St. Barth's: France at Sea

Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Gustavia, St. Barth's

Marcy had been talking about St. Barth's for a long time leading up to this day when we finally arrived.  So, I stepped onto this island mostly to see what all the fuss was about.  And immediately, it was obvious: in start contrast to every other Caribbean Island, there are NO poor people.  In fact, there are no middle or lower class people either.  At least, I'm sure that if they are, they live in some other part of the island.

St. Barth's is France at sea.  I mean that in every sense.  It's tied to that government, it uses the euro for currency, and they all speak French.  Finding myself in a place that has plenty of money, doesn't need any of mine, and is filled with people who listen to me speak first and then decide whether or not they want to communicate with me, I went for a hike.

The ship's tender drops you off by those boats along the top part of the picture above.  I walked right along the edge of the dock, turned right, followed the water some more, and then I started zig zagging through the residential neighborhood until I came upon the base of a hill with a flight of stairs.  So, I did what I always do when I find a hill with stairs: I climb it, and then turn around to take a picture of where I've been.  Then after only a few minutes of climbing and ducking through a canopy of trees, I was up at the top.

Behind me was the town of Gustavia, but in front of me was the water and all the rocks.  This was so much more amazing than the city with all it's posh.

Looking to the right.

 

Over towards the left.

A panoramic view of Gutavia, St. Barth's

90° half panorama of Shell Beach (Looking the opposite direction from the picture above)

I actually found this hilltop by mistake because I was trying to find my way to Shell Beach.  Welp, I found it!

If only I had an awesome camera with an 18x zoom lens so I can see what's going on down there.
Oh wait...

Silvia and Alberto taking goofy pictures of each other.

 Now that I had seen Shell Beach with my own eyes, I felt pretty confident about making my way down the hill, and over to it.  On the way, I couldn't help but notice that every street has two names: one in French, and another in Swedish.  I can't tell you why.  But I can tell you that I was content just to have identified the Swedish having just sailed from Stockholm a month or two earlier.  (Rue = gatan = via = street)

At last!  Shell Beach!  I wanted to come here because it was the closest beach you could walk to without having to pay for a taxi, I heard many other crew members, were going to be here, and there was one more reason...

 This...

Turns out it's not just a clever name.

Covering the top layer of sand are millions (billions?) of cracked shell pieces.  Pretty cool, huh?  That is, until you take your shoes of and try walking on it, and which you scream and cry and shout, "Who's idea was this?!"

Oh, look who I found!

I will say this one last thing in favor of St. Barth's before I move on.  France's legal stance on beaches is that it's okay if you want to go topless.  You know how a topless beach sounds like a good idea right up until you get there, and then you realize that it's never the people you want to see.  Well, that's not true about St. Barth's.  I'm pretty sure I saw the girl from the Blue Lagoon doing her Blue Lagoon thing.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw two Blue Lagoon girls, and one girl playing mermaid on the rocks.

Sorry, no pictures!