St. Barths
Itinerary:
Day 3-4: Sail to Île Fourchue, St. Barths, explore the island, become PADI open water certified
Day 5-6: Sail to Colombier, St. Barths, explore the island, begin PADI advanced open water training
Day 7: Sail to Gustavia, St. Barths, explore the city
There’s always been something freeing to me, about the ocean. I’ve always had an escape plan to the ocean, where I can, in theory, get to the Atlantic or Pacific from wherever I am. Back home in Ithaca, as soon as you get on Cayuga Lake you can go up to Seneca Falls where the lake connects to the Erie Canal. From there you have two options, if you go East you follow the Canal to the Hudson, then you go South on the Hudson to NYC where you’re home free. If you go West, then you follow the Canals to Lake Erie where you navigate the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence Seaway, and once you hit Hudson Bay, you’re set. Boston is much easier; you just go East on the Charles till you hit Boston Harbor. I’ve thought about this my entire life, and I even feel trapped when I’m far enough inland that there isn’t a clear, relatively fast, path to salt water.
All things considered, I thought being on the Ocean itself would be the most freeing experience of my life. One open water dive down, and having finally adjusted somewhat to living on a boat, I was sure I was on top of the World. And then came the first long sail, and the humbling realization of the power of the ocean. It was hot. It was wavy. It was nothing I could prepared for. And three hours away from St. Martin, about the same distance away from St. Barths, with no fast escape to put my feet on solid ground, I finally understood why people were afraid of the ocean. I still loved the water, and the biology, and I wouldn’t trade my position for anything in the World, but it was uncanny. Our ancestors left the sea 400 million years ago—by all considerations, it is unnatural to be back, living on and in the water. Yet somehow, humans have brushed the uncanny aside, and have touched every corner of the planet by traversing the seas. It wasn’t so much the Sun and surf that made me squirm, but this realization that I was fighting against millions of years of evolution, and I didn’t belong. I think if I’d had the sail to contemplate my own existential crises, then I’d have been fine, but instead the entire sail was filled with the most rigorous sailing lessons of the entire trip. Knots and crash courses in how to moor this massive boat were overwhelming in the unwavering tropical Sun, and this newfound trapped feeling that was baffling me and overturning every conception I’d had of the ocean since as long as I can remember. With less than half an hour to go till we moored, my mind could only handle focusing on breathing and clutching the line in my hand. But as soon as we hit calmer waters, and were an easy swim from shore, every fear dissolved and made room for wide-eyed wonder at the incredible landscape before me.
Once again we were moored off shore of a stunning, red-rock volcanic island. This time, the uninhabited French island, Île Fourchue, part of St. Barths. The deep blue of the bay contrasted spectacularly with the vibrant red rock. I was beyond excited to step foot on solid ground again, but instead we chugged some water, set up our gear and hopped onto the dinghy for our second open water dive.
I thought Creole Rock was cool, which it was, but our first Île Fourchue dive made us all instantly realize that the dives would only get incrementally more impressive. The site seemed richer, if that makes any sense. The water was deeper, more vibrantly blue, and the coral—though damaged like in St. Martin, was brighter and more diverse. Instead of seeing solely schools of Sargent Majors, we observed needle fish, garden eels, and our first Barracuda. As noted by my much more controlled air consumption, I was calmer, more in touch with my surroundings, and adjusted to breathing below the surface.
The next day we woke up early—some would say too early: 4:45 am—in order to catch the sunrise from the shore. Be it our exhausted minds, or the crepuscular light, but the hike started out as a bit of a disaster with faults at every step of the way.
Step 1: get on dinghy—one of us fell into the water between the dinghy and the boat
Step 2: get out of dinghy—I tripped getting out of the dinghy.
Step 3: hike—one member of our group impaled their foot with a cactus.
Step 4: hike part 2—we lost the trail and just pushed our way through the spikey brush
But as the sun pushed over the rust cliffs, everything started to fall into place. The soft pastel colors of sunrise brushed against our eyelids, and the calm tropical breeze blew our salty hair causing it to tickle our exposed shoulders. The waves rolled in below us, a textbook example of the oceanography we’d been studying. As the day began in earnest, our worries dissipated, smoothed over by the serenity of the island. The hike back down went flawlessly. We found the path, we avoided further injury, and we mastered the subtle art of dinghy boarding. By 7:00 we were back on Saphir, quietly eating breakfast before beginning our day. Dinghy skills mastered, we hopped back on with our diver gear and completed our third open water dive, and practiced our buoyancy skills. Confidence grew with every breath below the surface, as we blossomed into divers. After a quick lunch, we hopped back into the water, this time directly off the boat and into the quiet bay below us. With this dive, those of us who were new divers were officially Open Water certified, and every following dive would be towards our Advanced Open Water Certification.
The next morning when we awoke at 7:00, we were already underway headed towards St. Barths proper. After a lovely breakfast of spinach and egg scramble, and an easy mooring in Colombier, we had our first biology lesson on the origins of life and taxonomy. Following lunch, a fun assortment of leftovers we spiced up with a local hot sauce, we began an exciting afternoon of diving. Our first dive of the day was right off the stern of Saphir. The primary objective of this dive was to scout the new dive site before the main event of the day – our first night dive. The dive took us down to approximately 30 feet for 30 minutes where we saw a variety of reef dwellers such as clownfish, lionfish, a flounder, and a yellow arrow crab. It was my first dive as a newly certified open water diver, and for all four of us, it counted towards our boat diving specialty.
Once we resurfaced, we took the next few hours to work on academics. Luckily, our studious efforts were broken up by some turtle sightings and jumping into the crystal-clear waters. We prepared a lovely dinner of corn, bean, and pepper wraps with mashed potatoes which we quickly ate before heading back out to prep our dive gear once again – this time back lit by the setting sun. As the light decreased, our excitement increased. This time armed with flashlights, we entered the water. Below the surface, the waters were full of life. Tiny crustaceans swarmed in our light beams as we descended. Tarpon flew above us and the vibrant corals appeared even brighter and more exotic lit only by our lights. All of us remarked how surreal it felt, diving in the pitch black lit only by handheld flashlights and a few glow sticks—it was something out of a spy movie that everyone secretly dreams of recreating. Highlights of this dive included an octopus, squid, and best of all, a poor groggy turtle we awakened. Perhaps the most spectacular moment of the night was when we surfaced to an expansive sky of clear, bright stars – viewed from the water and soon after from our beloved boat. We were greeted post dive with hot beverages and apple pie, a perfect ending to an incredible and otherworldly day.
As a college program, MBT11 was on our own schedule, a few days ahead of the fleet of Catamarans that followed the same schedule a few days behind us—boats full of 8-14 high school sailors that we couldn’t imagine living on. But occasionally our paths crossed, and a shockingly large fleet of identical boats descended upon us. June 19, 2018 was one of those days.
The morning started out fairly normally. We woke up early, grabbed an apple, hopped onto the dinghy and motored to shore where we bailed off and hiked around Colombier, St. Barths to a gorgeous secluded beach where we had the morning to swim, walk the beach, and in my case, take copious amounts of photos.
St. Baths has over 1200 hectares of protected marine environment, including Île Fourchue, where we had just been, and Colombier, where we were. In 1999, the Marine Reserve was established when the government made it their responsibility to protect the island’s environment and natural resources. With more resources than its predecessor—a group of passionate volunteers—the positive results of the marine reserve quickly manifested. After less than 20 years of protection, many of the protected areas show ample progress. Colombier had once been a struggling reef with few observable species of fish. Today, Colombier has sea grass beds that act as a nursery for a variety of marine species, and the reef has visibly improved, abounding in biodiversity and species richness. There is, of course, still progress to be made, but the success of Colombier is a standard to which we can hold future conservation efforts, and a model for future conservation.
On the way back, we ran into adorable tortoises that were clearly used to being spoiled by tourists, and some quaint local goats. By the time we were back over the ridge to the bay, we were shocked to see that the Broadreach fleet had descended. Boats flying the Broadreach flag were at every single mooring ball, and once we’d dinghied back, we watched even more motor in and moor. Having interacted only with the same six people over the last few days, all of us were itching to meet up with other students, so we used the radio to send out an invitation for a dinner party and dive with anyone who was willing. The DIPs, our pals from the airport, responded immediately, and we scheduled a dive with them at Rockefeller point. The primary perk of diving with the DIPs, aside from some much-needed social interaction was that we got to use their mega-dinghy: a full-sized motor boat that made dive prep MUCH easier. The dive itself was absolutely stunning, and probably my favorite dive to date. Rocky pillars lined with coral rose up out of the depths. Reef sharks and barracuda swam lazily around the reef. Rays of all shaped and sizes glided along the sandy bottom. And the water was so clear that the visibility in all directions felt infinite. The DIPs stayed with us for the evening, helping us devour a delicious meal and making for wonderful conversation.
The next day, we abandoned our compatriots, setting sail once again, this time to the quaint little capitol city of Gustavia. St. Barths has a fascinating history, especially for someone, like me, of Swedish heritage. For the majority of its modern history, St. Barths has been French. But in the Napoleonic era, there was a bit of exchanging of hands. You see, Napoleon struggled to finance his wars, and figured selling St. Barths would help. He was correct, as the Swedes jumped on the opportunity to own land in the West Indies. The Swedes owned St. Barths long enough to completely rebrand the island, changing the names of roads, neighborhoods, and renaming the capitol after their King, Gustav. However, the Swedes quickly realized that owning St. Barths would only be a financial burden on their country. They promptly sold the Islands right back to Napoleon, who was in a better financial state due to the prosperity of his wars at the time. Despite their very short reign on St. Barths, the Swedish influence on Gustavia is blatantly obvious. I was giddy to see distinctly Swedish architecture, names, and flags flying everywhere I looked. I spent the morning exploring the adorable little city, and taking a million photos—mostly of Swedish flags to send to my mother. Lunch was a delicious French crêpe and gelato with a glass of cold water, a luxury I never know I had before drinking hot boat water for the past week. We spent the rest of the evening studying and relaxing before tomorrow—our longest sail of the trip as we left St. Barths in our wake and headed towards St. Kitts and Nevis.
