Last stop, St. Barthelemy

Pilots must undergo special training to land on St. Barth, and I hoped ours hadn’t just completed his training hours, but our plane landed with ease on the 2,130 foot runway that ends at a white sand beach (unless it overruns it.  See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z2o0acIlm4.  Could be a worse place to crash land.).

Because of the island's landscape (rocky, sandy and dry), agriculture doesn't thrive on St. Barth.  Therefore, instead of the descendants of African slaves, St. Barth is populated primarily by wealthy tourists and French citizens settled into island life, who zip around the island’s curving, hilly roads on mopeds, with cigarettes dangling from their lips.  They also serve ribeyes and fries in every restaurant.  The burger joint serves fresh-squeezed lemonade and strawberry, milk and mint smoothies.  The grocery store was stocked with goods from the continent – maîche, pears, and onions in produce (as if the neighboring islands don’t have perfectly nice produce for import); brie, gruyère, and gorgonzola on the towering cheese display; salumi, pancetta, and prosciutto in the deli.  And right there on the dry goods shelf, next to the canned soup and tuna – pâté de foie gras.  Be still my traitorous Californian heart!

And the pastries…Because let’s face it, after ten days of only saltfish sandwiches (deceptively named “coconut bake”) from every bakery Justin patronized (which was a lot) in Grenada searching for good pastry, we were resolved to do whatever it took to eat some really good food, and the French were sure to deliver.  In short, we had traveled to St. Barth to eat croissants.  During our stay on St. Barth, we ate at Pâtiserie de Petite Colombre most mornings.  It’s remarkable how difficult it is to fill up on those light-as-air pastries (especially when you’re not popping yet another cigarette into your mouth immediately after eating one)!  I usually needed a ham and cheese croissant or quiche for the main course and an almond-chocolate croissant for dessert.  My lunches of toast with pâté de foie gras felt much more sensible.

We did a crash mini-course in French on the plane ride to St. Barth, and while we both felt confident we could handle any situation in which a man, woman, boy or girl was eating rice, fish, or an apple, or drinking coffee or water, we got lazy quick, thanks to all the English-speaking French people around.  We tried to compensate by speaking French-accented English à la Inspector Clouseau amongst ourselves.

We spent an hour or two at one of St. Barth’s gorgeous beaches everyday.  In addition to the water being a beautiful aquamarine as far as the eye could see and the sand being the color and texture of almond meal, the land rises sharply at either end of the beach in dramatic, rocky bluffs populated only by cacti and mountain goats. Toby wore her orange swim wings to float in the gentle waves.  Nina and I swam out, stopping every fifteen feet or so to dive down and try to touch the sandy bottom.  When she could no longer touch it, we didn’t go any further.  One day a fancy yacht pulled into the bay and honked at us to get out of the way.  Apparently the captain hoped to drop anchor right where Nina and I floated.  I played chicken and won.  St. Barth was the last island stop on our journey, and I wanted to marinate in that sunshine and water, to absorb every delicious ray and droplet into my body and soul to bring back with me to the real world. 

We made it!