Saba,

Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Wed 29 Feb 2012 15:53
Saba is west of St Barth's and we had a fab downwind sail all the way - apart from a bit of rolling!!  It is a tiny island, which was part of the now extinct Dutch Antilles, and is now part of Holland itself.  The whole island is only 5 miles square, with about 1500 inhabitants living in 2 very separate villages, one called Windwardside, and one called The Bottom, which comes from the original Dutch name.  The Bottom is just an anglicisation of the Dutch word and is meaningless in that the village is at least halfway up the hill!!  Before the small port at Fort Bay was built on the south of the island, the only way to land boats and cargo for the inhabitants was to bring them into Ladder Bay, on the western coast where we anchored, and physically carry them up the hill.  To actually get the goods on land, they had to be manually carried ashore and men used to have to wade out waist deep to reach the boats.  There is a flight of 800 steps up the hill to the village, and the old Customs House is halfway up.  This way of life continued up until about 1940 when Saba began to become more accessible to outsiders.  The supply ships used to reach the island about once per week in good weather, and if bad weather forced then to cancel they simply didn't come at all, so in longer periods of stormy conditions some things got very scarce on the island. 
As I said there are 2 villages, and as far as the residents are concerned they might as well be on different islands - before a road was built between the two, which are no more than about a mile and a half apart, the only way to get from one to the other was via a steep mountain track, needless to say most the inhabitants didn't bother.  Our taxi driver for our tour round the island said that her grandmother lived in Windwardside and had never been to The Bottom - she had passed through once on the way off the island but didn't stay longer than necessary!  This road linking the 2 villages is known as the 'road that couldn't be built'!  The 'chief engineer' on the project was a local man who had undertaken a correspondence course in road building!!  Saba also has a 'road that shouldn't have been built' up from Well's Bay which mosts cars and taxis won't even attempt.
The island itself has huge amounts of natural charm, the two villages are full of traditional one-storey cottages, painted the required colours of red, white and green, - other colours are basically forbidden and if you have the 'wrong shade' of red, green or white you will be strongly advised to change it when your house needs repainting.  
Having managed to get a road laid to link the two villages, the Sabans then decided that maybe an airport was possible - bear in mind that the island was created by a volcanic eruption raising part of the sea bed 800+ metres above sea level.  Again much discussion ensued and eventually a pilot from St Barth's attempted a landing on 'Flat Point', and as as he survived the airport was built.  As the runway is only 400m long, landing here has been likened to landing on an aircraft carrier!
An island tour here is a 'must do' and we had planned to book one when we cleared in, but as the marine office was closed we had to come back the day after.  That night we suffered probably one of the rolliest yet - it was awful, and we had so little sleep that our plan was to go ashore as early as possible, do the island tour and return to the boat and leave for Statia, another island with a little more shelter about 15 miles away.  Oh the best laid plans.........  when we went to check on the mooring, the boat had swung and twisted so much in the night due to constant swell, that she had tied herself in knots and needed to be freed - which took in total about 3 hours and involved us leaving the mooring, (not exactly intentionally), freeing our line and mooring again.  I say not intentionally as by this time I was in the water untangling the buoy and, once this was done, I re-attached the rope, or so I thought.  When John freed the main line, the boat calmly floated away from the mooring as I had not actually reattached the second line at all - ooops!!!  In addition to setting the boat free, the shackle which we used to tie to the buoy was also lost at the bottom of the sea.
Late as it now was, we had no choice but to do the island tour in the afternoon and stay another night.  We had provisionally booked diving the following day on the basis that the swell would settle and we would be able to sleep. This did not happen and it was two very grumpy people who had to spend another hour freeing the lines in the morning, and diving for the lost shackle, prior to leaving the anchorage.
Statia, where we were headed was a short pleasant sail away and we arrived in plenty of time to spend the afternoon lazing on the deck.  It was slightly more sheltered than Saba and a better nights sleep was had by all the crew!!

 'Diamond Rock' - one of the only two things to avoid when coming into Saba

  The 800 steps up to the village from Wells Bay - the building is only halfway up

  This seemed a strange sign - but they actually use cow skins as bait in the lobster traps - and they STINK!! 

  Windwardside - one of the two villages

 Possibly the shortest runway in the world???  Fortunately they only land small planes!!!