St. Barths

Another island we were fortunate enough to visit over Monty's break was St. Barthelemy or St. Barths which is part of the French West Indies. This island is known as "a playground for the rich and famous" (right up our students budgets alley). St. Barths is 16.7 miles from St. Maarten and the small "fast" ferry boat takes approx. 45 minutes. We woke the kids up just after 6 to make the first ferry out at 7:15. The ferry ride was quite the experience, we were so excited and thought it would be fun for the kids to sit outside at the back, you had the option of sitting upstairs outside or inside. Well it was us and two other people who chose the back outside. After we cleared the port area and hit open seas the driver hit full throttle and we were booking it, Monty and I are convinced the driver was trying to make up for our late departure. The kids were holding onto our arms for dear life, Eli asked to go home, and I was keeping my eyes on the horizon. We were hitting 6 foot waves at who knows how many knots and getting a lot of air. I felt motion sickness almost the entire trip and Eli was complaining that his tummy hurt. What was supposed to take 45 minutes was more like 30-35. As we slowed into the bay area and could see St. Barths Eli puked on my lap, twice! What a great way to start the day, luckily we had packed some water bottles and rinsed off as best we could. A worker gave us some ginger ale to calm our bellies and we were good to go...

Ferry company. We boarded downtown Philipsburg.

Love my boy, he was pretty excited to go for a boat ride until we hit the open water.

My other two loves.

Cruise ship downtown philipsburg.

Bye Bye St. Maarten!

Entering into St. Barths "Gustavia".

The yellow submarine.

That building is their museum.

Gustvia, where the ferry docked.

Our ferry boat!

We didn't reserve a car ahead of time because we were thinking it would be similar to Anguilla in that there would be car rental people right as we walked off the ferry, well that wasn't the case. So we started walking down the main street in Gustavia at 8:30 in the morning. About 5 minutes later we found a car rental sign and headed into a little souvenir shop called Tom shop. They were so friendly, Monty was able to use a bit of his broken French, and we were able to rent a car for a good price and they even gave us a marked map of the island with all the must sees.

First look out

I couldn't get over how most of the roofs were all red, I loved it!

We also couldn't get over the roads, yes they were steep and sometimes narrow, but they were all paved so nicely like this.

Our fun rental.

The buildings were amazing, so much character. If I was a photographer I could imagine having a lot of fun in this little town.

Our first stop, Anse Des Flamands.

To the right of the beach sign "Corossol", you can see old pop cans hung on hooks. This is for cigarette butts, another way they keep their beaches so clean.

Another fun look out, the island was beautiful.

This sign was displayed at most beaches. Monty learned quickly the validity of it. He was flipped a couple times by some big waves.

Look at all the red roofs!

I loved how almost all of the beaches on the island had these beautiful painted tiles.

I love this pic, the colors, the fact that he never stands still:)

The graveyards were beautiful, well manicured and full of colourful flowers.

Lunch time, we totally scored with JOJO Burgers, best burger Ive had since being in the caribbean, look at the fancy little ketchup packs;) The kids had passed out, so we ate in the car. And saved them some french fries.

As you can see from the painting, St. Jean beach was located right off the Airport and close to some high end shopping.

This was our last beach stop for the day. These buildings and villas were right off the beach. So much character, I loved the stone work. That is a restaurant on top of that rock.

The kids loved having Dad around, he's pretty much the best dad ever;)

Not sure who lives here, but also right of of St. Jean beach.

When Krysten was asked by a friend what her favourite part of St. Barths was, she said "the gelato". I must admit it was pretty tasty!

Goodbye St. Barths.

We had an amazing day in St. Barths. To be honest it didn't feel like we were in the Caribbean anymore but more like a little French town in Europe. We were amazed by the cleanliness of the island, as well as the condition of all the buildings. Everything was maintained, which is rare in the Caribbean. We loved driving around the small island. Our kids were such troopers as we dragged them from beach to beach so we could squeeze in as much of this beautiful island as we could. Of course they would have been content with just one beach. Monty and I shake our heads as they are too young to understand the opportunities they are fortunate enough to have while we are out here. Over our little holiday break with Dad, we had visited over 20 beaches. We feel so blessed to have had this opportunity in our life, and will hold on to these memories forever.