St. Barthelemy (St. Bart's) 17*54.428N, 62*51.546W

St. Bart's Scenery


The St. Bart's Bucket Regatta











What a great weekend of sailing, snorkeling, sightseeing, and lusting after the boats of the ridiculously rich and richer. While we're waiting for a few things to complete, we decided to make a weekend trip over to St. Bart's which is a French Island and one of the very few that are pretty relaxed about checkin procedures. This weekend also happened to be the annual St. Bart's Bucket Regatta. All the sailboats in this regatta are a minimum of 100 ft in length and most have crews of 15 or more. We got to walk along the docks while the boats were between races and the sheer size and luxury of these vessels is simply staggering.

Although it wasn't always the case, today St. Bart's is largely a playground for the very rich and famous and the prices of everything can attest to that (2 coffees, 2 plain croissants, 1 small juice = $25). The island is beautiful and lush and not only are the streets and villages full of color and mystique, but so is the island's history. While it never had much to appeal to early settlers, the Island's strategic placement in the middle of the Lesser Antilles made it important enough to the British, French and Spanish to be viciously battled over. St. Bart's was also used in the late 1600's by pirates and smugglers who came to spend their ill-gotten fortunes. The most famous being Captain Montbars, a Frenchman that was so angered at what the Spanish had done to the native populations that he decided to avenge them and later became known as "Montbar The Exterminator". In the late 1700's, the island was given to Sweden in exchange for free port rights in Gothenburg and it remains a free port today, although in the mid 1800's the Swedes sold the island back to France. St. Barts also served a short stint as trading center during the American war of Independence when American rebels came here for supplies.

We sailed to St. Barts along side Impala (Patrik, Sofia and Kate) and met up with Tarka (Lindsay and Margy) in Gustavia, the Capital of St. Bart's and the Customs port of entry. This is also the port that the racing boats were using to dock at and start and end their races. The trip over was pretty rough as the path is to windward and we were beating right into the wind and waves. Wave height was only about 5-6 feet, but certainly enough to keep us all on deck and facing forward. Our second day on the island, we hired a tour guide to take us on a 3 hour tour of the island and it was worth every penny - there is so much that you simply can't see from the water or shoreline and our guide was born and raised in St. Bart's so there was very little she didn't know. I don't know if she does this with all her clients, but she even brought us to her home for a short visit and fed us beer and wine from her fridge! Now that's hospitality plus. During the tour, as we were driving down one of the many narrow cobblestone streets, we spotted a tortoise on the road in front of us and stopped to rescue it to the side - that was definitely one of the highlights for me. The following day, we decided to part from our small group and sailed around the northern tip of the island to a marine park called Anse Du Colombier. This was a spectacular snorkeling spot and the place where Olivia learned to actually use the snorkel and mask on her own. Once she realized that she could breathe comfortably with her snorkel and her face in the water, we could easily hear her squealing with delight under water when she saw all the colorful fish and coral heads.

The Anchorage at Anse du Columbier.







We're now back in St. Maarten and got notice yesterday that much of what we've been waiting for will be ready in the next few days so we will hopefully be on our way south by mid next week. Next Stop: Saba, St. Kitts and Nevis.



Patrik and Sofia with Olivia and Ron


Lindsay, Margy and Kate


Just hangin' around.