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caneel bay

Kati Steinborn is on the grow


Kati Katherine Steinborn (dba KatiLady) built a business the hard way. She's earned it.  

From preparing welcome baskets for villa renters to an award-winning catering business, Steinborn expanded her business from a core to its natural extensions which now include in-home gourmet dinner preparations and meal deliveries.  

Most recently, she's gathered the sum of her 14-year-old business' parts together to create a wedding/event planning business.

Now, Steinborn's going public, sort of.  She was out of sight, in the Tradewinds building. Not much drop-in street traffic there. Instead, her businesss' products were delivered to villas and events, and then gone.  

But now, she's had to go 'retail' because she needed more space.  She found that space at the Lumberyard.  She plans to offer more services as well as cooking classes and perhaps even wine tastings.

Carnival is for kids, too

The annual Children's Carnival Village opens Wednesday evening.  The Village has been built at the bulkhead of the Creek near the Virgin Islands National Park headquarters.  A handful of volunteers from St. John Rotary created the alcohol-free alternative to the 'adult' Village which springs up each year at the Cruz Bay parking lot by the Post Office.

The Children's Village offers games such as strongman, milk bottle knockdown, hot wheel racing and even in inflated castle to explore, according to the St. John Source.  All the money collected for tickets to the games goes back into prizes and refreshments, Rotarians said.

Carnival gets serious now

St. John Festival is in its final, exciting, fun-filled days.

Festival Village opens in the parking lot across from the Post Office this evening. Dozens of colorfully-painted food and beverage stands, constructed of plywood, offer visitors a smorgasbord of island food and beverage treats. 

Numerous Virgin Island musical groups can be counted on to be performing in the bandstand, providing a rhythmic background to the fun and games and food in the Village. The Village is open until Monday evening.

The final day of  St. John Celebration, Monday is highlighted by the Festival Parade, featuring music, floats, costumes and performers. It begins at the National Park headquarters and will wind through Cruz Bay.

Celebration will be capped Monday evening, the 5th, with the traditional 'July 4th Fireworks'.  The flares and aerial bombs will be launched from a barge out in the bay.

Monday headlines of St. John

Better photos = better memories

Someone pointed out to me that he tends to remember those parts of his life most clearly that were recorded in a photograph.  Not only is a picture worth a thousand words, it's also worth memories. 

And so I'm always on the lookout for tips to help me take better images.  At the moment, I'm taking a weeklong class in Maine at 
Unnamed  The Workshops in an immersive effort to improve my work.

In the meantime, Macworld contributor Ben Long just published some tips that I found useful and maybe you will, too.

Summarizing:

  • Get Closer.  Always the number one tip.  I should put this on a Post It note on my viewfinder.  "Less IS more," Long says/.
  • Watch out for backlighting.  especially in sunsets.
  • Edit ruthlessly.  When you come back with 200 images for the day, remember no one but you can see the difference between the 3rd picture of the guy on beach and the 15th.  Not even the guy will care.  Again, less is more …  be selective … don't bore the audience.  Find 'the best', show the best.
  • Leave your camera at home one day.  (I love this idea.) "While you may get nervous when you see some sort of "once-in-a-lifetime" photo, don't worry about it. The fact is, similar opportunities will come along again, and you'll have a more meaningful experience if you pay attention to where you are, as much as you try to capture where you are," Long writes.

Read all his suggestions here.

Underwater Webcam on south shore

Lameshur How many people does it take to install an underwater Webcam at Lameshur Bay, along the south shore? The answer is nine teenagers and five teachers from Kent Denver School  in Englewood, Colo.

Teens4Oceans.org, as they're known, use their own funds and donations to do go works to learn about oceans, conservation, and public service. Although, honestly, to read the blog they wrote about their week on St. John, they also learned a lot about snorkeling, hiking, and enjoying beaches.

During their week, they installed a high definition camera inside a glass dome and lights underneath the dock at the Virgin Islands Environmental Research Station.

UnderwatercamIt can turn 360 degrees and is 10 times more sensitive than a human eye, said one of the Colorado teachers. Helping to document the project was world class photographer Steve Simonsen of St. John. He passed along  a short video. 

Friends of the Virgin islands National Park, the Park itself, and Sadie Sea's Capt. Tom and Gracie helped support the project with donations.

The link to the Webcam's Internet address is http://teens4oceans.org/cam-saint-john.htm.  The picture is supposed to be sent to the Web using the VIERS satellite uplink.   Completing that project, to judge from the blog, took longer than expected and may still not be done. Folks using Macs and Firefox or Safari browsers have had little luck seeing the Webcam, according to a post on Virgin-Islands-On-Line.  Some using Internet Explorer 8 say they've had success.

St. John’s secret coral garden

A few years ago, divers and scientists were fretting about a die-off of some 60 percent of coral colonies around the island.  Today, there's evidence of new coral life.

Caroline Rogers, a coral reef ecologist, brought back the photographic proof she discovered "a hidden stash" of coral beneath the waters of Hurricane Hole, near Coral Bay.  This picture is an example of what she found.  Click on it to see a larger version.
Corals  

An ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, Rogers said, "the abundance and diversity of the corals, the sheer number of different species (30) … is unique."

No other similar mangrove ecosystems, with such a high diversity of corals, are known to exist in the Caribbean or the Virgin Islands, she wrote.

  • Rogers' discovery was reported by OurAmazingPlant.com  and TreeHugger.com .  A portfolio of her photos is here.
  • Travel photographer Andrew Burnett, previously, posted a video of mangrove diving at Hurricane Hole. You can watch it here.
  • Caroline Rogers' report of her find is available here 

Thursday’s St. John headlines

Tropical
Wave Conditions Remain Present in the Virgin Islands

US Virgin Islands Launches
National TV Ad Campaign Looking For Visitors

Rare
Coral Sanctuary Discovered in US Virgin Islands

Caneel: Lttle
Known Tropical Get-A-Way

Generous
Donation Made to Virgin Islands National Park

The life she saves may be your own

Skinny Legs will host another island benefit event on Sunday.  

Davis Hundreds of people (hopefully) will party during what organizers hope will be an "outright crazy, whacko afternoon of fun" to raise money to send the island's Wendy Davis to paramedic school. 

Davis works as a firefighter for VI Fire Services. She is primarily stationed in Coral Bay and wants to become a paramedic. Davis is eager to go off island for 15 weeks of certification training at a costof $15,000. 

The afternoon's fun will feature an activity described as a combination of "The Price is Right," "Let's Make a Deal," and "A Minute to Win It."

Davis is also a volunteer with St. John Rescue, seeing first-hand the need for advanced medical emergency care on the island and especially in Coral Bay-where it can take 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive from Cruz Bay.  Having Davis in Coral Bay could make a life-death difference.

The St. John Benefit to Benefit St. John, and Wendy Davis, starts at 3 p.m. Sunday at Skinny's.  If you're on island, hey, you're going to go to Skinny's anyway, right?  Join the party and do some good to help Davis do some good.

Westin permit approved, on island time

At least three yeares ago, owners of the Westin Resort applied to renew a Coastal Zone Management permit for its beachfront 180-foot dock.  

The dock is used by the Westin's ferry, charter boats, sunset cruisers and other water activities.  Last week, the VI Senate's environmental committee voted OK and now it's up to the full Senate.

Just sayin', you gotta be patient in the islands.

The Virgin Islands Daily News report about the permit says the Westin also got approval to dredge sand from around the dock to bring the water depth to eight feet.  Does this mean the resort wants to bring in some larger boats, maybe host mega-yachts? More likely, that since the dock went in, sand has shifted and the depth has decreased.

BTW, the annual fee for the permit was $7,400. Now it's $28,000/year.

  • Read the Daily News story here.