all while completing a funky obstacle course. Sounds like fun, right? Well it gets even better.

The course doesn’t just occur on land; it also extends out into Cruz Bay. Teams will be required to hula hoop, swim, kick and more, all without spilling a drink. And to make it a bit more entertaining to watch, they need to do all of this while holding a ball in their hands. The team with the best time and the least amount of penalties wins.

The best part of the competition is that all of the proceeds from the event – it costs $100 per team to enter – will be donated to the Family Resource Center, which helps victims of crime in St. John, St. Thomas and Water Island.

A few of the participating bars/restaurants include: Motu, Banana Deck, Woody’s, Across the Street Bar, Joe’s Rum Hut, Castaways as well as many others from St. John and St. Thomas.

Spectators are encouraged to attend. So again, if you are lucky enough to be on the island this weekend, stop by The Beach Bar on Saturday and cheer on your favorite team. The event begins at 12:30 p.m.