Caribbean trip. First stop Saba (eventually).

I/we had not intended to go to the Caribbean, but an opportunity arose and there seemed to be EVERY reason to do it and no reason not to.

You may recall (as an avid blog follower I am sure) that I met a friend of mine, Jen Grant in Auckland NZ in early March. She had been in NZ for a week or so and was in Auckland to catch a plane to Australia and I had just arrived from Japan. We were in the same town on the other side of the world for about 12 hours and had dinner and ice cream before she left for the airport.

I (and several others) got an email in September from Jen that she was planning to leave her job with Bank f America in Charlotte NC and relocate to St Croix US Virgin Islands for about 6 months anyway to see how she liked it. The email mentioned that visitors were welcome and we had a free place to stay. That was temptation enough, so we started to plan the trip. I am geographically fairly competent, but am unfamiliar with the Caribbean as I tend to associate it with resorts, cruises and more organized vacations than I have become accustomed to!

As I continued my research I realized that St Croix was not too far from St (Sint) Maarten, Saba and St Barths. All of these islands have "interesting" airports, and are on my bucket list of places to visit. The end result was that we spent 3 days on Saba, 2 days on St Barths, a day on St Maarten and then flew to spend 4 days with Jen on St Croix before returning home.

We flew to St Maarten from Raleigh via Miami, and then connected to a local (Winair) flight to Saba. The aircraft out of Miami had a mechanical delay and we were 2 hours late getting to SXM (St Maarten) so our connection (to the last flight of the day) was tight to say the least!

It is at this point that we discover the rather strange system of government in these parts. Until 10/10/2010 St Maarten was a part of the Dutch Antilles along with several other places and there was a regional administrative office in Curacao. On 10/10 Aruba, Curacao, and St Maarten became "independent" and Saba, Bonaire and St Eustacia effectively became a more direct part of Holland. Mix this with the fact that the island of St Maarten is 1/2 Dutch and 1/2 French and you have an interesting adminitrative and governmental challenge, particularly with regard to immigration and Customs.

We cleared immigration in to St Maarten, checked in and rechecked our bags with Winair (for a 12 minute flight) and then had to go back through immigration and security to get the flight to Saba. Still with me!. It was bizarre that the lady who checked us in to St Maarten was the same one who checked us out 15 minutes later! We made the flight, but only just and headed off to board our little 19 seat Twin Otter (Canadian built and a great little aircraft). This is the same type that I flew to Barra Scotland (the beach landing. Not in the blog anywhere but a previous "interesting" airport.

My initial plan was to make a day trip to Saba as I was mostly interested in the airport, the landing and the takeoff. The more I looked the better I liked the look of the place and we decided to spend a few days there and are really happy that we did.

Saba, http://www.sabatourism.com/ is about 5 square mile (13 sq km) and the highest point is about 3000 ft (877m) so all the roads are steep and narrow.

The airport is shoehorned on to a ledge on the NE side of the island. The runway is VERY short at 1300 ft (390m) and sits about 150 ft (48m) up from the ocean. To put that in perspective a typical jet runway is at least 6500 ft (1950m). There is about 150 ft of under run and over run at both ends but Saba is the shortest runway in the world with commercial service. It requires special pilot certification and regular recurrent training, as you can imagine.

Saba airport from about 1200 ft above and about 2 miles away. Note steep drop off at both ends.

Winair Twin Otter. 19 seats and two pilots.

Twin Otter using all of the available runway for takeoff.

Twin Otter just getting airborne. Just in time!

View from the side and below as another Twin Otter rotates for departure. Close to the end of the runway!

 You get the idea.

The approach is not normal because there is a large rock in the way, so there is a last second alignment with the runway. Reverse thrust (props in beta range for the cognoscenti) and it is all done.

Arrival in Saba is via yet another (albiet simpler) Immigration from a single officier in a booth the size of a toll booth on a highway!

We were met as promised by a taxi for the steep climb to our hotel.

More on saba itself in the next post. It is an incredible place basically unknown to most of the world including us until this point.

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