Honeymoon, 3/4/2005
Honeymoon to the West Indies
The adventure begins...
Sint Maarten, swimming in the sea
An old ruined fort near Philipsburg
Cruise ships. Ours is the small sailing vessel dwarfed beneath the large ships.
Ah, one day in paradise, and we're already bouldering!
Our ship, the Polynesia
Dianne helps with the sails
Amazing grace plays in the background...
We wake up near the island of Nevis. The small town is Charlestown.
The polynesia
We go ashore for a walk
We find some hot springs (quite hot!). But it was way to hot and muggy outside to go for a dip. Tempting, though...
Ruins on Nevis
The Alexander Hamilton house
We walked along the beach. A local is fishing.
Snorkeling off of Saint Kitts (very fun!)
Very colorful coral
The clouds have left Nevis (not for long)
Sunset on the caribbean
The next day, my turn to help with the sails
We leave Nevis behind...
Sunrise on the sails
Off to Saint Kitts for more snorkeling
Dianne with some sort of creature from the depths
an old sunken cannon, the remnants of a sucken ship that only reappeared recently (uncovered by a hurricane)
After our snorkel we went sea kayaking
An old ruined boat
More snorkelling
The ruined ship again
Dianne and I went for a walk around Basseterre on Saint Kitts
Unique architecture
St Barts
We bought a baggette (it is a french island, after all) and made for Shell Beach
The aptly named Shell Beach
A french kitty in Gustavia on St Barts
Getting ready to snorkel off of St Barts
We snorkelled in a small cove. We could see our boat from it.
What we saw underwater at St Barts
Sunset at St Barts
We end up at a small island called Tintemarre. It is near St Martin, and is uninhabited except by lots of goats. There is a nice beach and a little more...
We snorkelled a little
Lots of boats for people heading to Tintemarre's beach
We went for a hike...
The opposite side of Tintemarre. The beach isn't sand, it is all coral that has washed up.
Off to great adventures... (including poison oak and lots of scratches and cacti)
We found a nice arch...
After trying to cross the island, and getting hit with poison oak, scratched up by nasty bushes, and hit with several cacti, we make it back to the beach, and try one last quick snorkel.
Then back to the boat
We leave the Polynesia behind, and catch a lift to the small island of Saba.
Saba is basically a giant mountain rising out of the sea.
A beautiful Catholic church, painted by a local artist.
We stayed at an eco lodge, and had to take a short hike to get to it.
View from our ecolodge cabin
The trail up Mt Scenery (the highest point in the Empire of the Netherlands) is basically a few hundred steps. As are most trails on this island.
Steps!
Cloud forest near the summit
Several summits to Mt Scenery
That rock is really the top of a large underwater spire. Divers love it.
View from the summit. One of the small towns on Saba (Windwardside)
The summit. The top of the Netherlands!
The airport, far below us, is the only flat spot on the entire island.
View Across the Sea
Very lush.
We decided to hike from the ecolodge down to the Bottom, and attend church. Yes, we hiked to church. What a great place!
We caught a boat to go snorkelling.
The area we snorkelled is a nesting area for turtles. So we finally saw a few!
A strange crab creature lives several hundred feet up the mountainside, near our ecolodge.
We then went on a long hike around Saba.
The small town of Hell's Gate
An old sulfur mine
Inside the mine (very hot and nasty inside)
Wild goats of Saba
Steps!
This part of the trail is very lush. And they mow it.
A banana tree
Dianne climbs for Oranges
yum! (actually not, they weren't sweet at all, but I guess the goats love them)
Exploring Windwardside
A museum.
We went back to the bottom and took lots of photos of the church.
The painter used pictures of local kids as models for the cherubs, fairies and children in the painting.
Our cabin at the eco lodge
Mt Scenery
Everywhere you go on Saba requires a hike. Here we hike to dinner.
The owner uses this car to carry luggage for people.
Mt Scenery, from the airport. Heading home...
