Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critters

Travel discussion for St. John
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AquaGirl
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Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critters

Post by AquaGirl »

Part 1
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... =1&t=28416

Part 2
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... =1&t=28426

We enjoy seeing wildlife, both on land, in the air and underwater. We had a few unusual encounters on this trip, so I wanted to share them with you. I’d love to hear about other people’s critter experiences.

One day, we packed our lunch and went to Francis. We hadn’t snorkeled there the last few trips due to low visibility or swarms of mosquitoes. It’s always so nice and calm, so we wanted to give it another try. We snorkeled to the right out towards the point and it was great. Notable sights were big turtles, pork fish (love the brilliant yellow and black markings), and a bright green anemone. We were sitting in our chairs enjoying chicken sandwiches and veggies, when we were approached by 2 good-sized iguanas. One was about 18” and one about 2”. We’ve never been approached by iguanas that seemed so fearless, so we were very surprised. We jumped up and got behind our chairs. They kept coming at us, so we pushed the chairs towards them, hoping to scare them away. They were totally unafraid. I’m guessing someone has fed them on the beach and they were eyeing our sandwiches. We finally kicked sand at them and they slowly ambled down the beach.

After lunch, we snorkeled to the left, over to Little Maho. Very nice fish and coral in this area. Three huge tarpon cruised by several times and gave me quite a start. I know they don’t normally attack humans, but they make me nervous. They were so huge and they eyed us as they slowly swam by. We also saw octopus, a small queen angel and a large French angel. Later in the trip, we snorkeled at Maho and saw 3 tarpon again, so the Maho area must be their territory.

The next encounter was at Waterlemon where we snorkeled the beach area instead of going out to the Cay. My husband has a camera in a case and was slowly swimming along the shallow area on the way back to the beach. He saw a small barracuda, so he pointed the camera to take a picture. It disappeared from his view of the camera screen, so he glanced up to spot it again. In a split second, the barracuda swam towards him and bumped hard into his mask. Fortunately, it hit the mask and not his forehead, so he wasn’t injured. It was pretty freaky and unnerving. He often photographs barracudas and has never had one come at him. Perhaps the sunlight glinting off the camera when he held it up caused the attack?

Bugs…yes, I know there are lots of them in the tropics. I do wish the birds and lizards would eat the ones in the vicinity of the villa. We encountered 3, yes 3, scorpions on this trip. Yuck! We’ve never seen one on any of our previous StJ trips. The first one was in the pool. My husband spotted it at the bottom and removed it. It was dead, but I was not happy to see it. Then on 2 separate occasions, I had a scorpion on the wall of the outside shower. This served to underscore my dislike of outdoor showers. One was on the wall above the door – the only way to get out of the shower area. Yikes – those things are scary because they can inflict a painful sting! Hubby came to the rescue with our bug whacker and took care of them. I’ve only seen a scorpion one other time (at Cooper Island), so I hope I’ve now had my lifetime share.

The other encounters were pleasant and not unusual. We saw 7 deer on the trip, including a fawn. There were some big cows hanging around the grassy area near the clinic, so we referred to them as the “clinic cows” when we saw them each day. I guess they don’t need to cut the grass there. We had the treat of seeing a yellow warbler, green heron and an egret. These may be common on StJ, but we don’t see them often. Almost every day at Hummingbird Hill villa, we saw a beautiful Kestral sitting on top of a tall pole near our deck. Most days, he (I think it was a male) would swoop down and catch a lizard. Then he flew back to the pole where he devoured his “meal”. I declined to watch, but my husband enjoyed watching it.

Thanks for reading and comments. Looking forward to our next StJ adventure!
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mahojim
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Re: Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critte

Post by mahojim »

While staying at Island Horizons one year, I woke up one morning to find a small scorpion next to my head on the pillow. I was still a little bit inebriated from the night before, and just flicked it away and passed back out.
What I'm not particularly fond of are the tarantulas.
Those things get pretty darn big.
Then again, I'm pretty sure that I could deal with any of it rather than being stuck here in Jersey. Oh well.
Smiles -
MJ
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Suziekue
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Re: Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critte

Post by Suziekue »

So I was happily living in my own naive world, having been to the island many times and never seeing a scorpion or tarantula! Now I'll probably be thinking about them while there, going to have to deal with that LOL. I've only encountered a scorpion while on Aruba before.
Soarin' with the eagles all week long, and this is all that we've learned about living - VACATION!

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liamsaunt
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Re: Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critte

Post by liamsaunt »

I've found scorpions at a couple of the houses we have rented over the years. One house in particular was a scorpion and tarantula magnet for some reason. I would remove the tarantulas by tossing them off the deck into the trees below. Scorpions got squashed though!

Your barracuda encounter was interesting. I am guessing that you are right, the barracuda thought the camera glinting was a fish. Barracudas are territorial though, and it is possible it felt threatened. John had a barracuda behave very similarly to him when he was following a big one (for what I thought was too long) to get a good photo. The barracuda shot down to the sand, turned, and flew back up right into his face. It did not make contact though. I tend to keep moving when I see barracudas.
It's like looking in your soup and finding a whole different alphabet.
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shoemak38
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Re: Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critte

Post by shoemak38 »

:D :D :D :D
watergirl
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Re: Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critte

Post by watergirl »

I few years ago my group (4 adults, 4 teenagers rented some Kayaks and went to Whistling Cay. We were hanging out in the ruins of the custom house, enjoying our sandwiches and the view, when we were attacked by a herd (flock?, pride?) of iguanas. Had to have been at least 10-15 of them. They were also totally fearless, coming at us with their mouths open and not running off when we tried to shoo them. It was super creepy. They surrounded us, kept rushing the cooler and our food. We felt like we were in a low budget version of Jurassic Park. Finally, WE gave up, threw our sandwiches at them, and kayaked off.
I've been out to Whistling Cay several times since then and have never seen even one.
Weird.
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GidgetPicklebrain
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Re: Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critte

Post by GidgetPicklebrain »

I've had two close barracuda encounters, both on my first trip. The first was a very large one, looked to be about 4 feet long or so, that was hanging out on the right side of Frances close to the point. I was almost on it before I spotted it but stopped dead still when I did. It turned to face me and began appraoching, although not quickly. I didn't wait to discover it's intentions, I rolled onto my back and kicked those snorkel fins like mad. (I'm a backstroker, swim faster doing backstroke than freestyle). I'd never seen a baracuda before, knew nothing about them other than they were predators, and wasn't taking any chances.

The second time was at Salt Pond. I had snorkeled out to the left and was returning to shore. Visiblity was not all that great, so this one I did not even see, I felt something bump into my leg, which startled me. I looked around but saw nothing. My husband came up with alarm to see if I had been bitten. He told me It was pretty small. It charged me from underneath as I passed overhead.

I have since read that they are fairly curious, and also somewhat territorial. I've also read not to wear jewelry while snorkeling, as they can mistake the glitter for prey.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Confucius

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mdcoles1
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Re: Trip Report – May/June – Part 3 – Encounters with Critte

Post by mdcoles1 »

We were hanging out in the ruins of the custom house, enjoying our sandwiches and the view, when we were attacked by a herd (flock?, pride?) of iguanas. Had to have been at least 10-15 of them. They were also totally fearless, coming at us with their mouths open and not running off when we tried to shoo them. It was super creepy. They surrounded us, kept rushing the cooler and our food. We felt like we were in a low budget version of Jurassic Park. Finally, WE gave up, threw our sandwiches at them, and kayaked off.

The visual image made me LOL.
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