If you want to be among the rich and famous, get splashed by the most luxurious yachts in the Caribbean (and probably the world) and rub shoulders with movie stars you need to visit St. Barth. A picturesque island where we have yet to find houses one would call "poor", or where the regular working people may live, is splashed by luxurious red-roof houses with manicured desert-like gardens and paradise-like views. This island's history is similar to that of St. Martin's -Columbus claimed it for the Spanish upon sailing by, calling it Bartolome in honor of his brother, and Spain relinquished it along with St. Martin. In the '80s the French decided to transform the island into a tourist Mecca for the wealthy and set out to create what is an amazing marketing of the island which has paid off. The island supports itself mainly on "high-end" tourists, providing many services and amenities for them.

Just a few cruise ships make it here and anchor off Gustavia, the island main town, as there are no cruise ship docks. Smaller boats can moor in the Port of Gustavia's waters, held by a mooring at the bow and another one at the stern and sandwiched in among other boats. Larger vessels dock with their stern facing the rectangular shaped U-dock, parading their shiny and fancy saloons and decks. See picture of Port of Gustavia above. The dock has a board walk where people can walk around and check out the vessels. Each of the large vessels, most of which are over 100 feet, appears to be staffed by professional captains, chefs, dock masters, etc. There are many fancy and very expensive restaurants in the island and famous stores surround Port of Gustavia. The island is quiet and its atmosphere is serene and distinguished - no noisy bars, no public transportation (another indication of the lack of poor/working people here) and no street vendors of any kind. Women prance around showing off the latest fashions and expensive jewelry. As we were walking around Port of Gustavia on Saturday, we saw a guy behind us that we think was Kris Kristofferson. Indeed he looked like him, though much older than the last time we saw him on a picture.

On Sunday we rented a car for 1 day and drove around this 8 square-mile island which has several valleys, usually open at one side to the sea. It has 1 main town (Gustavia) and about a dozen villages. There are 20 beaches, an impressive number for this small island, many of which protected from ocean swells by a fringing reef. We spent part of the afternoon at Grand Saline beach because it has more waves than the others - surfing on the waves is what Daniel enjoys. There are many bays and anchorages around the island and seeing it by car was well worth it. Though we would have liked to stay in St. Barth for 1 week, the weather forecast called for winds to start building by Wednesday and the seas to deteriorate rapidly. Since we wanted to avoid having to get "stuck" in one place as we did in Puerto Rico, we decided to move on to St. Kitts where we will ride out the bad weather before continuing to move south.