Visit a Circle of Hell in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Salt Pond on St. John is the deliciously dark side of paradise.

Salt Pond on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands (Photo by Bill Newcott)

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Before me spreads the crimson disk of a forbidding, impossibly red lake, its silky surface undulating with the blurping viscosity of a bowl of thick tomato soup. The smell rising from that goopy expanse, ripening under a tropic sun, reminds me of sulfur mixed with seawater.

This Dante-like scene, straight out of The Inferno, defies the Garden of Delights just a few yards behind me: a riot of Caribbean waves pounding the rocky shore of Drunk Bay, a rugged seascape that would seem more at home in the neighborhood of Bar Harbor, Maine. And a few hundred yards ahead of me, just beyond the red lake and a low hedge of trees, bathers snorkel and sun on blazingly blue Salt Pond Bay, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands’ most tranquil beaches.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more diverse patch of earth than this thin strip of land: two pristine shorelines separated by the bleeding wound of red, desolate Salt Pond.

Salt Pond (Photo by Bill Newcott)

Despite its deathly appearance, however, Salt Pond is far from dead: Thick with minerals stranded here from runoff, baked by solar heat, the pond gets its startling rust color from the billions of microorganisms that thrive in its shallow coral bowl.

It’s primordial soup in Paradise, and today I have it all to myself.

 

The bus stop at Salt Pond is a lonely shed flanked by cacti. The bus from the ferry port at Cruz Bay winds its way here, taking the better part of an hour to traverse the 13-mile journey, exhaling nearly all of its passengers at easier-to-access beaches long before reaching this, the penultimate stop on its trip.

St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Salt Pond and Ram Head are within the red square. (Picryl)

Seated in the bus stop shelter is a bearded young man who has clearly been waiting awhile. How long until the bus comes back this way, I ask him.

“Fifteen minutes,” he says. Then he adds, “Or an hour.”

I make my way down a rutted road. Sidestepping potholes and hopscotching over loose rocks, in a quarter mile or so I emerge onto a curved beach, occupied by a handful of hardy souls who have preceded me on this fine, blue-skied day.

The waters of small Salt Pond Bay are clear and sublimely smooth. But snorkelers are few today. Even the hawk-billed turtles that often snort at the surface seem to have headed elsewhere.

Salt Pond Bay (Photo by Bill Newcott)

I set up my folding chair and step into the water, shuffling my feet to avoid stepping on a hiding stingray. The water seems a bit cooler than at the nearby beaches, but that is like saying the Pyrenees aren’t quite as pointy as the Alps. If you’re here, and you’re complaining, you really ought to just go home and pull the drapes.

About three-quarters of the way down the beach, I find a narrow trail disappearing into deep brush. Almost from the moment I set foot on it, a splash of red appears up ahead. The passage from the beach to Salt Pond is barely 50 yards, but to traverse it is to trade the teeming spectacle of the sea for a still, silent, deceptively dead zone.

I reach the edge of the Salt Pond, some 200 yards wide. I’ve read the pond is barely two feet deep, but there’s no telling from here, because the water of Salt Pond — if you can call it that — is the impenetrable red of what you’d find pouring out of a rusted pipe that’s been opened for the first time in years.

Salt Pond  (Photo by Bill Newcott)

Two things feed Salt Pond: The rare rains that make their way this far across the island and the occasional rough seas that crash across a thin, rocky bridge of land between here and the ocean. Evaporation and relentless sun do their dirty work, taking the pond’s water but leaving its minerals behind.

As a result, of the 34 salty inland ponds on St. John, Salt Pond is by far the saltiest — up to 280 times saltier than the ocean. When the water level reaches its annual dry season minimum, locals turn up with buckets and shovels to collect the crystalized sea salt that rings the pond like a saline halo. (The National Park Service apparently suspends its strict “no souvenirs” policy during the Salt Season.)

A steady, strong wind is blowing across Salt Pond in my direction. Small waves beat against the shore at my feet, causing the red mineral soup to froth up into a salt-scented head. And there’s something else: hundreds upon hundreds of the smallest fiddler crabs I’ve ever seen, barely a half-inch across. It’s a madhouse down there; crabs everywhere, scampering away from me like residents of Tokyo fleeing Godzilla. Some disappear behind small rocks, others take refuge in the bubbly suds at the pond’s edge.

The presence of these little guys is good news: scientists who study St. Johns’ salt ponds say the more fiddler crabs you have, the healthier the ecosystem. So, it turns out Salt Pond isn’t a dead zone after all. For fiddler crabs, it’s Palm Springs.

 

As I stand facing the pond, a path passes in front of me, to the right and to the left. I head right first, following the trail for one rugged mile — up and down hills and along a narrow blue-stoned beach — before it abruptly rises 200 feet to a rocky outcropping called Ram Head. The plant life around me is a reminder of how dry it is at this end of St. John — Yatu cacti stand taller than me; closer to the ground lie bizarre-looking Turk’s Head cacti, green and barrel-shaped, topped with a bright red cylindrical cap.

Ram Head (Photo by Bill Newcott)

I stand at the precipice of Ram Head, gazing down into the dark, narrow crevices of the cliff, listening to the echoing waves that crash to its rocky base. Legend has it that, during the great St. John’s slave revolt of 1733-4, the last holdouts ran to this spot, French soldiers on their heels. Rather than return to a life of slavery, 300 slaves did the unthinkable: They plunged off this cliff to certain death.

The sky is the blue of a baby’s eyes, and the sea is aglow with sun-kissed mist. But somehow, a sense of darkness hangs over this rock.

 

I head back down the trail, looping around the far side of Salt Pond. Again, I gain some altitude above the pond, getting a good look at the afternoon sun reflecting dully on the filmy surface.

The sound of surf rises ahead. I make a turn and find myself on a rugged, rocky beach. Countless round stones spread from my feet to the breakers, and on either side of me rise jagged rock monoliths. Waves crash against the stone, sending curtains of spray flying in a fan-shaped spectacle, the white foam contrasting with the deep blue of the cloudless sky.

I am the only person on this beach, but I am not alone: Besides a petrified forest of rock cairns left by visitors — some stacked 12 stones high or more — the beach is also populated with tiny human figures, all of them fashioned by creative visitors out of stones, coral, driftwood, and coconut. Here’s a buxom nude woman sunbathing. Here’s a couple tanning on a large rock. She’s wearing a Little Mermaid-style shell bra. He’s wearing, well, nothing, as evidenced by a strategically placed stalk of coral extending from a patch of dark coconut husk hair. In fact, as if to mock the strict no-nudity rules on St. John’s beaches, a naughty au naturelle vibe enlivens the folk art of this remote stretch.

Cairns left by visitors  (Photo by Bill Newcott)

I sit on a sea-smoothed rock and soak in the scene. The sun is pushing to the west. Time to go. Still, my heart resists leaving this place, so unlike anywhere else on St. John and, perhaps, in the entire Caribbean.

I clamber up the rocks to the path and trudge back along Salt Pond.

But as I near the path to the beach, I have to stop. Blocking my way, strewn like oversized pearls upon the sand, stands an innumerable army of tiny white fiddler crabs. They’re somehow emboldened: Instead of racing away like they did before, this time they’re facing me, waving their single, oversized claws in the air.

They’re probably threatening me. But I prefer to think they’re waving goodbye.

 

IF YOU GO:

Cruise passengers arriving at Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas can catch ferries for the half-hour to 45-minute water taxi ride to Cruz Bay on nearby St. John.

You can book a taxi or rent a Jeep on St. John, but the only real way to experience the island end-to-end is to hop on the VITRAN bus. Just hand the driver a dollar and you can go as far as you like, jostling along with the friendly and helpful locals.

You can see all the way to Europe from St. John — well, sort of: The north shore offers spectacular views of the British Virgin Islands, just across Sir Francis Drake Channel.

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Comments

  1. Locals call the place Ram’s Head. You might suggest not hiking there alone. Years ago a solo hiker went missing. Searches of the land & sea revealed nothing. Her body was never found.
    However, you captured the magic of STJ perfectly!

  2. Thank you for this story. I left St John right before Irma/Maria and happily read anything about the island I love and miss so dearly.

  3. Nicely written. Thirty years since first time I was exactly in your steps.
    In those days you could run/jog to Salt Pond Bay from Coral Bay safely, before the guard rails and traffic.
    One of my favorite memories. God bless the people who were there for their kindness.

  4. I love your playful and vivid imagery! The Virgin Islands naggingly beckon me back again like a beguiling and sultry siren…

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