emily and I survived our first st john hurricane experience.  I really wanted to go out during it and capture video and stills, unfortunately emily wouldn’t let me go =( it ended up working okay though, we stayed inside and watched movies the entire night- and I did venture out onto the deck to grab a photo of Coral Bay during the end of the storm.  The next day we explored the north and south shores to document some of the destruction, it was the boaties that seemed to have been hit the hardest here.  Afterwards we went into Cruz Bay to hang out with some friends, trade storm stories, and make art.

Hopefully emily will upload some of her photographs soon. Check back!

emily and I

Every year bartenders from all around the virgin islands congregate in Cruz Bay (St. John) on the beach in front of The Beach Bar to compete for the title of best bar.  Teams race to complete a series of relays which consist of overcoming obstacles, mixing drinks, and downing brews.  Photographers are invited to come and record the event, because often the contestants lack any memory of it the following day.

But it’s not all booze, bikinis, and sport- the event also helps raise money for the St. John ACC (Animal Care Center)

emily and I spent part of the evening completing photoshop exercises. we pulled from images we’ve posted on the blog and some that we’ve not yet uploaded.

This was our first Carnival event at St John.  It’s held every year around July 4th.  It’s the culmination of a week long celebration on the island-all of the Virgin Islands celebrate carnival, St John is the last.  We went a little overboard with how many images we decided to upload to the gallery, between the two of us it was terribly difficult to narrow them down too much.

Jeff, Emily, Bradford and I went to Maho Bay to test out Jeff’s new coconut grabber contraption.  It worked fairly well.  It was the first time I’d ever experienced fresh coconut and it was gooooooood.  Olly and Cora had to spend most of the day tied to a tree, not everyone on the beach is a dog lover (and technically dogs are forbidden at Maho).  Bradford was kind enough to take the helm of the camera for a few shots.

Okay, I think I’ve added enough background text. Now for the images! Oh, and we also created a pretty neat video of our adventure as well.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

St John has literally been covered by a rain cloud for the past few days, which makes photographic explorations of the island nearly impossible (unless you have an underwater housing- which I don’t… yet!).   So my Saturday afternoon and evening was spent compositing a number of photos that we’ve taken while being on the island.

You can find them here:

http://www.accidentalphotography.com/2010/05/st-john-watermelon-bay/

http://www.accidentalphotography.com/2010/05/st-john-reef-bay-trail/

http://www.accidentalphotography.com/2010/06/a-short-post/

http://www.accidentalphotography.com/2010/05/photoshop-switcheroo/

the donkeys, palms, and emily(in the car) come from images that we’ve not yet posted.