St Bart's - views of the island
And still on this dark rainy February afternoon one can find one self longing for the hot and tropical places one has been to. Actually, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit St Bart’s in the Caribbean a couple of times - though, alas, don’t think I could afford to stay for long…
St Bart’s is a close neighbour of St Martins and ordinarily people cross by small ferry or small plane. I most definitely recommend that you do not attempt the latter. Landing at the island airport seems suicidal - the runway is situated at the bottom of a steep hill and the pilot must fly through a low pass then dive his aircraft vertically down the hill. One of the local pastimes is to stand at the edge of the pass and watch the planes skim 20 feet above your head before taking the plunge.
We stepped ashore St Bart’s in a far less sensational manner – albeit one that was achieved with a great sense of style. Because, no matter how chic and posh the island (and believe me, St Bart’s is that and more), people are impressed when they see you have come from the Star Clipper barquentine.
Turn up in your average luxury liner and you sometimes find yourself being treated with the sort of disdain locals tend to have for cruise passengers. Turn up in the Star Clipper and you find yourself being envied.
“Did you come from the big sailing ship?” one American holidaymaker asked as we stepped ashore off one of the Clipper’s launches. “Wow,” he mused. “That must be something else.”
It is, indeed, something else. Cruising aboard a four-masted barquentine is, in my opinion, a true maritime experience compared to alternative liner holidays which, in some cases, must be like hitting the high seas in a block of flats. So I didn’t feel the least bit impoverished when I gazed at the incredibly expensive boutiques and shops on St Bart’s. The rich could keep their Gucci handbags and St Laurent clothes, I regarded myself as being a breed apart: for I had arrived and would depart – like a true mariner - under sail.
Throughout my extraordinary Caribbean journey, the thought struck me time and again. I arrived in exotic places aboard a big white winged sea bird whose several thousand square metres of sail would propel me ever onward when the time came to leave. Just like they had propelled Christopher Columbus, who discovered St Bart’s and named it after his brother.
