I was concerned that my rather silly obsession with strange airports and watching airplanes would interfere with our relationship,but Candida is tolerating it well (maybe akin to indulging a small child!) and I now believe is actually enjoying it as well. Most would be "why would you want to do THAT?".
We have already decided that Saba is somewhere we will come back to so the pressure to "do" everything is not there.
The island offers a variety of hikes of different duration and degrees of difficulty including some that require a guide, and several that are much easier.
We decide to take some time and walk down the road to the airport as I had spotted several good locations for views of the whole airport and the approaches. We decided to have Donna the Taxi drop us off at a church on "The Road" that offers a spectacular view of the whole airport and then walk down the road through Hells Gate and down past the airport to Cove Bay and some rock pools close by.
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| This is the view from the church approx 1200 ft above the airport |
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and we now know we could have easily walked the whole thing as it was only a mile or so to the church. So we started from there and gradually worked our way downhill.
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| Some views off the side of the road as we walked down |
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| Several of these reminded me of Scotland or Ireland |
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| GOCA hat make another worldwide appearance |
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| Cove Bay and St Eustacia in the distance |
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| Candida enjoys the view |
I may have mentioned but a huge amount of the decision making about events and any planning is centered around hurricanes and limiting their impact. There is an ongoing project to place all of the power lines and phone lines underground so we saw several places where they were busy with concrete saws. One of the interim measures is that as a hurricane approaches they cut off all power to the island until the storm passes. This means that any power lines that come down are not live and dangerous and clean up is faster with full power being restored in a couple of days where in the past is has been a week or more. Once all the power is underground this will be quicker again. Smart thinking.
We found a couple of places to just sit on the wall by the road and watch local life including dogs doing their duty by barking at us to earn their keep, but none of them seemed like they were completely engaged in their en devours and after a while they went back and laid down to rest!
We finally made your way down to the airport and then down to the trail that goes out to the rock pools and Cove Bay. From the airport this is no great trek, maybe 1/2 mile or so.
Walking down to the Rock pools I saw this ancient relic. For those who are interested it is an Eder built 212FT (Fast travel) a German built wheeled excavator and a predecessor of the models I worked with in the late 90s
We walked out to the pools and the water was quite strong and focused in to several narrow areas.
The dolphin/mermaid or whatever she is who I call Candida could not resist (see previous posts and was soon climbing down and getting as close to the water as she could. Of course close means right in it as you can see in the next few images
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| I bet she is saying "look at these big waves!" |
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| This was just before she was nearly washed out by a big wave. Jeeez!! |
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| Safe and sound, much to my relief! |
I was genuinely scared at one point when a larger than normal wave came in and knocked her off her feet and into the rock pool before starting to suck the water (and her) back out. She grabbed the rock just in time but I think I can forgo my scheduled stress test as my heart seems to be strong enough to take that. I wondered though.
We made our way back and down to Cove Bay for a little while and then back up to the airport, which conveniently had a bar!! I was certainly ready for a beer at that point and we met up again with Donna for an eventual ride back home.
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| The airport Bar. Main terminal entrance is on the left!! |
The other purpose of the airport trip was to try and reschedule our connection the following day to St Barths via St Maarten. We originally had a 10.00 departure with a 40 min layover (bear in mind that both flights are scheduled for about 10 or 12 minutes!) but Winair had canceled our 10.00 departure and we were on the 7.35am with a 4 hour layover. The Winair guy at the airport said everything else was booked up and we would have to live with what we had. So we accepted that.
Later that evening in the Swinging Door I was paying the bill and the guy came over and said. Hey Are you the guy going to St Barths in the morning? I confirmed and he said he had been able to get us on the earlier flight. No phone call, no text, no email but a message delivered personally. I like it!!
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| Could be a warm Scotland!! |
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| Rock Pools from above |
I guess we miscalculated and did not realize that both of the "nice" restaurants in Windwardside close on Tuesdays, so were back to the very adequate Swinging Door for a final dinner of Chicken and ribs from the grill. Good and tasty they were too. We had an early start the next day so not a late night.
I really hope Saba stays as unexplored and unexploited as it is today. I have talked to very few people who have heard of it other than scuba divers. I love it that way. As I mentioned the original plan was a day trip, and look at what we would have missed!
St Barths is next!
