St Barts

17 54.5 N 62 52.0 W

Our next stop was St Barthelemy (St Barts)

In the early days St Barts has insufficient rainfall for agriculture which it low on the list for settlement. Being placed in the middle of the Lesser Antilles with a good harbor and several sheltered bays was appealing enough for the British, French and Spanish to fight over. It prospered under the French in late 1600's when it was used as a base for pirates. In 1784 the French gave St Barts to the Swedes in exchange for free port rights in Gothenburg. The Swedes made it a free port, which it remains today. The Swedes sold St Barts back to France in 1878 and is still under the French flag.

Our first stop was at Ile Fourchue a small island north of St Barts. This island has a lunar landscape the goats having devoured everything including the prickles. We had intended to spend the night there – unfortunately it was very roly so after a quick snorkel around the reefs we headed off to Anse De Colombier. Whilst at Ile Fourchue we snorkelled over to a catamaran that had been washed up on the rocks – one of the engines lay beside it on the rocks under water along with clothes and debris – Don climbed up and into the vessel and noticed that all the condiments and books were still in place – so very sad as this was someone's home. The deck fittings had mostly been stripped off the vessel and it is now left to the waves to destroy.

Anse De Colombier was beautiful secluded bay with white sandy beach, snorkelling and a walk up over the hills to a tiny seaside town where there was suppose to be a bakery. Don and I left the boat at am and headed for the bakery thinking we would buy croissants for everyone and deliver them to the other boats for breakfast – well that was the original plan. We walked the ½ hr walk up and over the hill, then another ½ along the beach to the other end and still no bakery. After asking we were told it was up the hill – a very steep long hill – we decided to give it a go and trudged and puffed our way up a 2 miles extremely steep hill and finally found the bakery – after ordering our goods we were very embarrassed to find we had left our money on the boat – I glared at Don with accusation in my eyes – he did the same back to me and a truce was called and the lack of money and whose responsibility it was to bring it was never mentioned again (I may add that Don always has carriage of his wallet). The following day we had a 3 mile motor down to Gustavia the main port. After completing our entry into this new country we spent the afternoon walking around the town which is beautiful, clean and historically interesting. We had intended to spend a few days looking around the island but a bad weather system was approaching and unfortunately there were no secure anchorages on the island. The anchorage at Gustavia was nasty – extremely roly and uncomfortable – no one slept very well that night and everyone was glad to get away early and head for the next island, St Kitts. Bob on SV “Spirit” has his two cats on board with him – the anchorage was so roly that Holly could not stay in place and cuddled up to Bob who had to put his arm around this very large cat to keep her in place – when he fell asleep and his arm moved Holly woke up and put her paw in his mouth to wake him up so he would again hang on to her and keep her in place – not a good way to get a decent sleep – did I mention the cats whiskers up his nose also :-)