Saturday – 30 November 2013 – Gustavia, St. Barts, France
We stopped twice in Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Barthélemy during our Caribbean cruise of March, 2011. With only 8.5 square miles of mostly large expensive homes and a handful of pretty beaches, St. Barts has little more to offer for the explorer other than some expensive shopping and perhaps considerable envy. The less than 9,000 population seems to live pretty well, all things considered, and from their signage it seemed they don't favor tourists very much. Maybe their being at the end of the rainbow provides an indication of the inhabitants' wealth.
What these folks don't seem to enjoy is a safe airport. A matter of fact, the Gustaf III Airport is quite dangerous. There's a 150 foot hill, really a cliff, at the approach end. There's always strong winds from the ocean; so the commuter airline runs Twin Otter STOL plans that dive for the 2100 ft strip. Only a narrow beach at the far end of the runway acts as a landing overrun. Usually about one plane a year with passengers onboard overruns the beach and stops in the shallow water. Take offs over the bay might be fine if it weren't for the mountain just across the water. Look up Gustaf III Airport on YouTube for lots of interesting videos.
We hiked up the hill side, dodging the very French drivers (meaning, they don't attempt to avoid pedestrians as a part of the honour nationale) to watch the air traffic diving for the airport. The road from the hillside to the airport terminal is considerably less steep than the aircraft's required landing approach. We had a great time watching, unlike the passengers on the St. Barts Airline as we got to keep our eyes open.
Tomorrow we stop in in Phillipsburg on the two country island of St. Maarten. Having "done" this multi-cruise ship port in 2011, we plan to go to the beach on the much more prosperous French St. Martin side.
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