Background
- Tendor location; can be difficult and may have to cancel
- St Barths is small: 8.1 sq miles
- We are going to capital, Gustavia, tendered to town center
- pop 8.5k
- Currency is Euro $1 = .69 Euro
- Very expensive island, playground of rich and famous
- Ruled by France and England at various times, then given to Sweden (1784-1878), then back to France, which has control today
- Taxis 80 euros / hr for 2 people
- Don’t take photos of locals without permission
- French pirate: Daniel Montbars (1645-1707.. aka Montbars the Exterminator Will see references to him around island.
- Sea shells can’t be taken off island
- Resorts: Nikki Beach… The “in” hot sexy beach resort. All the celebs go. Port agent likes to go to Nikki beach and hang out with celebs. Peter Higbee wrote an email to the beach owner and the reply was that we could visit beach free. So… you can go. If they challenge you, say Peter Higbee said it is OK.
- All beaches public and free
Our Experience
We arrived as another cruise ship was leaving. Rumor, afterwards confirmed, said it was leaving because it could not tender in. Our captain announced that we were maneuvering the ship to attempt to provide enough cover from the wind (from southeast) to launch and recover our tenders. He estimated the chance of success at 50-50. Well, we came out on the good side and were in port by about 11ish. The ride over wasn’t all that rough.
Before we left I had looked at the options on the Internet. The most common activity was to rent a motorbike or car and see the island. You could stop at the beaches, etc. I didn’t think Chris would go for the motorbike and I started the process of renting a car. The price was about $70 plus taxes and fees. However, the commentaries described the traffic situation as chaotic. I didn’t think Chris would manage that well.
I thought about using a taxi to get to one or more of the beaches, but the cost would have been high and I wasn’t sure how we could arrange a pickup. (In retrospect, I think the process is to be dropped off at Nikki beach, since there is a resort there.)
I investigate a bicycling alternative, but the one email I got back said that the company was out of business. So… my plan was to find a local snorkel outfit once we landed- there were several on the internet.
Since we arrived at 11 and the last shuttle left about 4 I guess I was glad I didn’t rent a car for the day or plan anything else. I tried to find a snorkel company and didn’t find one in the immediate neighborhood- that is, I couldn’t see any. We walked downtown, in the direction of the sign that said “tourist information” but couldn’t find the tourist information. So we retraced our steps back to the ship tender landing area.
On the way, I saw a diving/sports shop and went in. French is the primary language there, and while I waited I heard no spoken English. I waited until I could talk to the proprietor. I started in French, but found the gentleman could speak some English. He said there was a snorkel place right next to the the tender landing area. In fact, he actually walked us over to where it was. There was no sign. He said there was a boat, the Blue something or another, and that they had apparently left and would be back for an afternoon run.
So we had some decisions to make. Chris was already tired and complaining, so I told her to wait and I would try to find the tourist information place. After asking a few people I was given what turned out to be the right directions. It was not well marked. Here’s where it is: From the tender dock, go to the right. You’ll go through a long parking lot. Turn right at the first street you come to. The building is the last one on the right, next to the pier. There is a very small sign sticking out from the building, partly hidden by a vine. You’ll notice a large women’s restroom to the right of the door.
The office is not well staffed: one person. If two ships had been in port, it would have been overwhelmed.
The person was not fluent in English, so questions had to be kept simple. I found a handout that included diving and snorkeling places. She indicated those that had offices and those that did not, such as the one we had just visited. But she couldn’t give me directions on where they were. She said to call, but didn’t volunteer to make the calls for me. On the way back to the dock, where Chris was waiting, I couldn’t find a local phone.
Chris and I talked it over. She wanted to walk to a beach we had seen coming in, but, to make a long story short, there was no way to walk there. After some debate, we decided to take a cab to the other side of the bay, where I could see a diving insignia on a building. The minimum taxi fare, so we were told, was $15 US (10 euro). We paid it and were off on the mile or so ride to the other side. We learned first hand the traffic problem… all traffic seems to funnel to one point. Anyway, we got there.
Turns out that all the diving boats were out. We asked a person who was in the know, and he said that, basically, we were out of luck. The Blue boat was the one we could have possibly taken, but it had hours of 9, 11, 2. We had just missed the 11 when we arrived and we could not take the 2, since the last tender left at 4. He recommended we go to Shell Beach. He showed us how to get there. It was a 10 minute walk, at Chris’s walking pace, to get there. It is more or less a five minute walk from the end of the bay.
The beach is covered with shells. It is rocky and within 10 feet of the start of the water, it fell off to an undetermined depth, so deep that, when I snorkeled, I couldn’t see the bottom, given the sand stirred up by the waves. I assume that the waves were a little higher than normal, because the wind blew directly into the beach. The undertow was treacherous. Since the beach was mostly shells, falling meant cuts on anything that hit the beach. Chris got cuts in several places and a man’s back got bloodied.
Chris didn’t want to go snorkeling and spent the time searching for shells and glass. She also found a bone that looked to be part of a human leg (thigh) bone. With my snorkel equipment, I could limit the risk of falling and was able to move in and out of the beach fairly easily. We spent about an hour there: I snorkeled and saw NOTHING; just floated and swam… good exercise.
We walked back toward town. Along the way, I noticed a stone stairway up a hill and started climbing to explore. Chris didn’t want to go, saying it was probably private property and she didn’t want to climb stairs. When I got about three quarters of the way up, I found a clock tower of some historic importance and a church. The view of the harbor was superb. I persuaded Chris to come up and she enjoyed the view. I took some photos, which follow.
We went back into town and slowly worked our way back to the tender dock, stopping at points of interest along the way.
Chris didn’t want to wait until the last tender, so we got on one about 3:30.
We lifted anchors (the anchoring was a complicated array to hold the boat steady and shelter the tender operation) and were away about 4:30.
Pictures will be attached when I have more bandwidth.
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