In January 1992, we were invited to stay at "Maribela" on St John by Bob and Carol Ann Faucett. There is a hand written account of  the experience in the beige covered note book starting on page 45 that is transcribed below.

Sunday, January 19, 1992
    The circumstances that brought this trip about were as follows. Bob and Carol Ann Faucett have for several years have been renting a house on St John. They run week long vacation retreats for three couples. As it turns out they could not fill two of the three spaces for this week. Rather than have just one couple, they invited us and the Feorino's to join them at no cost other than the air fare.

    We all arrived in St Thomas in time to take the ferry to St John together. The new couple are Bill and Dot Hennigan from Long Island. Bill is in his 70's and is recovering from prostate surgery. They seem to have taken all the vacation retreats with the Faucetts and have traveled extensively in addition on their own. It would seem that they take several trips a year.

    We spent the time after arriving at 4 PM, getting acquainted, having dinner, and planning the week. The house is a beautiful 4 bedroom houde with a large patio and pool with a view of St Thomas, Hart bay, and Chocolate Hole. It is called Maribella.

Monday January 20 1992
    The daily routine starts with breakfast at 8 AM. Before that is quiet time. After breakfast, a short time of prayer and a time to share on the days theeme. Today's was thanksgiving. Then we pack a lunch and head for the beach. Today it was Trunk Bay. The turquese water, white sand and lush green foliage make it a beautiful place to be in January. Not to mention the clear blue sky, and temperature in the 80's. We snorkled on the snorkel path and enjoyed the sun and water. It was Martin Luther King day and the kids were off from school. They were a noisy bunch of black teenagers but were well behaved and having a lot of fun. They spoke a strange dialect of English which is like different laqnguage. I could not understand a single sentence, phrase, or word in listening to them speak.

    We had a great dinner, evening prayer, and played cards until 10 or 11 PM.

Tuesday January 21, 1992
    After breakfast and morning prayer, we went snorkeling at Hawks Nest Bay. The snorkeling was excellent and I took 12 pictures with an under water camera. When we came back it was date night, meaning each couple should go to a resturante. We all ended up at Cafe Roma and had a good meal. It was Bill's 76 birthday.

Wednesday January 22, 1992
    After breakfast and morning prayer, we rode to the Ruf Bay trail head and began a 2 mile hike to the petraglyphs and pool on the trail to Ruf Bay. Then we branched off onto a 2 mile trail to Lensure Bay. We met Bob and Carol Ann there in the truck. We snorkeled there until 4  PM and then left to pick up Bill and Dot who went to St Thomas for the day. We met them in Pussers for a drink and when we returned to the truck we found that my watch and pocket knife were stolen from my backpack.

    A Local rumor that we picked up is that if Cuba opens up to American tourism that the Virgin Islands will suffer greatly and real estate values will plumit.

Thursday January 23 1992
    We left to spend the day in Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. We took an hour and a half ferry ride up wind to Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda. The ride was rough a good portion of the way confirming that the water down here is always rough in some areas. We took a $2 cab ride to the Baths and spent most of our time snorkeling and exploring the caves and boulders. The snorkeling was excellent deep water senic snorkeling. The kind that makes Alice uncomfortable. We returned home and had an excellent steak dinner and played cards for the rest of the evening.

Friday January 24, 1992
    After packing lunch, we took off for yet another beach. We had stopped to snorkel at Lenster Bay when we sailed the Harvey Gamage. It has a stoney beach and a small island at the mouth of the bay. While swimming out to the island Bob and I saw a large turtel, (2 foot) grazing on the bottom. Later we saw a Morey eel. Alice, Lorrain, and Jim swam out after we did and saw a squid and large schools of fish that they swam through.

Saturday January 25, 1992
    Spent the day at Hawks Nest snorkeling. Took the Faucetts to dinner at the Baracuda resturant as a gesture to Mac, the one who saved my camera from being stolen and because we overstayed at the Faucetts. The food was not that good and I was sorry that Alice and I didn"t just go ourselves.

Sunday January 26
    Took the ferry to St Thomas and caught our plane to Newark at 1:40 PM.