Between the Storms: Thirty Years on St. John

Ever thought of moving to a tropical island and reimagining your life? Our stories are lost too soon, and we leave few trails. A curiosity about his family ancestry, prompts a biologist to recount his journey finding the natural world and himself in the 1960's. Inspired by Rachel Carson, Edward O. Wilson, Jaques Cousteau and many others, a hippie by nature and a blue mind early in life, he is attracted to sea islands, their culture, history and ecology. From Long Island to Hawaii to Puerto Rico, to Rhode Island and to St. John, he feels a strong draw to tropical waters, island culture, the landscapes and the seascapes. In a meandering journey, he grows up with fallout shelters, nuclear war, the stress of the military draft and Vietnam, making him apprehensive for his future. He finds solace in travel, woodwork, and study, becomes a scientist and then green builder. After 15 years, dissatisfied with his work life, he returns to the university to study conservation biology and at the same time partners with friends to buy and build a small home in the Caribbean. Five years later, he finds work as a biologist in the Virgin Islands, his life reimagined.A single visit begins a 30-year saga of finding, loving and leaving St. John. Two sets of hurricanes, 22 years apart, are bookends to his decades in the tropics, driven by curiosity, searching for miracles and mapping sea islands. Doing critical research, the Virgin Islands and Caribbean become a backyard, a playground where he finds simple and extraordinary wonders, meets rare species and explores remote places. Along the way, he tells the stories of his research and the modest adventures of the spirit he experiences in the natural world, exploring the islands, seeing the richness of the reefs and forests, the kindness and resourcefulness of the people, and the decline of these fragile places. Storms and financial collapse threaten, wild development plans are more plentiful than reef fish and paradise is struggling. Still, the jam band plays on, and the beauty and fascination of paradise follow his journey. 482 pp.368 photographs, Images and maps. Read more