Sint Maarten and the sights of Maho beach

Friday morning saw us catching the ferry that goes from Gustavia St Barths to St (Sint) Maarten. A pleasant 45 minute ride with some wave action and  we were again at...Immigration!!. All very quick and then a cab ride to our hotel. We were getting a little concerned as it was about a 30 min ride and of course no meter!. Anyway it turned out to be very reasonable.
We had booked the hotel from Saba at the recommendation of Donna the Taxi. We had looked at the Maho Beach hotel and it was expensive but the "Royal Turtle Inn" was way more reasonable and located on Simpson Bay and not far from Maho Beach.
What is the attraction on Maho Beach, topless European women and guys in Speedos? Not really! Once again it is ...airplanes.

The airport at St Maarten is short by international jet standards at around 7000 ft and the easterly approach (normally used) is over the ocean, then over Maho Beach (about 50 ft (15m) wide and a road (maybe 30 ft (9m) and then the threshold of the runway. There is a bar off to the side and watching the planes land is a popular past time for locals and visitors. The bar even has a sign that details the expected arrival times for the major carriers. So you can sit at a nice beach bar with a cold beer and watch airplanes all day. What is not to like about that!!

I think we arrived around 12.30 and had walked from our hotel, maybe a mile or so. Just enough to work up a decent thirst!


There are lots of comings and goings of the small aircraft like the ones we flew to Saba and St Barths, and some regional carriers. There are large signs that warn people about jet blast, particularly from departing aircraft and we saw several people who were apparently invincible who stood (at least for a while) behind departing aircraft. Not too clever.

LIAT Dash 8 landing. I would say he had this just right.

 

Us with Maho Beach in the background

US Airways A319. A tad low but OK. Note the sign warning of the jet blast

Air France A340 departing non stop for Paris

 

The aircraft is VERY close to the road and takes all of the runway as it is relatively short

American 757 from Miami "on slope"

  Earlier I had seen a DHL Cessna Caravan make what looked like a deliberately low approach to give the crowd a thrill, but he did not come close to the 727 freighter that landed soon after the American 757. Fortunately I got a shot and Candida got one a second or so later

I think his wheels are maybe 10 ft over the heads of the people and he cleared the fence by about 5ft!!

And he was down. Spectacular!! Not smart but spectacular

We wandered back to the hotel before dark and after an attempt to get dinner at a local restaurant we gave up and came back to the bar and restaurant at the hotel. The food was excellent and not too expensive, so we had a nice evening even if we were awakend early by the inevitable roosters!!
Our room was adequate and the place was very small, maybe 8 rooms, but the dinner and breakfast the next morning was excellent and we had a good view of Simpson's Bay

Onward to St Barths

Morning came soon enough and we had to be at the airport by 6.45 for check in and the inevitable Immigration!
All went smoothly and we were in St Maarten before 8am to a mostly deserted airports and a connection at 9.45 (in place of the original 11.00)
Again the flight was about 10 or 12 minutes over blue water and passing many small islands. I think the pilot climbed to 2500 ft. On this occasion there were 4 passengers and I managed to get the front center seat that placed my view out of the windshield between the two pilots.
Saba is said to be one of the most challenging airports, but frankly from a passenger perspective unless you KNEW this you might be unlikely to notice. This cannot be said of St Barths which I rate as among THE most exciting landings I have observed to date.
The runway ends with a public beach and then a bay, and at the approach end there is a hill about 300 ft (90m) tall that terminates where the runway begins. The good news is that the runway is over twice as long as Saba. I estimate that the pilot approaches at about 8-10 degrees. To put it in perspective a normal jet approach is 3 degrees. He basically dives at the runway and flares at the last moment lands and crams on the brakes and reverse thrust. It is all quite controlled and normal for them, they may do it several times a day, but it was a fantastic experience for me. I went back the next day for a couple of hours to watch them from the ground and gained a different perspective.

A Cessna Caravan over the traffic island

Looking down the runway from the hillside

A Winair Twin Otter shows the descent angle

Occasionally someone does not make it in style, and the results can be seen in the image below. I think it is the same aircraft featured in the video link St Barths botched landing

Aircraft with blue tail and collapsed left main gear

Once again Immigration, this time French, and now we are in the Eurozone, and it shows. We grabbed a cab to the hotel, which like most things here was not very far, except for the traffic and ongoing street reconstruction that basically routed half of the island traffic past our hotel on what would normally be a quiet side street. We decided to go down to the beach a couple of hundred yards away, and also just look around and had lunch at a very nice  French bakery that opens way early for breakfast and closes at 1.30 for the day. We swam in the bay and our initial location was ill advised (by us) as there was coral only a few yards out and we were in to it before we knew it. We retreated and moved down the beach for a while and later in the afternoon made our way back to the hotel,passing the local cemetery (a sight to behold) and  relaxed by the pool and removed coral splinters from our feet (or at least most of them!) A good lesson early on.

Graves all decorated with (plastic) flowers

We discovered that not having a car on St Barths is a distinct limitation, so we booked one for the following morning. A combination of that and the traffic limited our dinner options. We discussed this with Melane who had welcomed us to the Hotel Normandie when we arrived and seemed to serve breakfast, run the front desk and clean the rooms all with excellent humor!

Melane. She seemed to do it all

Petit dejuneur a l'hotel

Outside the hotel

She mentioned several places and briefly mentioned "Le Portugal" literally just around the corner and a hang out for the Portuguese workers who do seasonal work on construction sites on the island. So kinda basic but once they figured out that Candid was Portuguese speaking everything changed. I do not think the lady who is part owner saw many women in the place anyway and was delighted to talk and eventually made us some dinner in spite of the fact that they do not serve food other than at lunch time!!. Food was basic but very good and reasonable (for St Barths) and a way better experience than some fancy place in my mind.

Le Portugal. Good food!!

We spent the next day with the car. Candida indulged me once again and we watched airplanes for a while and then just wandered around the island for the rest of the day.

St Barths coastline

Nice location for homes

We found the sister shop from the bakery at the other end of the island and had lunch there and found some good vantage points for views and saw a couple of oddball vehicles including a couple of different vintage Land Rovers, and I was able to explain the history and significance of these vehicles both from the 60s is my guess. We also saw an all electric vehicle complete with baby seat!!, and a Mini Moke a variant of the original Mini. My guess is somewhere mid 60s for a vintage.

60s vintage Land Rover

Late 50s or very early 60s version (narrow headlights) Also had a plate from Jersey Channel Islands

A Mini Moke. VERY basic transportation

Small all electric vehicle with child seat!!

It is a beautiful island but so much more the "tourist destination" and place of island homes for the wealthy, and not so much "our style" like Saba!!

Saba Day two

So we are really enjoying this place and have already adjusted to the more relaxed schedule if you can call it that. We went back to the bank and still no ATM or even banking operations, but nobody seemed concerned.
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.

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.

Some views off the side of the road as we walked down

Several of these reminded me of Scotland or Ireland

GOCA hat make another worldwide appearance

Cove Bay and St Eustacia in the distance

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

I bet she is saying "look at these big waves!"

This was just before she was nearly washed out by a big wave. Jeeez!!

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.

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!!

Could be a warm Scotland!!

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!

Saba. First days adventures and sights

I mentioned in the last blog post that Saba is basically a dormant volcano that is 5 sq miles (13 sq km) and 3000 ft (~950m) tall in the middle. You can imagine that getting lost would be a challenge.
"The Road" winds it's way up from the airport through Hells Gate (Or Zions Gate if you prefer) to English Quarter and Windwardside which is the main settlement. The only other significant place is "The Bottom". It houses the "University of Saba Medical School" and it is a privately owned hospital and medical school that has been in business for over 20 years. There are about 400 students at any one time and the school has international credentials.
We stayed in Windwardside at the Cottage Club Hotel  http://www.cottage-club.com/ which I found on the Saba Tourism website. Windwardside is about 3 miles from the airport and sits at about 1500 ft (480m) above the sea, and our room was one of 10 cottages and we were lucky to get one of the two that basically hang over the edge of the cliff.

Our deck and the view to the ocean. Good coffee too

View from our room looking down the hill to the ocean. It was cloudy due to the after effects of Hurricane Tomas

Windwardside Church and cemetery

Police station and Immigration office!!

Our Cottage on Saba

There is a veranda and you can stand there and look down a VERY steep hill to the rocky shore line about 1/2-3/4 mile away.
Each cottage has two double beds, a small kitchen with stove and refrigerator, and an adequate bathroom. The only limitation was the water pressure, and we soon learned that water was a very precious commodity on the island and all houses have their own cistern to collect rainwater as this is the primary source of water on the island.
We arrived in grand style in a taxi that the hotel had ordered for us and our driver Donna was to be our guide for the next few days. 4 of the rooms are occupied by the Dutch Police who are on a temporary assignment for the change in status already mentioned. saba is a "special municipality" and appears to have all the benefits of being a Dutch city. Not a bad deal.
Our hosts were Ina and Christos. She is German and he is Greek but from the north of England. They were very keen for us to get some idea of what to see on the island and also to find somewhere to eat. Not all of the places are open every day so a reservation and a strategy is a good idea, even when the places are a 5 minute walk away.
We elected to try "The Swinging Door" as they have a BBQ steak special on Sundays and it was a simple choice. No great fanfare just good simple food and a couple of beers (Presidente or Carib seems to be most popular). We talked at the bar with a local lady who was enjoying a beer and discovered that she had a restaurant "Lollipops" over nearer to The Bottom. We discovered the next morning that she also ran the local bakery (we saw her delivering bread to a couple of different locations). This appears to be typical Saba.If you take out the student population (400) there are 1100 or so permanent residents and like it or not your neighbors, and everyone else is going to know what is happening in your life. You cam call it a close knit community or oppressive depending on your take. For a visitor for a few days it certainly made it friendly!
We decided to take a walk to The Bottom on Monday and it is about 2 miles or so. We walked along the undulating road and had to be constantly vigilant of the traffic. The road has a wall on one or both sides about 12 in (30cm) tall and it was good to sit on or stand on when the traffic passed.

View from the road to The Bottom

View from the road to The Bottom

Looking back towards Windwardside. You can just see some of the houses on Booby Hill

A view of "The Road"

Spectacular scenery and views of the ocean as well as wild goats who roam the island. There is a school complex at the summit of the hill about 1/2 way and there were school buses (short buses due to the roads)  and then over the top and down to The Bottom

School bus Saba style

The Bottom. Home of the Medical School seen lower center of the photo. Also the Admin Center for the island

Better view of Med School

We had arranged to meet Donna the Taxi in The Bottom around 1.30 for a (by necessity) short tour of the island. We wanted, among other things to go down to Wells Bay and the road down there is extremely steep and curvy, so 1st gear all the way.


There is a small beach at Wells Bay and depending on recent hurricane activity it can be very rocky (as it was for us) or a pleasant sandy beach.

Th road to Wells Bay and a view of Diamond Rock

There is a view out to Diamond Rock about 1/2 a mile off shore and about 75ft (25m) tall. There is a little BBQ grill down there and it would be a great place to go hang out and watch, what I suspect would be spectacular sunsets.

The road down. Note the rocks on the road. A constant hazard

I am discovering that Candida has a natural affinity for water and it takes almost no excuse for her to take her shoes or boots off and jump in.

More about this later as we had a scary moment the next day.
After a brief look around the rest of The Bottom we headed down to the port area and the only place on the island where it is possible to land a boat. It is also the location of the power station for the island and I am happy to report that they are all Cat generators that provide the electrical power.

The islands one and only gas station is located here (actually someone just opened a second station on the other end of the island but we never saw it). The fuel barge was making a delivery and it has to stand off about 100 yards (95m) and there is a 6 in (15cm) hose that floats on the water that makes the delivery.
We made our way back to the hotel after a brief visit to a pretty church in The Bottom that was decorated by a local painter. The church was built in 1935 I recall.

We also discovered that credit cards are not taken at all places (like the Swinging Door) but also discovered to my concern that the bank (note singular) in Windwardside was not functioning as the main branch in Curacao was flooded. So down to the last few $$ cash and no means of replenishing !!. We were able to work it out but nobody seemed stressed by it. When I had tried to pay for dinner the previous evening with the card and was told they did not take them they then said "No worries, just bring us the money tomorrow" Cool. I bet they know all the people at the airport and on the ferry and you will not make it out of the place without paying !!
We also stopped in to the grocery store and bought a few items and I was surprised that things were not as expensive as I had imagined they would be. Gas is about $3.00 a gallon.

We chilled out for a while and had dinner at Brigadoons. Good food once it arrived. There was a mix up between us getting a drinks order in and them then forgetting to come get our dinner order.

Dinner at Brigadoons. I think that is still the menu in front of me!

Oh well, we were on "island time" by then.