All week the frye have been at Hawksnest with the tarpon looming below them and the rays slithering even lower.  Their number seems to be growing daily.   By Sunday, they seemed to be employing the strategy of getting really close together and the cloud was so thick that to swim over it was to completely lose sight of the bottom!

This seemed to provide great safety for the fish in the middle.  Skirting around the borders of the school were the usual suspects--tarpon, rays, jacks, and yellowtail.  The jacks would swim around opening and closing their mouths but not getting near any fish.  All week long I've watched these fish nearly every day and have not seen even one fish get eaten!  Yesterday I asked around to others on the beach who have also been watching and they have seen no feasting either.  So we wonder what's going on.

About the reference to the holes...  There are some great new holes around town.  Traffic going out of town on North Shore Road was diverted for a few days while the road in front of Mongoose Junction was dug up and big, elegant, elliptical drainage pipes were installed.  That hole is now covered up and traffic can pass again.  The detour went around the ball field, over the dingy dock at the National Park Visitors Center and back out to the road by Caneel Bay apartments.  Glad this was done now and not in February...  It was fun to check out the progress on the drainage pipe hole on the way to watch the frye.

Another Great Hole is right next to Enighed Pond, for the Waste Water Treatment Plant.  This hole has gotten so big that a staircase had to be built so that the workers could get down into it!  I heard that they have dug 16 feet below sea level, yet no water appears in the hole--and, well, you know how island rumors go.

You can see INTO this hole from across the street, up the hill, from the parking lot at St. John Hardware.  Which leads you to the third Big Hole.  Behind the hardware store, where Unicorn Lumber was before they moved, the hill has been carved out for the development of a shopping center that promises to be a great addition to our community.  Planned there are a large, proper supermarket and hardware store along with many other businesses AND PARKING!  When will it open?  You know better than to ask that.

Planning is getting underway for holiday parties and the start of Season -- Thanksgiving Week.  Mongoose Junction is wrapping up its year long 20th Birthday Celebration with their traditional Evening in the Courtyard on Friday, November 27 from 5 to 9.  Music, food, a fashion show, demonstrations by artists, special sales in some shops, and much more is planned.

The All-Island Fancy Dress Adults Only Christmas Party is planned for the second weekend in December at Mongoose Junction.  This is not a shopping event but a real party where everyone dresses way up and the island's restaurants go all out to showcase their fare and several bands play a range of entertainment.  You can listen or you can dance the night away.

 Will you be here by then?  Hope so.
 

Constance Wallace
[email protected]