the Unspoiled Queen - Saba
Saba, What a cool place
Its 8:22AM and I’m already back from the first airport run – arrival and departure days are always some of the busiest days. I like to greet everyone at the airport because there is always this slight bit of apprehension when you arrive in a strange place for the first time. It’s that questioning look that you see on everyone’s face as they exit immigration & customs and walk into a terminal that is often chaotic. When you’ve been traveling all day – or all day and all night – there’s nothing like a cold face towel and an icy bottle of water or beer to take the edge off. Its not rocket science, I just think about what I would like in the same situation. The other reason I like to be the first face people see when they walk out of customs is because that’s what I would do if I was picking up a friend and that’s what I’d expect from my friends too.
Saba airport!
Anybody seen and aircraft carrier around here?
Flying into Saba is where the adventure begins … it’s a wild ride. There’s not much of a level spot on the island so they carved a runway shorter than an aircraft carrier partially out of a hillside and it extends like a finger out to the sea where it precipitously drops 200 feet to the ocean. The pilots are young “been flying in the bush” types and there’s a running bet that if they have to use the entire runway to stop and go past the turn to the terminal that they have to buy the entire ground crew beers. Nothing like a little incentive to keep you sharp!
All day, the sky has been piercingly blue and so has the water. It’s that deep, azure blue that you think of when someone says “Caribbean.” Its so clear that from 1200’ up on the island, driving from the airport to Queen’s Garden’s Resort (which is our awesome home away from home), that you can clearly see Anguilla, St Martin, St Barths, Stacia, St Kitts and Nevis all in one glance. It’s an amazing vista.
As usual, we always find a place to stay that kicks ass. We don’t look too much at star ratings because first, they often don’t mean much and second, they really don’t describe the experience you’re going to have when you are there. After all, a 5-star, 800 room resort is going to be very different than a 5-star, 20 room parador. We search the world for unique, upscale and boutique and we are staying in it here. Leroy wanted to know “how in the world do you find these places?” Lots of looking and lots of legwork.
Room with a view!
Its all about the view
Once I’m back from the last airport and ferry run of the day, the party is already in full swing. Everybody’s already down at the outdoor bar area and Laurie has already found the huge, outdoor couches, Chris is already talking smack with Gordon about tomorrow night’s Patriot’s game, Its great to see everybody catching up with everybody; some have been traveling with us for 10 years, some are catching up with friends they haven’t seen in a while and some are quickly making new friends. Raoul has flown in from as far away as Iraq and everyone has interesting stories to share.
The talk quickly turns to our favorite subject – SCUBA diving – and we go over all the things we have planned for the coming week …. There’s so much to see and do on Saba. And tomorrow its time to get wet!
Make sure and check out
Saba SCUBA Diving Adventure Day 2
Saba SCUBA Diving Adventure Day 3
Please have many beers, scotches and rums for us. Sorry that we couldn’t make T-Day but Cocos was higher on the wish list. Will look forward to the daily posts. Love to all our T-Day in the Tropics buddies, L&L
MIss you guys! See ya in Cocos!