St. Barts

April 23, 2014

St. Barths

Our day started bright and early this morning.  We wanted to get a FaceTime call placed to our son, Justin, who turns 30 today (Happy Birthday!).  So, I set my alarm and got up at 6 a.m. our time and called him.  “Happy Birthday”!  Why do you sound so sleepy?  Mom, it’s 4 a.m. here.  Uh oh.  He did laugh when I told him 30 years ago today he woke me up early, just consider it payback. 

While anchored in Anse de Colombier at St. Barth’s, we did some research and saw that there was a great hiking trail to the top of the mountain, just off of the beach.  So we set out this morning at about 7 a.m. taking D-Time to the beach and then walk.  We walked straight up hill.  You would think that would get your heart pumping but when you come across 4 large turtles in the middle of your path, that wakes you up.  Daniel said, be careful “turtle crossing” slowly.  They were fun to watch.  We made it to the top, took some great pictures and then turned around and came back down.  We were gone about 30 minutes when we came to the same place the turtles were previously and they had gone about 10 feet.  They were so cute!  It was about a 2 mile walk and by the time we got back to the beach we just pulled off our shoes and went swimming.  We followed that up with a long walk on the beach and we were pretty worn out.  At least “I” was.  I took D-Time back to the boat and Daniel swam to the boat.  What a show off!

After we got back on board, it was time to head to the city of Gustavia and clear in/out with customs and immigration.  20 Euros later and we had cleared in and out of St. Barts.  We plan on staying over night, but St. Barts lets you clear in AND out at the same time, if you’re staying less than 24 hours.  Nice!  No more trips into immigration for us. 

We finished up the formalities and then went for a walk around town to see the beautiful shops and the beautiful people.  We enjoyed walking through the town.  After that was done, we wanted to go see the airport where the planes’ flight path to land is right over a main road.  Sounded neat, so more walking.  We walked, straight up the hill again, probably a mile or more and arrived at the spot in the road where the planes flew over.  It didn’t take long for a plane to approach and boy did they fly CLOSE to the road.  It was a little scary almost, how close they came.  Well, we decided to wait for another one and I sat on a fence rail, right in the middle of the road thinking it would be cool to see the plane – it didn’t come “that” close to the road.  So I sat and watched and watched and the closer that plane came to me – the more it looked like it was heading straight for me.  I let out a little “eeek” and jumped up and ran out of the way.  Daniel said it didn’t come close to me, but it sure felt like it. 

Back to D-time and then back to C-Time.  We sat in the harbor for about 30 minutes and enjoyed some free wifi with me contacting some people back home.  Then we set back off to go back to Anse de Colombier.  It was a lot smoother than Gustavia and we couldn’t get out of Gustavia fast enough because of the rough harbor.