In 1933, Desmond and Bet Holdbridge left their life in New York and
came to St. John. The island population was then somewhat over 700 people
and with the addition of the Holdbridges the island's white population
increased from five to seven.
Desmond and Bet were married at the fort on the first night of their arrival
and spent about two years on the island, before leaving because the island was
getting too crowded. Desmond later wrote the book, "Escape to the Tropics," published
in 1937, which included descriptions of the couple's experiences on St. John,
he wrote:
"Several new roads were being cut up the hillsides and Agnes (Sewer) told
us that Paul (Boulon) was beginning to erect a few cottages (at Trunk Bay) to
rent to winter visitors; we knew he had the plan in mind but, at last, he was
putting it into action…. Tourists were coming. Nice tourists, probably… but
to our way of thinking, even five more white people on the north shore would
destroy that splendid something that had made St. John a paradise and given us
the two happiest years of our lives. The coming exploitation was inevitable,
and it would be a good thing for a batch of black people who were very close
to our hearts and for the white people that came, it would be marvelous. But
for us it was ruined."
Following is an account of a lobster hunt from the same book:
"When we left New York, we were told we would go soft in the tropics…but
two months after landing at Cruz Bay, we were healthier, harder, and infinitely
more serene people than we had ever been before.
"There was nothing softening about a lobster hunt on the reefs. Landlord
Davis, on one of his visits, put us up to it and then retired with a book and
a bottle of rum while we, with the Sewer boys, piled in a row boat and made for
the shallows on the other side of the bay. A brilliant moon shone down on a gently
heaving sea, and we could see the rollers breaking white over the reefs where
the lobsters came. A full moon makes a fairyland anywhere, but in the trade winds
the effect seems more marked, and we agreed that, even if we got no lobster,
it would be worthwhile.
"Drawing the boat out on the nearest beach, we gathered at the beginning
of the reef, and commenced an activity sufficiently picturesque to make any artist
catch his breath and sufficiently sporting to warm the heart of anyone who like
to see the hunted creature get a little better than an even break. We spread
out fanwise, carrying lanterns and flashlights, and waded into the warm, shallow
water that covered the jagged coral of the reef. The coral was brown with sea
growths and the lobsters, consequently, very hard to see. In addition, the reef
was honeycombed with sea eggs, round black affairs from whose cores extend long,
black spines that are very sharp and armed with microscopic barbs whose removal
from an injured foot is a hospital job. I am afraid that Bet and I paid far more
attention to the sea eggs than we did to the possible lobsters but, when the
boys started one, the six of us plunged after it in a splashing, headlong pursuit
that lasted several minutes. The lobster took refuge in its color protection
again, but one of the boys immediately put a forked stick over its back and held
it until another one, with what seemed incredible courage to us, seized the lobster
in his hands, and bore it ashore in triumph. From tip to tip, the grotesque creature
was nearly three feet long and, to add to our awe, one of the boys announced
that he was small.
"After another hour of stumbling about among the sea eggs and sharp coral,
we cornered one more, and returned home soaking wet, with our canvas shoes torn
to rags, but satisfied that we had found still another way to make the island
take the place of a canning factory in a town we had never seen."
