Friday, March 18 [2022] was a classic day on St. John, filled with undersea explorations, good food, and only slight mayhem. We visited two sister Virgin Islands National Park beaches on the north shore—Francis Bay and Maho Bay—separated by a great lunch in Cruz Bay.

Established in 1956, Virgin Islands National Park encompasses some sixty percent of St. John, smallest of the three U.S. Virgin Islands. About 5,500 of its over 14,000 acres is underwater, protecting coral reefs, sea grass beds, and other marine habitats. One of two National Parks in a U.S. Territory (the other is National Park of American Samoa), it is the only of the sixty-three National Parks in the Caribbean. In many ways, it is the absolute epitome of what a National Park should be: spectacular land and seascapes, abundant nature and wildlife, and preservation of deep cultural heritage and still-unfolding history.

The continuing legacy of colonialism is everywhere in the Virgin Islands, both USVI and the British Virgin Islands, adjacent to St. John to the north and east. Danish colonizers began arriving in the late seventeenth century, and the three islands officially became a Danish colony in 1754. All three were dominated by sugar plantations worked by African slaves until Denmark outlawed slavery in 1848.

In 1917, the United States purchased the islands from Denmark in order to prevent a German toehold in the Western Hemisphere should Germany conquer Denmark in WWI. Citizens of the U.S. Virgin Islands are U.S. citizens, although like other territorial citizens, they cannot vote for president, have no representation in the U.S. Senate, and their at-large U.S. House member can only vote in committee. According to the 2020 census, seventy-one percent of U.S. Virgin Islanders are Black or Afro-Caribbean. Seventeen percent are Hispanic or Latino, thirteen percent are White, and fourteen percent are other ethnicities.

A recent (March 2023) poll found that sixty-three percent of USVI residents support becoming a U.S. state.

In March 2022, Sean and I returned to Virgin Islands National Park on St. John nine years after we’d first visited. In March 2013 we had ventured to the island with Bethany, Adam, and Phil. It was only the fifth Park on Sean’s and my odyssey. With thirty-three Parks racked up in between, we were now going back, this time with Josh, Nick, and Jimmy. The intervening nine years had been rough for the Park. In addition to the slow advance of climate change and its effects on coral reefs and other marine communities, plus the COVID-19 pandemic and its horrors and disruptions, in 2017 the U.S. Virgin Islands had been hit hard by both Hurricanes Irma and Maria. In many ways, the islands were still emerging from the hurricanes.

Nevertheless, between our two trips, Virgin Islands National Park now holds the record as the National Park Sean and I have spent the most time in. And for both of us, it is in our top five favorite National Parks of the sixty-three.