After our ordeal in St. Martin we were on the edge, but I have to tell you that St. Barts was the cure for all of our worries! When we first arrived at the town dinghy dock we noticed that most of the dinghies were not locked to the dock and many of them even had belongings left behind in them. My first thought was what if someone comes along and takes that bag, gas can or box of stuff just left sitting in these dinghies? The answer we found out was no worries…people don’t take things that don’t belong to them here, what a nice change! We’ve become accustomed to locking our dinghy and it’s belongings everywhere that we have been. This is even true in the states. We still took caution out of habit but it was really good to know that we did not have to worry. Sames goes for being safe on the boat. It was nice once again to be able to sleep with our hatches open without worrying about being boarded by bad guys in the middle of the night.
“We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine…”
Now for the island itself…wow! It is awesome here! So pretty and full of history. We were worried about not speaking the French language but no worries there either. Everyone that we met spoke English although with a French accent that was sometimes hard to understand leaving us saying “I’m sorry, can you say that again?”. What do you expect though, we are in their country!
Gustavia Lighthouse.
St. Barts is 150 miles north of Guadeloupe and 155 miles east of Puerto Rico. The island is pretty small at abut 8.1 sq miles. They use the euro for currency but most businesses will take US dollars too (at a cost to you). The Port Captain however will only take his payment in euros, not sure why though. It cost us about $20.00 a day to stay in the anchorage and it included a place to bring our garbage and showers. Not too bad but it could get expensive if we decided to stay for too long!
Select Snack Bar where you can get a “Cheeseburger In Paradise”. Yup, Jimmy’s been here!
Creole house.
We anchored in one of the main anchorages just outside the capital, Gustavia. There were lots of boats in the anchorage. Some on moorings and some anchored , it was a bouncy anchorage with lots of traffic coming and going. So as you can imagine we spent as much time as we could off the boat, wandering around the island.
The History Channel program Most Extreme Airports ranks Gustaf III airport, which is casually referred to as “St. Barth’s”, as the 3rd most dangerous airport in the world.
The Saline.
This is where salt was collected for near three centuries. Harvesting stopped in 1972. Recently however, a decedent of one of the former salt farmers has decided to start harvesting salt again, thus honoring the memory of his family and bringing a tradition back to life.
We rented a car one day and took ourselves on a tour. We drove around the island at least twice! Not much to see other than the beautiful beaches and rocky coasts at every turn.
We hiked out to tide pools that are a popular site for Victoria Secret models use for photo shoots. Much to Brian’s disappointment the only models there that day were Rachel and I. Well, hopefully he was not that disappointed 🙂
Colombier Beach, view from the top of the trail….beautiful!
We also spent two nights anchored at Colombier Beach on the north-west side of the island. It was a nice calm anchorage. It’s only accessible by boat or by a rocky path where people park there cars and hike to it. Wow, this beach is a 10! The sand is nice and soft and the water is so crystal clear. It is heaven on earth! Brian had fun too, apparently topless sunbathing is popular here. Sorry guys no photos, you will just have to use your imagination.
The mega-yachts crews would come early in the mornings and set up chairs and tents on the beach for their guests. This is the place to see and be seen. At night things quieted down and the turtle watching and stargazing was fabulous. We were here for the full moon and watching it rise over the hilltop was amazing!
Land Turtles everywhere! Called the “cole turtle” or locally “molokoi”.
Brian and I, up high at Fort Carl with Shell Beach behind us.
Can you tell we love St. Barts? We do, we just can’t afford to stay here for very long! Oh yea, I forgot to mention the baguettes…yummy, freshly made all through out the day. We ate them with everything! We’re also learning what groceries to stock up on and where. Here it was cheese, olives and wine. I did not check the price of cigarettes but it seemed that everyone here had one in their hand so I’m guessing that they were cheap too!
Before we completely ran out of money we cleared out of St. Barts, hauled our anchor and headed to St. Kitts. That’s where we are now having a whole new set of adventures. As always we’re taking lots of pictures to share and we’ll be posting them soon.
Take care all,
Jennifer, Brian and Rachel