HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR WHIRLWIND TRIP THROUGH THE LEEWARDS:

Part 2 of 6—St. Barthelemey (St. Barths)—March 23-28:

Our first stop in St. Barths was an overnight at tiny Ile Fourchue (Fork Island).  It was only about 10 or 15 miles from St. Martin and took us only about 2 our 3 hours to get there.  It wasn’t a planned stop, but the sail over was just so rough and squally (rainy and windy) that we decided to drop the hook and spend the night for some rest. 

When we got there, the sun came out, and I was able to go snorkeling and take some pictures with my “snorkel toy” (Olympus Tough, the point and shoot camera we use for everything).  I got some photos of Nancy Lu and the island while I was in the water.  To see a bunch of snorkeling photos from our whirlwind trip through the Leewards, see two blog posts back.

 

The next day, we headed to the main island of St. Barths.  where we anchored at Anse (Bay) De Colombier (pronounced: Coh lohm bee ay).  We thoroughly enjoyed our time here!  The water was crystal clear and there were no stinging things (which I seem to attract) in the water!  The coral was not great, but the fish were diverse and there were lots of turtles!  The best part was that I could just snorkel off the back of our boat like at Ile Fourchue and Christmas Cove!

Mark finally did some snorkeling here.

We split our time between the beautiful Anse De Colombier, where we stayed anchored the whole time

and the swanky capitol town, Gustavia, that we would visit by dinghy.

We took our first, long, somewhat rough dinghy ride into Gustavia in order to clear customs in the building that looks like it has a big frisbee overhead.

From Anse De Colombier, where we stayed anchored,

 

we did an easy, gorgeous hike over to Anse de Flamand! 

When we got there, we checked out the beach.  The cute sign says—in the conversation bubble:  “Don’t forget your cans!” (It could also mean don’t forget your duckling, but I’m using context clues here—that’s French for you!); and at the bottom:   “The children of St. Barthelemy”.  This sign is telling you to put your cigarette butts in the cans hanging on the sign.  I figured that out when I visited another beach on St. Barth’s.

 

We also got a refreshment.

 

 

Then we hiked back to Anse de Colombier. 

We met this fine fellow both coming and going!

 

In Gustavia, we did internet, ate at a (haha, those three words look like I’m subtracting a letter each time I type) couple of nice meals, and polished off some tasty crème brulee at La Cantina right on the waterfront. While Mark finished up some business on the internet on Friday,

 

 

I enjoyed walking through town and visiting Shell Beach, but

 

not until after taking a wrong turn that lead me up some interesting steps to a nice view of the beach from up above! 

 

There was another cute sign at this beach.  This one says—in the curlicue letters:  “No butts on the beach”; and in the bold letters: “Ashcan”.  It is in English on the right side of the sign.

The day had been rainy and overcast until I got to the beach.  The puddles left in the streets made for a perfect place for me to wash the sand off my feet before doing some more walking through the town.

 

Next, I visited the only English speaking church on the Island, Saint Bartholomew’s Anglican Church, stopping in to look around, sit and meditate, and take a few more pictures.  To round out my day in Gustavia, I turned my window shopping into some actual shopping!

I used some of my Christmas money from my parents to buy a super cute swimsuit!!

I put it to the test that very day back at Anse de Colombier,

and it got an A+!

On Sunday, we did our celebrating of Christ’s resurrection at St. Barth’s Anglican Church in Gustavia.  It was a nice service.

A cute little toddler named Lydia enjoyed the Easter egg hunt after she was baptized in a sweet service where all the children of the church were invited back to the baptismal font with her family.  I couldn’t help but think of my granddaughter’s upcoming baptism!

We enjoyed refreshments in the garden after the service. 

We left St. Barth’s the next afternoon after one more good, long snorkel and doing some cooking for the overnight passage to Antiqua.

 

AN ASIDE—A COUPLE OF THINGS I’VE LEARNED OR AM LEARNING:

I’ve learned to make homemade Greek yogurt using a 16 oz. Thermos, powdered milk and a starter of yogurt. It’s like magic!!  And it tastes delicious!  You can find the recipe on theboatgalley.com.

Not so much like magic:  I’m using a free app on my ipad called Duolingo to learn French.  It is really good!  You can learn all kinds of languages using this app.  I highly recommend it!

Of course, I still work on learning the guitar on the Baby Taylor that we bought up in Maine 5 years ago—it’s pretty slow going, but I enjoy it.

Ironically, sailing the boat is what I’ve learned the least about this year. I should probably do something about that…