Great Cruz Bay Iguanas

The villa we rented on the South Shore of Great Cruz Bay in St.John was smack dab in the center of Iguanaville.

There were iguanas in the palm trees lounging on fronds.

Iguanas in the wisteria - which they munched as a delicacy like a cat devours catnip.

Iguanas being very very friendly to each other on the drive way.

Iguanas posing for photos on the drive way.

Lounging iguanas are very cool, and by proxy, very relaxing. We saw a few in the wisteria along Great Cruz Bay Rd. The ones in the palms above the pool, we kept thinking (and hoping) that one would fall down into the pool and swim around, but no such luck. The largest iguanas we saw were about 4 feet long.

Iguanas are not graceful climbers. The slowly amble up a sturdy tree trunk, and find a sunny spot to soak up solar radiation for their cold blooded metabolism. Once they're sufficiently warmed up, they don't bother to climb down. No, instead they leverage their potential energy and drop down into the bushes below. I've heard stories of iguanas dropping 60 feet onto hard ground and not being injured - how they do it, I do not know. We watched many an iguana drop from the 30 foot palms, the 15 ft tropical lemon trees to the driveway, and the 15 foot tall wisteria bushes.
Once they drop into the bushes, they slowly & awkwardly crawl about, seeking out leaves and nutritiously delicious flowers - they are vegetarians.

We really enjoyed hanging out with the iguanas, and thought they added ambiance to the villa. Very cool reptiles.