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Island Update Including Exciting Ferry News!

Island Update Including Exciting Ferry News! 1
Snorkelers at Hawksnest Bay Friday morning

Hi all! This is Jenn. Today is Hillary’s birthday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILLARY!! – so I am filling in with the “news”. I’ve got a lot of random things to share in today’s island update, so let’s get right to it!

A BIG announcement was made earlier this week regarding ferry service to the British Virgin Islands. Inter Island Boat Services, the company that runs the Cruz Bay to Crown Bay ferry, announced that it plans to launch ferry service between St. John and Jost Van Dyke soon … how exciting is that??! They are still hammering out the details, so unfortunately that is the only news on that for the time being. What we do know is that all people visiting the British Virgin Islands must be fully vaccinated. That’s the BVI’s rule, not St. John’s, not the ferry service’s, etc. I’m assuming they’re still working on details regarding negative Covid tests (another BVI requirement), how to return to the US and satisfy those specific Covid requirements, etc. So please stay tuned for more info on this one!

Speaking of ferry service, Varlack Ventures announced today that beginning this Monday, the last ferry will leave St. John at 11 p.m. (It currently leaves at 10 p.m.) The last two runs from Red Hook to Cruz Bay will be 11 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Great news!

Now let’s chat about the weather. One of the best pieces of advice that I can give people planning to visit St. John is to try not to stress too much if there is rain in the forecast. There is pretty much always rain in the forecast. But our showers here come and go pretty quickly, which is nice. One nice thing about the rain showers is that they usually bring beautiful rainbows! Check out this pic I took today while out and about with guests on my Explore STJ island tour:

Island Update Including Exciting Ferry News! 2
Trunk Bay rainbow, December 17th

Gorgeous, right??!

There are a few sites/apps that I rely on for the most accurate weather forecast. The first is a Facebook group called St. John VI Weather. This page is run by a couple of residents who post the forecast daily. It is super helpful and very accurate.

For those of you not on Facebook, I really like the Wunderground app, which can also be seen accessed online at www.wunderground.com. I think that it is much more accurate than say weather.com for our region. You can even check real time radar (when the local radar is working), so you can see if it’s raining at Trunk or Maho, for example.

The winds have really kicked up this past week, which is normal for this time of year. A site that I rely on for the wind forecast is Windy.com or the Windy app. You can zoom into our region and see how blustery it’s going to be and what the wind direction is. This is super helpful when planning beach and boat days. You can even check the forecasted winds up to a week or so in advance. Here is a screenshot I took today:

Island Update Including Exciting Ferry News! 3
Screenshot from the Windy app showing Friday afternoon’s winds

Well folks, I think I am going to end it here. For those of you who are lucky enough to have a trip to St. John in the works, please considering booking an island tour with me. I would love to share my love of St. John with all of you! 🙂 Explore STJ is rated “Excellent” on TripAdvisor, which is something that makes me super proud! Please check out www.ExploreSTJ.com for more info or follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Images and/or videos are posted daily.

Thanks all! Have a wonderful weekend!

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