What does St. Barths lack?
What does St. Barths lack? It lacks casinos, nightclubs to speak of, resorts, golf courses and cruise ships. Do not go to St. Barths unless you like the person or people you are traveling with very much as it is an intimate and romantic place with very little in the form of distractions. It brings couples together, it does not give them avenues of escape from one another. It pretty much shuts down at 9:00 p.m. leaving visitors with the rest of the evening to spend together.
Do you remember how you felt when you were young and first began to experience the world? All of your senses were very much alive. You responded to music, art, a beautiful sunset or a star-filled night on an immediate and intimate level. And when you fell in love, you did so deeply, completely and with every pore of your being—so much so that you ached. In Refiner's Fire, Mark Helprin's first novel, he describes the reaction of a boy who has just encountered the girl he loves at summer camp as follows:
That night in his bunk Marshall felt as if all the mountains and the height of the sky were in him, as if the entire world were a place in which entire alpine regions conspired to make children happy. And that night in Colorado the moon came up so bright that even sheep and horses could not sleep, and stood in the fields staring upward as confused as the first astronomers.
St. Barths rekindles such feelings and reminds the visitor that these emotions, while perhaps obscured or somewhat buried in the clutter which we accumulate over time, are not lost. We have visited St. Barths in the best of times and in the worst of times. In the former, it brings us closer together, and, in the latter, within a matter of hours, it repairs the shards and jagged edges of our sometimes fractured lives and resets our emotional compass.
Pretty powerful stuff, and thus the passion.
Arriving on St. Barths
The vast majority of visitors to St. Barths arrive via a 12-minute plane ride from St. Maarten. There are a couple of things you need to know about St. Maarten right from the start. First, although it describes itself as "The Friendly Island," the airport is anything but. It is also one of the dreariest little airports in the world with a depressing array of shops in what is billed as a duty-free mall and an air conditioning system which is perpetually on the "Clammy" setting. Until a few years ago, there was an open-air bar in the middle of the airport which gave you an opportunity to soak up a little sun while enjoying your first Caribe, but that has unfortunately been enclosed.
Accordingly, you want to spend as little time as possible in the airport. To help you achieve this goal, you should know that you never have to clear immigration or customs upon arrival in St. Maarten even though the vast majority of vacationers disembarking at St. Maarten will take their places in what can be very long lines at the immigration / customs counter. (See Getting to St. Barths for more information about when you can use the In Transit gate). Instead, after taking a moment to soak up the first rays of brilliant sunshine you will likely have experienced for a number of months (you disembark the airplane on the tarmac at St. Maarten), proceed to the In Transit Gate which will be on your left past Gate 10 as you and the throngs make your way towards the main entrance to the terminal. Present your ticket to St. Barths to the unfailingly unfriendly person at the ticket counter (hang in there . . . St. Barths is only a short flight away!); pass through the metal detectors immediately behind the counters; and locate the gate for the flights to St. Barths, which is typically Gate 12. Your flight will inevitably be late. Buy a Caribe and try and tune out CNN News which will be blaring from a television set mounted near the ceiling. Look for the really happy people. They will be your fellow passengers on the flight to St. Barths.
You will fly to St. Barths on a Hawker de Havilland Twin Otter—one of the safest and most reliable airplanes made. Try to get the seats behind the pilots for a front row view of one of the most unforgettable flights you will ever take.
After flying south for about 10 minutes, St. Barths comes into view. You pass over Colombier beach which is very secluded and typically has a number of sailboats anchored offshore. You then see the town of Gustavia to your right which, depending upon the time of year your arrive, can have hundreds of luxury yachts moored in its neat little rectangle of a harbor. So far so good. Everything is very picturesque and peaceful. And then the fun begins.
Shortly after Gustavia comes into view, the pilot banks to the left and then puts the plane into a nosedive so sharp that the warning system in the cockpit starts announcing your ever shrinking height above land in rapidly descending increments of 100 feet and blaring the words “Pull up. Pull up.” The landing gear barely skirts the crest of a steep hill which abuts the runway (you will see what I mean by “barely” when you drive along the road on the ridge of the hill at the moment a plane is landing), and, at a height of no more than 50 feet, you will note that the plane is still heading straight down towards the runway and that the runway, like all runways of which you are aware, is made of very hard asphalt. At the very last instant, the pilot pulls out of the dive for a perfect three-point landing, but the excitement does not end there as he then engages all of the plane's flaps and brakes in what feels like a frantic attempt to stop it before it gets to beach at the end of the incredibly short runway (I do not know its precise length, but it cannot be more than a few hundred yards long) at the end of which, somewhat incongruously, is St. Jean beach-- one of the most popular beaches on St. Barths. On rare occasions-- reportedly involving private pilots-- planes fail to stop and take a brief plunge. But, not to worry, the water's warm, and you can wade to shore.
No one prepared us for our first landing on St. Barths which made the experience all the more vivid. As the plane strained to come to a stop and we provided whatever assistance we could by digging our feet into the floor and sinking our fingernails into the armrests, we noticed a very attractive, very tan, woman, standing on St. Jean beach directly in the path of our plane. As is the custom in St. Barths, she was topless. She didn’t flinch but instead observed our arrival with an insouciant air. After our plane turned at the end of the runway and taxied to the airport terminal, our pilot asked the passengers how long we thought he had been making this flight. Someone ventured “About two weeks.” The pilot smiled and replied “On the money!”
Old timers bemoan the airport terminal at St. Barths and wax nostalgic about a time not so very long ago when there was no building at all at the airport and people waited for planes under a tree. The terminal has been modernized since our first visit complete with an air-conditioned waiting room which is perhaps unfortunate, but so what? In the first place, you survived the landing which is cause for celebration in and of itself. Second, the terminal is infinitely smaller than the one on St. Maarten (there is only one “gate”—if it can be called that—and one recently installed baggage carousel) and infinitely cleaner. Lastly, you spend almost no time in the terminal as you can clear customs and immigration and claim your baggage in a matter of minutes.
Say “Bon jour” to the very friendly man at the immigration window. Go ahead! Take the plunge and blurt it out! You know you want to try out your French even if you are a little unnerved at the prospect. You want to experience French West Indian culture from the inside not peek at it from the outside. “Bon jour” and “Merci” are your tickets to admission. It is also a sign of respect to make some attempt to speak the native language.
To the left of the immigration counter, you will see a poster of various silhouettes of dogs deemed by the authorities to be “Chiens Mechants,” or “Mean Dogs” who are not permitted on St. Barths. (For that matter, there are very few “mechant” people on the island as well). But for the breeds comprising this Rogues Gallery, dogs appear welcome virtually everywhere on St. Barths-- walking in and out of shops, restaurants and even Church during Sunday services. They tend to be very quiet and well-mannered, and, because they pretty much have the run of the island, appear to belong to no one in particular. Many of the male dogs seem to be descendants of an exceedingly well-endowed dachshund who was not very particular about the pedigree of his various girlfriends. Must be the Vanilla Rhum. The island abounds with cats as well, along with goats, sheep, chickens and roosters and even a couple of very loud parrots who fly in and out of restaurants in Saline.
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