Hiking St. Bart's Hills

First - a few new pictures on the web page www.sailastarte.com including the turtle. No captions yet - internet connection very, very slow. Will caption at a later date. Go to web site then photos.

Wednesday, anchored back in Anse de Columbier, we took another long hike along the trail to Flammands. Once in the town we continued walking in search of a pay phone. It's interesting; the era of cell phones has made finding pay phones more difficult. We had no luck - but found some helpful people. In the search for phones we walked quite a way and up one big hill past the homes of the rich and perhaps, famous. There were some beautiful, architectural homes and resorts.

On Thursday (today), we decided that the weather had settled a bit and we might be able to leave on Friday, so we sailed back to Gustavia. We had hoped the roll would have settled and we anchor here and actually explore the city a bit more, find a phone and check out. As we entered the harbor, we passed a mega yacht (complete with helicopter on the back deck). We anchored, dinghied into town and walked. And walked. Up hills to what we thought was the fort (it was the gendarmes (police station); along the waterfront, up another hill to the lighthouse. We had lunch in a little café to get out of the rain. Town is mostly shops and shoppers. We decided to listen to weather again in the morning - because when we were on one of the many hills today -we looked out at the big water and it was very, very rough. All white caps and big seas - so we thought we may want to wait one more day. We'll most likely check out in the morning and head back to Colombier.

St. Bart's is where the rich and famous supposedly hang out. Barbara thought she spotted Gwenyth Paltrow on the beach - but it is an unconfirmed sighting. But one thing we did notice is that the rich and famous have "people" who do everything for them. When we were moored in Colombier, we watched a very large "tender" (the boat's dinghy) drop the boat owners off at the beach. At lunch they (their "people") returned with a large picnic hamper and shopping bag; and then later in the afternoon, returned yet again to pick up the folks. We decided the day at the beach probably cost at least 20 gallons of gas for the multi-engined dinghy! (And gas here is .98 Euro a liter - so about $4 a gallon). That doesn't include the cost of the "crew" and lunch (which was probably not bologna sandwiches!) Today, on the yacht with the helicopter, the tender came back to the boat with about six people on board. They all off-loaded and left the "people" take care of their shopping bags etc. We decided we need "people." But we probably first have to be rich and famous to be able to afford them. But it's been fun to watch and joke about it.