Most people have never heard of the little Caribbean island of Saba. It was one of the few Caribbean islands that we had not visited previously…and it was directly on our route, so we planned a stop overnight.
Saba (like St Eustasia, Curacao, St Maarten and Bonaire) is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Everyone speaks English, although Dutch is the official language. The US Dollar is their currency.
All the water around Saba is a Marine Preserve so moorings are provided for visiting yachts and dive boats. Diving and snorkeling are some of the best in the Caribbean. Due to our time schedule, we didn’t dive, but did take the dinghy to a special snorkeling site about ½ mile from the mooring buoy where “Frisky” was tied up. This snorkeling site included swimming through a large tunnel and the chance to swim into a cave or two. Tropical fish were abundant and the warm water made for great snorkeling.
When we arrived, we tied up to one of the moorings on the west side of the island, and then took our dinghy the 1.5 miles to the island’s only “harbor” at Fort Bay. For the first several hundred years in this island’s settlement, there was no harbor at all. Just a very small rocky “beach” at Ladder Bay. It is appropriately named because the settlers carved steps into the rocky cliffs.
Christopher Columbus “discovered” Saba in 1493, but it wasn’t until 1632 that some shipwrecked Englishmen first set foot on the island. It changed hands from Spanish to French and English to Dutch (like many Caribbean islands) and finally was taken over by the Dutch for good in 1812. Dutch engineers declared the building of a road impossible, so an islander named Josephus Hassell took a correspondence course in engineering, and the islanders set about building “The Road” which connected the rather unprotected harbor at Fort Bay to the primary town called “Bottom”. This road has the steepest hair pinned turns we have ever seen! Taxis and other vehicles creep up the steep road in low gear. This is still a huge improvement over the prior ladder dug into the side of the cliff! In fact, before the Fort Bay harbor and “The Road”, the islanders hauled a piano ashore with 12 men up these steps. The first Jeep on the island was landed in 1947 on two sloops lashed together to form a makeshift raft. Today “The Road” connects the island’s villages, and two main “towns” called Bottom and Windwardside. You have to love an island whose towns have such names!
Today the airstrip which is only 437 yards long accommodates small airplanes from nearby St Maarten and provides passengers with an “E ticket ride” from the cliffs to the ocean. The unique volcanic underwater landscape has created a dive and snorkel tourist trade which supports most of the island. The Saba National Marine Park was established in 1987 and surrounds the entire island.
After clearing into Customs, Immigration and the Harbor Master, we hired a taxi to give us an island tour. George was a most gracious taxi tour guide who knew much about the island and was a skilled conversationalist. He picked us up from Fort Bay harbor where we had tied our dinghy and drove up the road to the first village. “UP” is an understatement for this road. It has a hair pin turn and steep angle that require vehicles to stop and let one pass at a time. All the roads on this island are well built of concrete….clearly at great expense because the roads all survived the recent hurricanes. The only evidence of hurricane damage was to tree limbs and branches ….and many new red roofs. The roofs have to be kept clean on Saba because there is no natural water and all the water is collected from rain.
We always fly the country flag on our boat (as required) after checking in with authorities. Linda usually orders these flags on-line and brings them from home. But because we hadn’t planned on stopping at Saba, we didn’t have the country flag. We discovered that, one day after our visit, was Saba Independence Day and the King and Queen of the Netherlands were coming for a royal visit. Almost every car on the island was flying a Saba flag. Our tour guide, George, told us all about the upcoming visit and when we lamented that we didn’t have a Saba flag for our boat, he surprised us at the end of the tour by giving us a Saba flag. We will treasure it for our collection…and for memories of the special little island that is Saba.