St. Barths was wonderful!!!!!! The ferry over there Wednesday morning was certainly a crazy ride! She warned us that it would be bumpy and she wasn’t kidding! The waves were so big that it felt like a roller coaster. We seriously flew up in the air a few times, like you raise out of your seat during a good roller coaster! It was crazy! One lady did get sick, but thank goodness, we were fine!!!!! The seasick pills did work! We were definitely ready to be off the boat though. It took almost an hour to get there and we were both feeling a little odd…certainly not sick, but just not quite right. We were fine as soon as we landed though!
A guy from the rental car place met us at the ferry and took us, and several others, in a van to their rental lot. We had requested a Jimny Tolley because it was the cheapest 4WD that was automatic and had airco. (Yes, “airco.” That’s what everyone around here calls the air conditioner!!) They upgraded us though, to a Suzuki Grand Vitaro, which is a little bigger SUV. You pretty much have to have 4WD drive there! The driving was crazy…all these tiny little windy, hilly roads. Most only really have room for one vehicle to drive. When you meet someone, you just have to scoot way over to the side, usually off the road partly. No big deal, EXCEPT when you’re on a huge cliff with no guard rails!!!!! AAAHHHHH!
Once we got our vehicle, we found the hotel and checked in. Then we drove around the island and went in a few little shops. We drove to and looked at several beaches, but we didn’t swim in them that day. It was fun to look around, take pics, and decide where to go the next day!
We ate a late lunch at a little diner/snack bar. I tried something odd of course! I forgot what it was called, but the description was “bread burned of wood, covered with artichokes, mushrooms, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese.” I wasn’t too sure about it at first, but it was delicious!!!!!! It came with a little side of lettuce covered with corn! Interesting! Gotta love these little French places!
So speaking of French, this was probably the first time in my life that I’ve thought it would be nice to know French. Most spoke English too, or at least a little, and everyone was really nice though!
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel (Le Christopher) and went to check out the pool. It was getting dark though and the water was cold, so no swimming after all! We took along lots of snacks and drinks with us to save money! We had been warned by a friend that everything was super expensive! So we took cokes, water bottles, and some snacks. That evening we just snacked in the hotel instead of going out again.
We were sooooo worn out and actually went to bed super early. We slept 10 hours and then got up early. We were ready to go yesterday then! We went to the hotel’s continental (free!) breakfast, which consisted of pastries, cereal, and juice. There were several kinds of pastries! Geez, tons of bread!!!! It was good though! Then we went to the “Shell Museum” which had over 9000 shells in it! It wasn’t as special as it sounds actually, but we’re still glad we went. It was really just a couple of small rooms on the main floor and the owner lives upstairs. It was cramped and cluttered but it was still neat to see all the different shells. Shells fascinate me!
Then we went to Shell Beach! This beach was amazing! Seriously, there were shells everywhere! The sand is even made up of tiny crushed pieces of shells and there are areas of the beach that are just all shells…whole shells, broken shells, shells everywhere!!!! We snorkeled here too, and really enjoyed that! Even in the water, the bottom was just shells instead of sand. We were standing on shells. I couldn’t believe how many there were! When underwater while snorkeling, the waves made the shells wash over each other. It sounded like windchimes! It was wonderful! We also saw so many amazing fish! It was fascinating!!! We kept pointing out more fish to each other! Awesome!!!
We were able to check out the new cannon camera and use the waterproof case! This camera takes absolutely amazing pictures! The underwater case worked great! It was so fun to take tons of pics underwater!!!! In the past, we’ve always had those disposable underwater cameras and then you can only take 24 pictures! Sure was nice to be able to take a ton and know that we can just delete the ones we don’t like as well.
After shell beach, we picked up a pizza to go and took it back to the room. We decided to do that so we could have cokes in the room and save $9.00. No, I’m not exaggerating! The cokes were $4.50 each! And they hand you a can…no refills! Seriously, just one can. We went into a little grocery store and used some of that money to try some French snacks/candy! That was way more fun than buying 2 cokes! Haha!!!!
We got really lucky driving at one point! We thought we were headed back downhill on a road…it turned out to just lead to someone’s house on a dead end downhill. So we had to back up! Only the car would NOT back up! The wheels just started spinning and we were freaking out! Thank goodness a really nice guy was home. He barely spoke English, but was trying to tell us to go ahead down the hill. We saw nowhere to turn around, just a tiny little parking space, so didn’t know what to do. He offered to do it for us. Thank goodness for that! While trying to switch places, they couldn’t even let go of the brake because the parking brake was not strong enough to hold the SUV! It started rolling, so they had to both have a foot on the brake in order to switch places! This guy had done this a ton, so made it look easy. He drove to the parking space at the bottom, put it in reverse and flew up the hill backwards. Even with the speedy start, our wheels were spinning some and I cannot believe he made it up. We would never have made it ourselves. Once again, God was looking out for us and thank goodness he sent that man to help us!!!!
We went to Lorient Beach after lunch. This was a great beach and we found lots of sea glass there! We were excited to find several blue pieces! Blue is hard to get!!!! Then we went to Anse (beach) de Cayes. This beach wasn’t a great beach to swim in, but we wandered down the beach and enjoyed looking at the sea life…little fish, a couple of crabs, snails, etc. It was fun, but we wanted to check out one more beach before dark. So we hurried over to Saline Beach. This place was so strange. There is a salt pond close to the beach. As the water from the pond evaporates, the salt stays there. It crystallizes and looks so neat! It covered the edges of the pond and was even floating in places on the pond! The crystals were really pretty! The sun was setting and we enjoyed a great walk down the beach. It was too late to swim there, but the walk was amazing and we had the best views! The views of the mountains and ocean are simply amazing! It just cannot be put into words! And I feel sure that even our new, amazing little camera will not be able to do justice to the beauty of these beaches! (Ok, I’ve looked at the pics now…they’re great! But still…this place is just so beautiful!)
We ate dinner at JoJo Burgers, a little outdoor restaurant we had passed several times already. It was great! We got sandwiches and fries…cheapest food we’d seen! It was wonderful though! He got a hamburger and I got a fish burger (just a grilled fish sandwich). They were fast and our food was super hot and delicious, and only cost 41 dollars! We were starving…think we had worked up an appetite!
We then headed back to the hotel and washed off our sea glass! We spread it out to dry and again went to bed early!
We got up at 6:15 this morning and were there for breakfast at 6:30 when they opened! We wanted as much daylight time as possible to explore again! Same breakfast as yesterday…then we went to St. Jean Beach…amazing beach right by the runway of the airport. Seriously the runway runs pretty much right into the ocean! They even have a section of the ocean roped off in case a plane would end up out there! The runway is pretty short…with the ocean on one side and a mountain on the other! Scary! The little planes that fly to St. Barths handle it just fine though…most of those planes probably only hold around 8 people! TINY! We had fun playing in the ocean, then layed out for a little while to dry off. We stayed for a couple hours, then drove back to Lorient Beach. We brought the snorkels with us this time and went looking for more sea glass. That was fun too! We saw an anchor that had been down there for years…it had coral growing all over it! Cool!
We went back to the hotel and had lunch on our patio. The patio was really nice. It had a couch,2 chairs, and a little table. We enjoyed the snacks we took, along with some of the snacks we bought yesterday at the store! We were proud for saving a little money by eating little things at the hotel for a couple of meals. (I guess we used the money we saved to buy other things…like a couple shot glasses, a thimble, and a couple magnets! Hehe!)
After lunch, we enjoyed the hotel pool for about an hour. The water was still cold, but felt wonderful during the afternoon because it was soooo hot! The pool had a shallow end that gradually got deeper, and it was fun to just lay in the shallow end and relax! Then we swam around and took some silly pics in the pool. The pool was beautiful! It was an infinity pool…overlooks the ocean and from some angles, it looks like it just runs straight into the ocean where the pool ends. Fun!!! And we got some great pics! We didn’t want to stop playing in the pool! We didn’t get out till 1:15. That only left us 45 minutes to shower, pack, and check out! We had to hurry, but it was totally worth it!
Then we cleaned up the rental SUV the best we could. We dumped sand off the floor mats and brushed out as much sand as we could! Pretty sure it’s normal to have sand it the vehicles here though! We returned the rental and the guy took us back to the ferry landing. We were there about an hour early, so wandered into some nearby shops. These were name brand shops and sold clothes for outrageous, crazy prices. These places were truly for rich people! (We’re talking sports coats for 2,500 Euros…which would be even more in dollars! Insane!!!!) Then we went back and checked in for the ferry. We still had about 30 minutes, so took turns watching our luggage and walking into more little shops across the street. They were fun to look in, but we sure couldn’t afford anything!!!!
The ferry ride on the way home was much smoother!!! No one got sick and it wasn’t bouncing us around like crazy! It was a peaceful ride and we enjoyed the free cokes! It’s really nice to be served a drink during the boat ride! (I know, a drink seems so normal…but we don’t take things like that for granted anymore!) When we got close, they came around and collected all of our passports. They put them inside a waterproof box and someone jumped in a little boat and took them ashore. They had to all be approved before we were allowed to dock! That was crazy! The process went pretty quickly though. Once he arrived back to our boat, we were allowed to dock, and they helped us all off.
We had a blast, but were so glad to be back! Even more exciting…tomorrow we’ll be HOME! And by home, I mean INDIANA home!!!!! We are so excited about this! We spent this evening unpacking from St. Barths and starting to pack for home! We will finish packing in the morning. Can’t wait to be home!!!!!! (I will write in the blog sometimes at home, but not every night!)
I will add the pics tomorrow! It just won’t let me tonight for some strange reason!
A guy from the rental car place met us at the ferry and took us, and several others, in a van to their rental lot. We had requested a Jimny Tolley because it was the cheapest 4WD that was automatic and had airco. (Yes, “airco.” That’s what everyone around here calls the air conditioner!!) They upgraded us though, to a Suzuki Grand Vitaro, which is a little bigger SUV. You pretty much have to have 4WD drive there! The driving was crazy…all these tiny little windy, hilly roads. Most only really have room for one vehicle to drive. When you meet someone, you just have to scoot way over to the side, usually off the road partly. No big deal, EXCEPT when you’re on a huge cliff with no guard rails!!!!! AAAHHHHH!
Once we got our vehicle, we found the hotel and checked in. Then we drove around the island and went in a few little shops. We drove to and looked at several beaches, but we didn’t swim in them that day. It was fun to look around, take pics, and decide where to go the next day!
We ate a late lunch at a little diner/snack bar. I tried something odd of course! I forgot what it was called, but the description was “bread burned of wood, covered with artichokes, mushrooms, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese.” I wasn’t too sure about it at first, but it was delicious!!!!!! It came with a little side of lettuce covered with corn! Interesting! Gotta love these little French places!
So speaking of French, this was probably the first time in my life that I’ve thought it would be nice to know French. Most spoke English too, or at least a little, and everyone was really nice though!
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel (Le Christopher) and went to check out the pool. It was getting dark though and the water was cold, so no swimming after all! We took along lots of snacks and drinks with us to save money! We had been warned by a friend that everything was super expensive! So we took cokes, water bottles, and some snacks. That evening we just snacked in the hotel instead of going out again.
We were sooooo worn out and actually went to bed super early. We slept 10 hours and then got up early. We were ready to go yesterday then! We went to the hotel’s continental (free!) breakfast, which consisted of pastries, cereal, and juice. There were several kinds of pastries! Geez, tons of bread!!!! It was good though! Then we went to the “Shell Museum” which had over 9000 shells in it! It wasn’t as special as it sounds actually, but we’re still glad we went. It was really just a couple of small rooms on the main floor and the owner lives upstairs. It was cramped and cluttered but it was still neat to see all the different shells. Shells fascinate me!
Then we went to Shell Beach! This beach was amazing! Seriously, there were shells everywhere! The sand is even made up of tiny crushed pieces of shells and there are areas of the beach that are just all shells…whole shells, broken shells, shells everywhere!!!! We snorkeled here too, and really enjoyed that! Even in the water, the bottom was just shells instead of sand. We were standing on shells. I couldn’t believe how many there were! When underwater while snorkeling, the waves made the shells wash over each other. It sounded like windchimes! It was wonderful! We also saw so many amazing fish! It was fascinating!!! We kept pointing out more fish to each other! Awesome!!!
We were able to check out the new cannon camera and use the waterproof case! This camera takes absolutely amazing pictures! The underwater case worked great! It was so fun to take tons of pics underwater!!!! In the past, we’ve always had those disposable underwater cameras and then you can only take 24 pictures! Sure was nice to be able to take a ton and know that we can just delete the ones we don’t like as well.
After shell beach, we picked up a pizza to go and took it back to the room. We decided to do that so we could have cokes in the room and save $9.00. No, I’m not exaggerating! The cokes were $4.50 each! And they hand you a can…no refills! Seriously, just one can. We went into a little grocery store and used some of that money to try some French snacks/candy! That was way more fun than buying 2 cokes! Haha!!!!
We got really lucky driving at one point! We thought we were headed back downhill on a road…it turned out to just lead to someone’s house on a dead end downhill. So we had to back up! Only the car would NOT back up! The wheels just started spinning and we were freaking out! Thank goodness a really nice guy was home. He barely spoke English, but was trying to tell us to go ahead down the hill. We saw nowhere to turn around, just a tiny little parking space, so didn’t know what to do. He offered to do it for us. Thank goodness for that! While trying to switch places, they couldn’t even let go of the brake because the parking brake was not strong enough to hold the SUV! It started rolling, so they had to both have a foot on the brake in order to switch places! This guy had done this a ton, so made it look easy. He drove to the parking space at the bottom, put it in reverse and flew up the hill backwards. Even with the speedy start, our wheels were spinning some and I cannot believe he made it up. We would never have made it ourselves. Once again, God was looking out for us and thank goodness he sent that man to help us!!!!
We went to Lorient Beach after lunch. This was a great beach and we found lots of sea glass there! We were excited to find several blue pieces! Blue is hard to get!!!! Then we went to Anse (beach) de Cayes. This beach wasn’t a great beach to swim in, but we wandered down the beach and enjoyed looking at the sea life…little fish, a couple of crabs, snails, etc. It was fun, but we wanted to check out one more beach before dark. So we hurried over to Saline Beach. This place was so strange. There is a salt pond close to the beach. As the water from the pond evaporates, the salt stays there. It crystallizes and looks so neat! It covered the edges of the pond and was even floating in places on the pond! The crystals were really pretty! The sun was setting and we enjoyed a great walk down the beach. It was too late to swim there, but the walk was amazing and we had the best views! The views of the mountains and ocean are simply amazing! It just cannot be put into words! And I feel sure that even our new, amazing little camera will not be able to do justice to the beauty of these beaches! (Ok, I’ve looked at the pics now…they’re great! But still…this place is just so beautiful!)
We ate dinner at JoJo Burgers, a little outdoor restaurant we had passed several times already. It was great! We got sandwiches and fries…cheapest food we’d seen! It was wonderful though! He got a hamburger and I got a fish burger (just a grilled fish sandwich). They were fast and our food was super hot and delicious, and only cost 41 dollars! We were starving…think we had worked up an appetite!
We then headed back to the hotel and washed off our sea glass! We spread it out to dry and again went to bed early!
We got up at 6:15 this morning and were there for breakfast at 6:30 when they opened! We wanted as much daylight time as possible to explore again! Same breakfast as yesterday…then we went to St. Jean Beach…amazing beach right by the runway of the airport. Seriously the runway runs pretty much right into the ocean! They even have a section of the ocean roped off in case a plane would end up out there! The runway is pretty short…with the ocean on one side and a mountain on the other! Scary! The little planes that fly to St. Barths handle it just fine though…most of those planes probably only hold around 8 people! TINY! We had fun playing in the ocean, then layed out for a little while to dry off. We stayed for a couple hours, then drove back to Lorient Beach. We brought the snorkels with us this time and went looking for more sea glass. That was fun too! We saw an anchor that had been down there for years…it had coral growing all over it! Cool!
We went back to the hotel and had lunch on our patio. The patio was really nice. It had a couch,2 chairs, and a little table. We enjoyed the snacks we took, along with some of the snacks we bought yesterday at the store! We were proud for saving a little money by eating little things at the hotel for a couple of meals. (I guess we used the money we saved to buy other things…like a couple shot glasses, a thimble, and a couple magnets! Hehe!)
After lunch, we enjoyed the hotel pool for about an hour. The water was still cold, but felt wonderful during the afternoon because it was soooo hot! The pool had a shallow end that gradually got deeper, and it was fun to just lay in the shallow end and relax! Then we swam around and took some silly pics in the pool. The pool was beautiful! It was an infinity pool…overlooks the ocean and from some angles, it looks like it just runs straight into the ocean where the pool ends. Fun!!! And we got some great pics! We didn’t want to stop playing in the pool! We didn’t get out till 1:15. That only left us 45 minutes to shower, pack, and check out! We had to hurry, but it was totally worth it!
Then we cleaned up the rental SUV the best we could. We dumped sand off the floor mats and brushed out as much sand as we could! Pretty sure it’s normal to have sand it the vehicles here though! We returned the rental and the guy took us back to the ferry landing. We were there about an hour early, so wandered into some nearby shops. These were name brand shops and sold clothes for outrageous, crazy prices. These places were truly for rich people! (We’re talking sports coats for 2,500 Euros…which would be even more in dollars! Insane!!!!) Then we went back and checked in for the ferry. We still had about 30 minutes, so took turns watching our luggage and walking into more little shops across the street. They were fun to look in, but we sure couldn’t afford anything!!!!
The ferry ride on the way home was much smoother!!! No one got sick and it wasn’t bouncing us around like crazy! It was a peaceful ride and we enjoyed the free cokes! It’s really nice to be served a drink during the boat ride! (I know, a drink seems so normal…but we don’t take things like that for granted anymore!) When we got close, they came around and collected all of our passports. They put them inside a waterproof box and someone jumped in a little boat and took them ashore. They had to all be approved before we were allowed to dock! That was crazy! The process went pretty quickly though. Once he arrived back to our boat, we were allowed to dock, and they helped us all off.
We had a blast, but were so glad to be back! Even more exciting…tomorrow we’ll be HOME! And by home, I mean INDIANA home!!!!! We are so excited about this! We spent this evening unpacking from St. Barths and starting to pack for home! We will finish packing in the morning. Can’t wait to be home!!!!!! (I will write in the blog sometimes at home, but not every night!)
I will add the pics tomorrow! It just won’t let me tonight for some strange reason!
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