Island Two: or, Saint Barth

For Toussaint, M. and I went for a 5-day trip to St. Barthélemy, or variously known as St. Barth (in France), St. Bart (in the U.S.). St. Barth is located approximately 125 miles northwest of Guadeloupe in the Eastern Caribbean. With only 21 square kilometers of dry hilly terrain and no natural water source, it is affectionately called The Rock by some residents.

Above, the port of Gustavia.

First discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493, St. Barth was settled successfully by the French only in1648. These first settlers were predominantly fishermen from Normandie and Bretagne. The island prospered as a port for French buccaneers, who eventually settled and became merchants, tradesmen, farmers. In 1784, the island was sold to the Swedish King Gustav III in exchange for trading rights in Göteborg. The following year St. Barth is made into a free port and shortly after, the largest town is named in honor of the king. A short period of prosperity began as regular conflict between neighboring possessions of French, English, and Dutch rule made St.Barth an important supply point. Waning conflict in the Caribbean and the introduction of motorized ships made St.Barth redundant. In 1878, having become a drain on the public finances of Sweden, St. Barth was offered up to France for repurchase. St. Barth remained isolated and poor until the development of tourism in the mid-twentieth century.

Unlike Guadeloupe, this tiny island of France is well known by Americans. Indeed, St.Barth has been a longtime winter playground for the American rich. Having experienced rapid decline in the late 1800's to early 1900s, and more or less forgotten by the national French government, St.Barth turned to tourism for economic growth. However, St. Barth staked out a destiny different from its neighbors. Having few resources to exploit and waste, St. Barth made a conscious decision to pursue the wealthy tourist.

Wealthy we are not. But, the plane ticket is fairly inexpensive from Guadeloupe, and we found a very reasonable price for hotel and car rental combination. It would not have been my first choice for a vacation destination, and probably not M.'s either. But, we had other reasons for going, which I may write about in some later post.

Above, a plane descends to land at the airport in St. Barth (1).

The plane ride from Guadeloupe is short: a little less than 1 hour. The landing in St. Barth is world-famous. One end of the runway begins at the bottom of a steep hill. The other end stops on a narrow slice of St. Jean beach. With only 2,100 ft of runway in between, planes that land here must be made for short fields, such as the de Havilland Twin Otter (seating 20), the Cessna 208 Caravan, or the Britten-Norman Islander (both seating 9). Most planes land heading east, so after clearing the hill, the pilot must quickly bring the plane down and to a stop before reaching the beach (2). A pilot for St. Barth Commuter explained that the wind conditions determine the direction that pilots must take for the runway, as the wind must always be moving against the aircraft (3).

St. Barth is a dry, dry country. With the sun reverberating on hard, dirt-covered hills, the heat is clearly hostile. Plant life is reduced to small prickly shrubs, or grotesquely large thorned bushes. How different from the lush prolificacy of Basse Terre, or even the gently rolling fields of Grand Terre! It is St. Barth's saving grace that the sea and the ocean should turn so mesmerizingly blue on its shores.

We visited five of the island's twenty-two beaches. St Jean was a milky turquoise blue. The inhabitually strong waves churning the fine white sand made the water sparkle, even in its depths. Large modern houses imposed on the narrow stretch of sand at Flamands. Gouverneur was quiet save for the whistle-like calls of a pair of red-billed tropicbirds, which were diving and gliding in front of the cliff face. The tinkling of shells being turned over in the sand by the waves on Shell Beach was magic. My favorite was Salines, rugged and empty, a beach for the imagination.

Above, the old lighthouse over looking the port of Gustavia.

Thanksgiving officially begins the season in St. Barth, so the island was still relatively quiet. Inventory sat in full boxes outside shop doors. Waiters, unfamiliar and extremely pale, had only arrived from continental France the previous weeks.

Driving around on the small winding roads, one of the first things that I noticed were the walls and prominent gates that mark the property of hotels and private villas dotting the island. The walls were often beautiful mortared or veneered stone walls, the gates closed. Its an odd thing to notice, perhaps, when there are magnificent sea views, quaint shop streets, and rugged countryside to admire. But such accessories of wealth and demand for privacy are not common in Guadeloupe. Instead, a low concrete wall might separate the property from the street, and if there is a gate, it is often left wide open. Walls are built from cinder blocks, often left unpainted, occasionally complimented by strips of corrugated metal, propped up with some sticks, at the very ends. More often than not, there is simply no fence at all.

I picked up this tourist booklet (3) in a restaurant or shop. I was struck by the quality in design and photography. Its sophisticated, sleek. The photographs provoke a real desire to complete the sensations which the eye has begun: touch, to smell, to taste...

(Click on the images to enlarge.)

Unfolding the pages of the booklet, I found contrast to Guadeloupe. Indeed, it seems to me that St. Barth is everything that Guadeloupe is not, and vice versa. Where St. Barth is friendly and inviting, Guadeloupe is warm and generous. St. Barth sparkles at night, Guadeloupe wakes at twilight. St. Barth moves with ever increasing rapidity towards the future, Guadeloupe keeps turning back round to come forward again.

(1) Article and photograph by Roy Furchgott for The Washington Post (here)
(2) "...speed management is crucial for a successful landing at St. Barts, because slower than required speeds will have you hit the hillside short of the runway, while excess speeds will cause you to overshoot the runway and splash into the crystal clear water of the lagoon" (Unusual and Dangerous Approaches, Part II).
(3) A pilot recently failed to put down the plane quickly enough, overshooting the runway to be stopped by the beach.