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The Very Cool Boats Hanging Around St. John

The Rising Sun, pictured in the distance on the far right, was anchored off of St. Thomas last week.

Hello everyone, and happy Sunday! I am sorry that I took a few days off from writing. I have family visiting, so I’ve been pretty busy with that and my island tours. But now I’m back. 🙂

For those of you who’ve been lucky enough to be on island the past couple off weeks, you probably noticed that we’ve had some pretty cool boats hanging around St. John. Today I’d like to tell you about a few of them, and I’m also going to show you how you can learn more about a boat that you see here on St. John or anywhere in the world.

Let’s start with the Rising Sun, which is currently anchored out in Round Bay on St. John’s East End. It is one of the largest, privately-owned yachts in the world at 138 meter or roughly 453 feet long. The Rising Sun is owned by David Geffen, who is responsible for launching the careers of the Eagles, Guns ‘n Roses, Aerosmith and more. He owned MCA Records, and then co-founded Dreamworks. The Rising Sun visits St. John every Thanksgiving, and it hangs out in our waters for several weeks. It’s a pretty incredible yacht to see in person.

The Rising Sun on St. John’s East End Saturday

If you look closely at that picture, you will see a small boat to the left of the Rising Sun. That’s probably a 28-30 foot boat. It looks so tiny next to the Rising Sun.

We also had a pretty cool cruise ship visit the island yesterday. No need to worry, we only get very small cruise ships here on St. John. (Click here to get all the details on cruise ships that visit St. John.) Yesterday we had a pretty incredible tall ship visit, named Sea Cloud Spirit. It anchored off of Cruz Bay for just a few hours, and then left mid-afternoon.

The Sea Cloud Spirit was anchored off of Cruz Bay Saturday.
Image credit: Palm Tree Charters

For those of you who are interested in learning more about a boat you see in the water, download the Marine Traffic app on your phone, or visit www.marinetraffic.com. You can zoom into any spot on the world. When you do, simply click on a boat icon. That will pull up its details including its size, current location, port calls and more. Different color icons indicate whether it’s a pleasure craft, a cruise ship, passenger vessel, etc.

This image is from the Marine Traffic app.
Once you click an icon, a screen like this will open on the Marine Traffic app.

Marine Traffic is definitely a fun little app (or website) to check out.

This is all I have for today, folks. I hope you have a great Sunday, and we’ll chat again tomorrow. Thank you so much for reading Island Tidbits!

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