There was a momentary sliver of sun just before dusk when I stepped off the ferry from St. Thomas on to the dock at Cruz Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, where I had travelled to for the wedding of a good friend. It must have appeared just to say good-bye because it was missing in action for the remainder of the trip. Little did I realize that hurricane Noel would be gathering pretty much right over my head for the next four days.

To dispel any concerns you might have, apart from the gray skies and rain, Noel was a non-issue. In fact the gray skies and rain were only a mild annoyance. Even overcast and wet, St. John is an island of stunning beauty. A recent issue of Conde Nast Traveler magazine placed it as the second most beautiful Caribbean island, just after Bermuda (which is not actually in the Caribbean), and I would agree with that based on what I have seen.

What is not beautiful is getting there. There are three islands in the USVI -- St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John. I listed those islands by reputation. St. Thomas is crowded and crime-ridden. St. Croix, while not so bad as St. Thomas, has no good reputation and the addition of casinos has rankled some. St. John seems the polar opposite. It is laid back and relatively safe. The people are generally friendly, especially the long time islanders. And did I mention the beauty? Mountainous with rainforest thick foliage. Wildlife abounds. Pure water and powdery sand. Not a billboard in sight.

You fly into St. Thomas. You pretty much have to. From there you take a 45 minute shuttle ride through the tourist port of Charlotte-Amelie to the opposite end of the island. To call St. Thomas unpleasant is overly complimentary. It is blatantly obvious within about five minutes that it is a pretty nasty place. Around every turn is some ramshackle building or run down shopping center. And this is a book you can judge by its cover. One of the shuttle drivers regaled me with how afraid he is to drive after dark because he has so much cash on him. He seemed genuinely in fear for his life. There are resorts in St. Thomas, and cruise ships regularly dock in Charlotte-Amelie, but I don't know why. If your idea of a Caribbean island is ugliness and squalor, St. Thomas is for you.

But you really don't get a good idea of what a ghastly place St. Thomas is until you reach St. John. The instant you set foot in Cruz Bay, you will want to weep at the horrors the people of St. Thomas must have committed to turn their island into what it is.

The bulk of St. John is a National Park. There are a couple of harbor settlements, the primary one being Cruz Bay which will almost certainly be your point of entry since it is where the ferry from St. Thomas arrives. Once again, first impressions are pretty accurate. Cruz Bay comes off as a sweet little village. You step off the dock and to some nicely maintained buildings, a few open air bars with a bit of manufactured character, a little shopping and commercial area that has clearly been designed, not just a cheap box thrown-up to generate revenue with minimal cost. There is no traffic jam.

• A shorebound someone, clearly on island time
• Note the clouds gathering
• Sunset on Cruz Bay

I was met at the dock by Lauren Morrisette, a nuclear-powered sprite who exudes enough positive energy to light up half the Caribbean. Lauren, along with husband Brion, own and operate Estate Lindholm. Sized between a large B&B and a small hotel, I cannot recommend Estate Lindholm highly enough. It is just about perfect.

Estate Lindholm is not exactly in Cruz Bay. It is at the top of the first hill as you head out of town along the north shore road about half a mile walk at most. In fact, to give you some idea of how advantageous its location is, it is situated right next to a scenic overlook into Cruz Bay. It is a small matter to walk down into Cruz Bay, although it is a larger matter to make the hike back up the hill unless you are reasonably fit -- it is quite steep. Not only that, it is pitch black after the sun drops; no street lights and you are walking along right next to what is essentially a small jungle. It definitely awakens some primal instincts and a bit of adrenaline for the five minutes or so you are in that situation. I came to like it, but I am a physically fit, alert, adult male. Were I not, I would be hesitant to make the night trek, even though St. John is generally considered on the safe side.

After loading my bags, Lauren gave me a brief tour of Cruz Bay, pointing out conveniences like the ATM machine and the better restaurants. Once at the top of the hill she led me into my room, a suite-sized gem with a sitting area and balcony, then showed me around the exquisite grounds. Estate Lindholm is both an inn and the home of the Morrisette family, and could easily double as a tropical botanical garden. A horticulturist could be happy just wandering the pathways. There are a couple of cats stomping around like they own the place, lizards, finches, big snails, hermit crabs - the place is most definitely alive. Around the back there is an honor bar and an area where continental breakfast is served in the morning. You sit outside on the multi-level terrace overlooking the sea. A bit further down there is a small pool with lounge chairs. After getting me settled Lauren dashed off, saying she had to go make dinner for her family, then get up early in the morning to unload a truck of furnishings for some new units, and probably nine million other things.

• Cruz Bay Panorama from the overlook next door
• Cruz Bay again
• And again (this is my computer wallpaper)
• Cruz Bay from the Lindholm deck
• The deck of Estate Lindholm
• I think this is from Lindholm also (views like this are so common I can't place it)

The next morning I strolled down the hill into town to rent a jeep. There are plenty of rental agencies in town, but the first place I came across was just past the bottom of the hill. The name of the place was Denzil Clyne Car Rental. It consisted of a shack, a small dirt lot, and a Rasta looking fellow talking on his cell phone. Oh, and they also sell hot dogs (no idea).

It was not busy season, and the lot appeared full of cars, but Rasta-dude made it seem like a real struggle for him to come up with one for rental. He eventually produced a baby-sized Suzuki SUV and asked when I was going to return it. It was Friday morning so I asked what time they would be open until on Sunday. He said 6:30 and I said I'd have it back by the time they closed on Sunday. He wouldn't hear of it. I would have to return it at the same time I rented it and made the paperwork out with my expected return as Sunday morning. I told him that I understood that I would have to end up paying the hourly rate if I was late bringing it back, but he wouldn't change the paperwork. He just said I would have to "work that out with the woman." Huh? This guy had turned out to be a tourist's worst nightmare: a native with insufficient communication skills and only a tenuous understanding of his job. He then proceeded to make transactions of $500 and $200 on my American Express which he termed a card validation and security deposit. (This actually didn't bother me all that much. Amex is pretty good about having your back if someone is trying to screw you.) He handed me the keys and went back to his cell phone.

As it happened, everything was fine. I was done with the car by Sunday morning and there were no extra charges on my Amex. Maybe I'm a being a whiner, but a little professionalism would be reassuring when you are cranking up hundreds of dollars charges on someone's credit card. On the other hand, if you are going to rent a car from some guy in a shack that sells hot dogs, well, caveat emptor.

Despite being owned by the U.S., driving in the USVI is on the left. In fact, the Suzuki had a sticker right smack in the middle of the windshield that said "Drive on the Left." This has not been a problem for me since my visit to Grand Cayman a couple of years ago where I was given car with the steering wheel on the wrong side and had to maneuver on the left through innumerable clockwise roundabouts in a trial by fire. What I did struggle with was the roads -- exceedingly steep and twisty, and wet and slippery from all the rain to boot.

I climbed a moderate hill on my way out of town (the one I walked a number of times to get back to Estate Lindholm) and headed along the North Shore road. After many corkscrew turns and scary ascents and descents through the jungle foliage, I came to Trunk Bay, a famed and exquisite beach that features an underwater snorkel trail and plenty of cruise ship tenders motoring their passengers in for the day. I had no snorkel gear with me and they were charging to get into the beach. Since the north shore has a string of beautiful beaches, I decided to keep going for a while to see what came next.

• Trunk Bay

What came next was a harrowingly steep hairpin turn that had me my wheels spinning, my tires smoking, and me wondering if I was about slide backwards into the poor unsuspecting people behind me. Fortunately the people behind me were locals and probably used to idiots getting themselves into my position. After a couple of tries I managed to take the turn wide enough to make it to the summit. Another trial by fire. Having survived, I now felt like a St. John roadmaster. Which was good, because I ways to go on my little road trip.

Cinnamon Bay came along next and I'm glad I made it. Equal in beauty to Trunk Bay and free. I parked and headed for the beach where I serendipitously ran into a quartet of other guests of the wedding I was attending. At Cinnamon Bay there is a campground and also a fair amount of hut-like housing just off the beach. One of the couples had chosen to stay there, mostly because it was inexpensive and they thought it would be convenient since that was to be the locale of the wedding.

In fact, that was really roughing it, especially in wet weather. The grounds around the buildings were virtual swamps. But the real big problem -- and this is key if you are ever planning a visit to St. John -- nighttime travel around the island is very difficult. Cabs cannot be depended on to get you across any distance of the island at night due to the difficulty of the roads. You may find nice little spot tucked away in one of the more remote locations, but you will be stuck there after dark, or worse, you'll be on the other side of the island and may or may not be able to find a way back. If you ever visit St. John, I strongly recommend you stay in Cruz Bay, or at least no further out than one of the two big resorts (which I will get to in a minute). No matter what the brochures for a place say about seclusion and peace and quiet, stay in the immediate proximity of Cruz Bay. You will thank me for this advice.

Though I wouldn't want to stay there, Cinnamon Bay is a great place to visit. The water is shimmeringly turquoise, surrounded by steep, lush rainforest; the bay itself dotted with picturesque rock formations. After making a dent in the beer supply, the five of us swam out a way and just floated about, reveling in the buoyant effortlessness and the simple being there.

After an hour or so I ducked out, needing to complete my island tour. The roads got no easier. The next stop I made was the Annaberg Sugar Mill. About fifty yards in from a small parking lot, the Annaberg Sugar Mill is the site of the ruins of a 19th century sugar mill. The remains of the stone buildings resemble of miniature Stonehenge and offer some picturesque strolling.

• Annaberg Sugar Mill ruins (1, 2, 3)

After that brief stop I was back on the road, still fighting to maneuver, cutting across the peak of the island. A vernal thickness covers the island from top to bottom. The only thing to break the endless green is the occasional cliff-side homestead that was grandfathered in at the time the island was turned in a park. Eventually the road snakes down the south side to Coral Bay.

Coral Bay is the only other settlement of substance besides Cruz Bay. I followed a slender road along the shore to a mildly run-down hotel/lame shopping center/outdoor bar where I stopped for a drink and some lunch. When I noticed the police station doubled as Crabby's Watersports Rental I knew I was in an interesting place. There's a line from the Jimmy Buffet song "Cowboy in the Jungle" where he references sailors raising hell night and day. Coral Bay is full of sailors -- sun-wethered men and the firm-jawed women at ease among them. Just about everyone in Coral Bay has sailed in, only a tourist would try to motor across the island just for a beer and a burger that has been cooked to leather. The loud fellow next to me was howling along with the music and extolling the bartender for having secured the recordings of a band called the Del Fuegos, or more specifically, the "Goddam Del Fuegos! Son of a Bitch!" Everybody seemed to know most everybody else and they were all goodheartedly razzing and jawboning with one another. Just a pack of sailors raising hell on random rainy afternoon, although I got the distinct impression that this was going to continue well into the night. On the way out I passed another open-air bar closer to the main road that looked to have a nearly identical crowd. Obviously we now have the answer to the age old question, "What do you do with a drunken sailor?" Park him in Coral Bay.

• Crabby's Watersports and Police Station
• Houses built up the mountains in Coral Bay

The next day was the wedding and I had duties, one of which required me to shuttle the bride and groom to the big Westin resort for prep. In my close-up look at the Westin I was impressed. The people were friendly, the grounds were well maintained, the little beach area had all sorts of toys available, including what appeared to be a floating rock-climbing wall, and there was a very talkative parrot just sort of hanging about near the restaurant chatting up anyone who went by.

• Lounge chairs on the Westin beach
• The Westin's friendly parrot

The wedding itself went as smoothly as a wedding on the beach at Cinnamon Bay in the pouring rain possibly could. The bride was only slightly manic, the groom never got too impatient. The majority of the party consisted of sailors (not the drunken kind from Coral Bay) so bad weather was a perfectly acceptable state of affairs for them. The drenching went more or less unnoticed. You can do that in St. John because no matter how wet you get, you don't get cold.

The evening continued with a reception at the Ocean Grill, highly recommended, then a bit of our own drunken revelry at The Beach Bar looking over Cruz Bay. There are many beach bars on St. John but in a severe case of literalism this one was actually called The Beach Bar. The band was ripping it up. The men were all talking in the sort of backslapping trivialities we find reassuring. Their young wives bunched in sisterly circles, shoulders and backs bared and tanned in sea breeze, opportunistically flaunting their still-powerful youth. It was a perfect evening in a beautiful setting; one of those moments that endures in memory.

And just like that, the wedding was past and everyone dashed off to their next pursuit. As for me, I had one full day left on St. John and I had yet to get in some snorkeling. By this time I had returned the rental car so I needed a nearby beach. The folks at Estate Lindholm suggested I head over to Caneel Bay and seek out Honeymoon Beach. There is apparently walking trail there from Estate Lindholm, but the rain -- yes, it was still raining -- had washed it out, so I took a short cab ride over.

It was a quarter mile or so down the beach from the Caneel Bay resort and it as a very nice little beach (all the beaches in St. John are very nice). I ditched my shirt and shorts beneath a thick shrub to protect them from the drizzling rain, and slipped on my snorkel gear and headed out. Things started out promising, I slowly worked my way out further and the fish became more and more colorful and plentiful, but in a short while the clouds got very thick extinguishing the light. Then the deluge hit. Snorkeling in the rain is not an issue, but the runoff from the jungle into the water was creating murk on top of the clouds blocking the light. I floated around in the warm rain for a while longer, then gave up and went to retrieve my clothes. Lesson for life: putting your clothes in a thick shrub does not keep them dry. In fact, it makes them wetter since the leaves act as little funnels directing the rain on to them. Great.

I gathered up my clothes and dripped my way over to Caneel Bay where I hung them on a railing to dry while I invaded their open-air beach-side lounge. It was packed with stateside gentry slugging down Painkillers -- the St. John concoction of choice, consisting of rum, pineapple juice, and coconut and orange flavoring -- since the rain had put the kibosh on all their activities. The bar was three layers thick with guys in shorts and sandals and women in mu-mus. I eventually sequestered a drink and wandered about the resort which is probably frowned on for a non-guest, but how would they know I wasn't staying there. Besides I had to do something until my clothes were at least partially dry. It's a sweet place. A number of small beaches that appear to be semi-private, or at least not readily accessible by the St. John commoners. Like Westin, they have all the requisite water sports gear. The restaurant has a good reputation. The staff appeared over-the-top friendly. Caneel Bay is marketed as more adult than Westin, which is probably true.

You can't go wrong at either Caneel Bay or the Westin, both are one-stop-shops and if you so chose you could probably plant yourself on a lounge chair until it was time to check out. But they are both extremely expensive and neither is within walking distance of Cruz Bay. You'll either be cabbing it in or renting a car and potentially struggling with parking. Unless you are looking for free water sports gear or you plan to spend an enormous amount of time in the resort proper, Estate Lindholm is a better and cheaper choice. (Note there is also a smaller, not-quite-so-high-end resort in Cruz Bay called Gallows Point that people speak highly of, although I didn't stop by.)

My last evening I made one last walk down the hill to Cruz Bay to get a bit of dinner and ended up in a bar watching the New England Patriots football game with a bunch contentious Boston sports fans, it is after all the U.S. Virgin Islands. A brief evening stroll along the water (it had momentarily stopped raining) then my final, scary night climb back to Estate Lindholm, and I was asleep in the tropics for the last time. The next day came the reverse of the initial slog which took me back through St. Thomas/Miami/Detroit.