A Caribbean footnote - St Martin

With the temperature in Lyon still below zero (though the winter sun has at last broken through the thin cloud), it's time for the final chapter of our Caribbean interlude...

Our evening arrival in le petit hotel in Grand Case had one small drawback: we couldn't figure out how to open the door to the balcony. Come daylight, the mystery was solved when I discovered a length of wood blocking the rail on which the door slid. A rudimentary, but very effective locking system. Remove the wood and hey presto! the door slides open. Ho, hum. Anyway, it allowed us to eat breakfast on the balcony gazing out at the white sand, turquoise sea and blue, blue sky.

Later in the morning we took a taxi to La Lotérie Farm, a former sugar plantation which now has gardens, restaurant, a treetop assault course, and several marked walking routes through the forest towards the top of the highest peak on the island, Pic Paradis. We chose the latter. We didn't quite reach paradise but enjoyed a lovely three hour walk which included some stunning views of west, south and east coasts.


Given that the taxi ride had lasted barely five minutes, we decided to walk back to the hotel. We hadn't got far along the main road when a 4x4 pulled over and the driver offered us a lift. It was a mother heading home from church with her family. Eyeing the seven children already crammed in the back, we politely declined, but she insisted, so we squeezed into the back seat alongside four wide-eyed enfants and rode the last couple of miles to Grand Case. A true good samaritan.

In the evening we walked along the beach and eventually found the Zen It, the particular bar we were looking for. It was empty but open, but nontheless we walked in and dined on tapas accompanied by a magarita or two. And then we walked back to the hotel along the beach, on the way disturbing herons fishing by the light of beachside cafés.

The next day was the first of December and last full one of our holiday. We took another taxi ride into Marigot, the main French town on the island, wandered around the market, climbed the hill to the fort, wandered some more, and then decided to try catching a minibus back to Grand Case. Guidebooks informed us that one simply has to hail a bus heading in the right direction and hop on. The problem was we'd chosen a spot just past a large school, just after the end of the school morning. Thus every bus that went past was full to bursting. Eventually though, one did stop and we took the last two remaining seats. The $1 ride home was regularly punctuated by calls of 'stop please' to the driver. Then everybody between the alighting passenger and the door would get out and get back in again. Cheap and cheerful way to travel.


Back in Grand Case we ate lunch at a lolo - a local grill serving cheap, cheerful and plentiful food. Later in the afternoon we trekked up the hill to L'Esplanade, the sister hotel of le Petit Hotel, to claim our free poolside cocktail. Foolishly, we suggested the barman mix a drink of his own choosing for us, and then watched with growing alarm and anticipation as he added four different types of rum and a splash of fruit juice. Some time later we rolled glassy-eyed back down the hill, watched the sun set over the beach and managed to get out again for dinner. An earlier resolution to eat more cheaply went west with the sun, and we ended up in another of Grand Case's gastronomic establishments, where we enjoyed another delicious meal and a discussion of French and English football with one of the waiters, and finally endured a marriage proposal on the next table. Fortunately, she said yes and moments later was on the phone to her mum. Americans, needless to say.

And that was more or less it. On the final morning I fought my way through the undergrowth to the top of the hill at the end of the bay while la bienheureuse packed, we went out for one final beachside café lunch, and then it was time for the taxi back to the airport. Ten hours later we landed in Paris at five in the morning, and it was snowing. Still, at least we got home with all our luggage...

Saba, queen of the Caribbean

After the longest night of the year, in the cold, gloomy depths of l'hiver lyonnais, let me take you back to a warmer time and a sunnier place...

Sunday 23 November
Dawn breaks, and the chirping of frogs is replaced by bird song. Due to be picked up at 8.45 we're all down at the restaurant for 7.30, eager for breakfast. The doors are firmly closed and we're forced to wait ten minutes. The breakfast is worth the wait, and our table is right next to the nectar bird feed just outside the window, so we have ringside seats for the hummingbird show.

Sometime after nine the taxi eventually arrives, Vincent rather than Garvis today. We meet our companions on the boat during the ride down to Fort Bay - an American foursome and a Frenchman. At the boat we're introduced to Tom and Kat, boatman and dive guide. Kat checks we're all geared up and then we're off to the first site, one of the famous Saban pinnacles.

Dive 1: Third Encounter
The Wigs have brought their own gear, and neither makes it more than a few feet below the surface. Sporting a brand new wetsuit, Sogs flounders underweighted on the surface, and Jogs' regulator fails to give him any air. The three hirers all enjoy a fantastic first dive - blacktip shark spotted on the way down, then a swim off the plateau to 'Eye of the Needle' - a needle shaped pinnacle topping off at 27m.

Dive 2: Tent reef
After a surface interval of little more than 90 minutes, we're back in the water for the shallower second dive. This time the Wigs make it to the bottom, though JeB's regulator is still misbehaving. Boulders, overhangs, coral outcrops and abundant life make it another very pleasant dive.

Afterwards, Vincent drives us back up the mountain and drops us off in Windwardside for lunch. Then we undertake the steep climb up the first part of the Mount Scenery trail back to the Ecolodge. 300 odd steps and 120 metres higher we collapse back at the lodge for a siesta. Then we relax in the hot tub with our resident bird humming busily around the flowers mere inches from our heads. Magical.

We walk back down the road to Windwardside for dinner at Brigadoon, chief entertainment provided by the maitresse du restaurant, Trish. Well watered with margaritas and wine as we are by the end of the evening, she judges us unruly enough to be treated to her stock of bawdy jokes - four ways a girl has an orgasm (butt of the joke, the most sober male on the table), and four ways to peel a banana. Imagine the punch lines yourself...

At the start of the evening we planned on walking back up to the lodge. When push comes to shove we take a taxi.

Monday 24 November
Morning off from diving, we embark on a circular walk out and back to the Ecolodge. Up along the Crispeen Track, down and along Bud's Mountain trail, up to join the Mount Scenery Trail and finally back to the Ecolodge. Courting hummingbirds, killer ants, posing anole lizards and exotic foliage all spotted during the walk. After lunch, it's another rendezvous with Garvis for the ride down to the dive boat.

Dive 3: Greer gut
Kat's driving the boat this time, and our guide is Troy. Pleasant pootle down at twenty odd metres, with numerous coral outcrops, morays, lobsters, sailfin blennies dancing in and out of their holes, and an electric blue flounder.


After siestas and hot-tubs, we venture back down to the Brigadoon again for an early evening talk about Saba's history and diving. While one of the Sea Saba dive guides expounds, Professor Margarita downs his newly discovered drink of prediliction. Afterwards we feast at the Eden restaurant while the wind blows outside.

Tuesday 25 November
Morning dives again. After another hearty breakfast, Vincent is our chauffeur for the day and takes us down to a boat rocking gently at dockside in the northwesterly swells. The weather means that the more adventurous dives on the northwest side are off, and Tom and Troy take us instead to the more sheltered south coast.

Dive 4: Hole in the Corner
Another pleasant dive in swaying swells, down a gentle slope littered with lovely hard coral. Sharks number two and three of the week spotted, blacktips. One of them apparently swims mere feet behind me as I'm pointing the camera in the other direction.

Dive 5: Tent reef
More coral, more boulders, more fish, more sponges, a sleeping nurse shark.

Post-diving, we're dropped off in Windwardside, eat too much pizza, find the museum closed, and undertake the long climb back up to the Ecolodge. Afternoon spent recovering and relaxing in the hot-tub. In the evening, after the ritual Margarita aperitifs, the on-site restaurant serves up a delicious Indonesian buffet, which we enjoy with our French dive buddy Arnaud.

Wednesday 26 November
Another morning off, and we get more ambitious with our hiking. Mount Scenery here we come! Fortunately, at the Ecolodge we have a head start, about a third of the climb done already. Up, and up, and up we go. Steps, then muddy path, then a scramble over rocks.

By 1015 we stand atop the highest point in the Dutch kingdom, with panoramic views of St Martin, St Barts and St Kitts & Nevis. From there it's all downhill, 877 metres down to Fort Bay again.

Dive 6: Greer gut
Those northwest swells keep rolling in, but the diving with guide EJ is still good. A large free-swimming moray makes me curse myself for deciding to dive sans camera.

Another talk in the evening, this time chez nous at the Ecolodge on Saba's geology and wildlife, given by lodge owner Tom van't Hof, who was instrumental in setting up the island's marine park. After several drinks and another delicious dinner, the guffawing calls of the Margarita bird and the Jogwig echo through the dark rainforest night.

Thursday 27 November
After a bumper breakfast and amusement watching our aspiring wildlife photographers vainly trying to capture hummingbirds at the honey trap, we wait for our usual pickup on the road above the lodge. And wait, and wait. Vincent eventually turns up, we stop off at the dive shop in Sea Saba, where Vincent is summarily sacked for dereliction of duty. Nonetheless he takes us down to Fort Bay and we sail forth with a grumpy boatman and dive guide Scott.

Dive 7: Tedran wall
The swells mean the visibility is the worst of the week, but we still have a lovely dive along a stunning drop off. Turtles, stingrays and pipe fish all spotted.

Dive 8: Hot springs
Turns out the boatman is grumpy because the boat engine is misbehaving. Second dive is close to home and includes the diving highlight of the week: a small turtle smarter than the average diver lures the lesser Jogwig into swimming alongside it, head first into a large lump of rock. Professor Margarita's guffawing laugh can be heard above water as far away as the top of Mount Scenery. Afterwards we clear masks and limp back to port. Garvis picks us up for the ride back up the mountain while we listen to our American buddies telling us the two dives we've just done are the two worst they've experienced in four years on Saba.

Margaritas and delicious T-bone steak in the evening back at the Brigadoon. Trish starts telling us the same jokes, until we remind her we've been here before. Back at the lodge we play Sh*thead by candlelight late into the night. It's almost ten by the time we're in bed.

Friday 28 November
Last day, sob, but what a day. JeB and the Americans aren't diving, but their 'constructive criticism' and our polite but persistent requests to dive more pinnacles pay off. The swells have subsided so Kat and EJ take us and a French travel agent (there for her job, une fille chanceuse) out towards the holy grail.

Dive 9: Shark Shoals
Awesome double pinnacle, the first starting at 28m, the second at 36. Sadly, deep dive means short dive and it's over all too soon.


Dive 10: Man O'War Shoals
Last dive of the week, and it may be the best. Another double pinnacle, but rising from a sandy bottom a mere 22m down. Dive starts well when a nurse shark swims right underneath me as we reach the bottom. From there we move on to morays, fireworms, filefish, and towards the end of the dive watch a real-life marine drama being played out. A tiny octopus, no bigger than baby's fist, is harassed by a pack of wrasse. As we watch, he frantically changes colour and texture, and flees across the reef but fails to find refuge. We surface before witnessing the end. Did he escape or did he finish as fish food? We'll never know...

Final hot-tub, final margaritas (the strongest yet, served up by our host), and final dinner of the week back at the Ecolodge. Afterwards we polish off a bottle of complementary wine playing cards again, and I regret boasting of my prowess at not being the sh*thead the previous night, as Lady Luck and my fellow card-sharps turn cruelly against me. Not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times in row...

Saturday 29 November
Last hearty Ecolodge breakfast. We wave goodbye as the Wigs and Professor Margarita catch the morning flight back to St Martin (though their luggage doesn't) before winging their way home to chilly Jockoland, and even chillier Michigan respectively. La bienheureuse and I spend the afternoon pottering in the warm Windwardside sunshine and find the museum still closed. We labour one last time up the steps to the Ecolodge before asking for our luggage to be taken up to the road. One of the staff roars up the path on the quad bike with our luggage in a trailer behind him. A couple of minutes later we catch up. Quad, trailer, luggage and driver are all in the ditch. Fortunately no serious injuries to man or machine, and he manages to get everything back on the path intact. Garvis eventually arrives takes us down the road to Fort Bay one last time to catch the afternoon Edge back to St Martin...

We arrive back at Pelican Marina as the sun begins to set and struggle to find a taxi. A grumpy driver eventually deigns to take us to our hotel in Grand Case, though his mood isn't improved by taking an Indian family as additional fares and thus getting stuck as the swing bridge on the main road opens to let the last daytripping yachts into the lagoon. He seems baffled about why we want to go to 'all that way' to the French side rather the Dutch, but gets us there by 7pm and I sense he's mollified by a 5 dollar tip.

Le Petit Hotel reception is closed, but the security guard is waiting for us with an envelope and room key. We quickly settle in and then stroll out for a gourmet meal in the self styled gastronomic capital of the Antilles. Back in our gorgeous room on a bed the size of our entire Ecolodge cabin, we are lulled to sleep by the sound of waves breaking on the beach yards from our balcony. I could get used to this...

From sand and sunshine to snow

It wasn't quite as bad as a certain other return from holiday, but to arrive home on Tuesday to be greeted by near-zero temperatures and a light snow shower was something of a rude shock, having left a beach side hotel in 30C sunshine a little over 12 hours previously.

La quarantaine de la bienheureuse was the excuse (again) for the Caribbean trip. It was a holiday in three parts - a couple of nights rest and recuperation in the Dutch part of Sint Maarten/Saint Martin, before a week's diving in Saba, followed by another three nights in French Saint Martin. All in all, highly enjoyable. Part one went like this...

Thursday 20th November
Up before the crack of dawn to catch a connecting flight from Lyon to Paris. Fingers crossed that we haven't forgotten anything during hasty packing the previous evening, after la bienheureuse ends a hectic time at work and I stay up till after midnight printing out first rough draft of book number three. Partial recovery from less than five hours sleep during the eight hour flight (business class courtesy of air miles) to Saint Martin is ruined by over-indulgence in champagne, wine, etc. Result: both suffer from hangovers before the plane has even landed. A stroll along the beach to a converted bus café to watch the sunset over cocktails, and the five hour time difference unusually allows recovery from hangover to take effect before going to bed.

Friday 21st November
Early to bed, early to rise. A full night's sleep, albeit in one to two hour chunks, mean we're up soon after dawn and out early in search of a supermarket to buy breakfast. Croissants, fruit and yoghurt set us up for a stroll along Simpson Bay in the morning, scouting places to dine and buying swimwear for la bienheureuse. Eat a picnic lunch back at our hotel, situated on the narrow strip between Simpson Bay beach and lagoon.
Spend afternoon on the beach watching waves. Added attraction, the planes landing and taking off on the main airport runway mere yards from the beach. Fish dinner at a lagoon side restaurant.

Sat 22nd November
7.45am: Sitting in the smallest room in our little hotel apartment contemplating life when I hear a tremulous call from the bedroom: 'Honey, I've done something very stupid...'
Hastily wiping up, I dash in to find la bienheureuse clutching a wad of tissue to her left eye, which has just been speared by the window winding handle while she bent over to check nothing had dropped under the bed. Visions of a bloody, pulped mess instead of an eyeball, and a cancelled diving holiday flash before my own eyes, but the damage turns out to be not as bad as first feared. Blurred vision and a painfully bloodshot eye apart, la bienheureuse deems herself healthy enough to tell the taxi which turns up at that very moment to take us to the marina rather than the hospital.

Trying my best not to look like a wife-beater, I take care of the check-in and immigration formalities for the boat to Saba, while ma bien-aimée holds an improvised ice pack to her eye. By the time the boat leaves at 9am she is able to dispense with the ice pack and don sunglasses. We are thus able to enjoy the ninety minute, 25 mile trip and look forward to the week on Saba. La bienheureuse even feels confident enough to predict she'll be able to dive the next day.
We arrive in Fort Bay, get our passports stamped dockside, and are met by Garvis, trusty taxi driver for the week. Saba is a volcanic rock of barely 5 square miles. It has one main road, but what a road it is. Winding steeply from Fort Bay (the only dock) across the island and down to the airport the other side (supposedly the smallest 'international' airport in the world), via the quaintly named main town The Bottom (not altother apt as it's at about 250m) and Windwardside (the other main conurbation, population about 400, altitude about 400m), it was built entirely by hand over the course of twenty plus years by the islanders under the guidance of a self taught road builder after Dutch engineers had said it couldn't be done.

Garvis drops us off at the offices of Sea Saba in Windwardside so that we can carry out pre-dive formalities before picking us up again to take us up to our home for the week, the Ecolodge Rendezvous. We get out at the end of the road, at the highest point on the island reachable by motor vehicle, and then drag our baggage the further two hundred yards to the Ecolodge. There, we are shown to our one room wooden 'cottage', with solar powered lighting and shower (no mains electricity at the lodge), private porch and hot tub. We settle in, eat a delicious lunch at the restaurant, and then take turns to laze in the hammock and watch a humming bird buzz around our chalet. Later in the afternoon we undertake the wending downward road to the airport to watch the others arrive on the last flight in. Spectacular landing it was too, runway less than 400m long, perched on a flat(-ish) bit of lava flow a few metres from, and 40 metres above the sea.

Having been told that Winair flights to Saba have a habit of not taking place, and hearing that our boat was the only one to make it to Saba that day, we are relieved to be fully reunited as JeB, Swigs and the builder all duly emerge in 'arrivals', complete with baggage too (of which more later).

Garvis ferries us all back up the mountain to the Ecolodge and we celebrate all making it in due fashion, with dinner and margaritas in the Rain Forest restaurant at the Ecolodge. Alcohol and an 18 hour journey soon contribute to drooping eyelids, and everybody's in bed by eight thirty, being lulled to sleep by chirping frogs and crickets. There's diving to consider the next day, after all...