July 5th, 2006
Livers are evil, and must be punished
Traveled on the Edge II to Saba today. For those who don’t know, Saba is a small 4 miles by 2 mile island that is 26 miles off the coast of St Martin. No real reason to exist, except that a volcano reared it’s ugly head some 25,000 years ago. Luckily, it’s been dormant since, and was polite enough to stay that way during our visit. There are 6,500 residents, and I hear only about 2000 people visit there each year. It’s supposed to be the best diving around. It’s also a rain forest, and a great place to hike. We weren’t diving this trip.
I discovered Saba when I was Googling around, looking for a great vacation. I knew that I could find a place, and go back later. I ran across Living.Yourcarribeandream.com, home of Heather and Joel, whom I emailed and read about on their site. Unfortunately they are traveling to the states, so on this trip, I missed meeting them in person. I tried my best to clean up after ourselves, and sorry about the Broken glass Heather and Joel.. haha..
Anyway, traveling on the Edge II, commonly known as the “Vomit Cat”, was an experience, but frankly not any worse than open sea travel.. Let me tell you the most important things I learned.
1). Sit on the STARBOARD side on the way to SABA
2). Sit on the PORT side on the way BACK to St Martin.
Why you ask? Simple physics. I’ll try to explain.
Water splashes the CRAP out of those NOT on the side mentioned above.
Hopefully that discussion was not too technical. People on the sides mentioned above had their windows FULLY-OPENED the entire trip. People on the other side (Like me), had their FULLY-OPENED, until the first BIG wave dumped several hundred gallons in the window… I liked it, but was in shorts.
Things, I leaned today,, part two. My wife does not like BONINE, and would rather be puking if necessary, than drowsy, which it did!
More things I learned today. Dramamine dissolves in water for a child who cannot (despite shoveling entire chunks of fully chokable hot dogs into her mouth) cannot swallow a pill.
We arrived in Saba, supposed to be meeting Garvis, set up by the Director of Tourism himself, Glen Holm. Garvis was nowhere to be found, but I ran into Manny, and explained my situation, who agreed to take me up to the bottom (don’t ask). Manny did so, free of charge, and got a hold of Garvis, who was going to meet us 2.5 hours later than scheduled. Shame on him, even on island time, that was bad.
We hiked the first part of Mount Scenery, the tallest point on the island, and something like 1000 steps. Time permitted about the first 250, my heart, 175, liver was left about 112, etc.
Conclusion… I’m not the Navy Seal I used to be, and Turkish prisons have nothing on making someone march up that hill! Had a good lunch at Scout’s place, with Indian Samosa’s, little puff pastries stuffed with spicy curried hummus, and fried, then dipped in a fruit sauce. YUM!
Scout’s had a pool, but we didn’t have time. This brings up a quick conclusion to this part of the day. Fly to Saba. Stay a couple of days. It’s the only way to do it justice. I think I’d never do a cruise. I felt like I left a lot of desire on that island, and for a 1.5 hour boat ride each way, followed by Garvis being 2.5 hours late, and another 1.5 hours home… Know what I mean?
Having said that, Saba rocked! IT was beautiful, and we went to Jo Bean’s Glass shop, and spent 30 minutes there, mostly because Garvis got a fare from the there, to the Bottom, to the airport. He dropped us there, and left for 20-30 minutes.
Garvis was a really nice guy, and knows tons about the island, and even showed us his home, but I would have paid whatever it took to get his undivided attention. I thought I made that clear, but oh well!
Loved the bueaty of Saba, and would come back. I wonder what an open ticket through SXM to Saba and Back to SXM for two weeks would run. That’s how I’d do it next time.
Came back and ate French-style pizza. Pizza Galley, and Thin-crust pizza place next to Lady C’s floating bar was excellent. We ordered three, and had the equivilant of one full one left over. Stepped across to the floating bar (which did not go out on the harbor this night), and drank while the pizza was cooking. Four-Cheese pizza was best, followed closely by a thin-crust Basil-tomoato margarheta pizza. The Pepperoni, smoked Sausge one is good to.
Crashed and burned fast!
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