During our trip in St. John, we stayed at the Virgin Islands Environmental Resource Station (VIERS) in the Virgin Islands National Park and Biosphere Reserve at the base of Bordeaux Mountain.  This "eco-camp" consists of six cabins, staff cabins, classroom, library, office/store, restrooms, showers, and a dining hall with kitchen.  Nearby are the Little Lameshur and Great Lameshur Bays, along with the Dead Mangrove Hike.  See an aerial view of the area from the VIERS site.

Since there is no source of freshwater on the island other than rainwater, water use was limited.  Three minute showers, the saying "In this land of fun and sun, we only flush for number one," and the handy ocean for quick dips helped conserve water.  Various insects and bromeliad frogs also shared our showers and large moths zoomed dangerously around the lights.
Bromeliad frog caught by Laura (Winnie P.)

After a long day of hiking and swimming, we waited like vultures for dinner, circling around the benches just outside the mess hall.  Then like Pavlav's experiments, one of the staff would ring the dinner triangle and we'd all rush in...

Every evening, we had a lecture from one of the instructors.  Here you can see Karen Searcy giving us info on tamarinds -earlier in the day, students had found a liking to the tamarind tree fruits.  The fruit was very tart, sticky orange inside the pods when ripe.  Sean Werle thought they tasted like rotten fish, but many others liked it and many different kinds of candy and snacks are made from tamarinds.

Tamarind hunting (Mahtab K.)

There was lots of wildlife within and outside the camp, and often the boundaries blurred.  Whitetailed deer often came to our camp in the evenings or early mornings, and intelligent mongooses that learned to open doors slinked through camp at night, so we were advided to latch our doors.  Hermit crabs wandered through constantly and scavenged behind the mess hall for scraps, and hummingbirds and bananaquits fought over the Chinese Slipperbush flowers.  The camp also had several semi-permanent inhabitants other than the humans -cats were seen hiding underneath the messhall, and a chicken eluded our chicken-hunting efforts.  Orbweavers hung in the windows of the messhall, and one iguana's rear was caught as it was exiting the camp.