It might be a score on the X Factor… er no, actually Simon Cowell would surely never give ten. As it turns out 10 October 2010 is a key date in the Dutch Caribbean calendar, as it is the moment when political changes will take place in several of the Netherlands Antilles.
Two of the islands – Curacao and St Maarten - will be following the lead of Aruba and will take ‘Status Aparte’. While they will remain within the Kingdom of the Netherlands they will have more autonomy and become responsible for their own internal affairs. The three remaining islands, Bonaire and the tiny islands of Saba and St Eustatius, or BES as they are currently known, will actually go the other way, and will become more integrated into the Dutch system. Well, that’s if Bonaire actually goes through with it – having agreed to, they were looking for a referendum on the subject recently.
So, what does it all mean? It means that the BES states will become members of the European Union (this is already the case with Martinique and Guadeloupe, so it is not actually that extraordinary, despite their 4000 or so miles from Europe). The Netherlands Antilles Florin will probably cease to exist – St Maarten is undecided, but Saba will be taking the US Dollar as its currency. And last and most importantly, Mt Scenery on Saba, which has historically been the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, will now actually be the highest point in Holland.
Last week we asked you for insider tips and favourite places on St Maarten and St Martin. Thanks for the response. We will also be putting together a guide to Saba nearby. Again, we will be visiting, but it’s good to have a steer before arriving.
Our main areas of interest are bars and nightlife, hiking, places to visit, restaurants, shops and sports. So if you have a favourite activity or place then please let us know. Plus -
Do you know of any good day sails from the island?
Or spectacular gardens to visit?
Hotel or day spas?
Who are the best yoga instructors and complementary health practitioners?
And finally, because scuba diving us such an important feature of the island – which do you think is the best scuba diving operator and why?
Once again, if you have had a particularly pleasing experience in Saba – or an unpleasant one for that matter - then do please email us at Feedback@DefinitiveCaribbean.com and let us know. We look forward to hearing from you.
And thanks for all your emails with suggestions about St Maarten/St Martin….
Here’s an odd fact you probably didn’t know about the Caribbean. That the highest point in Holland is on a tiny Caribbean island called Saba. Admittedly ‘Netherlands’ means ‘low-lying lands’, so you wouldn’t expect much, but Saba really is tiny. It’s just three and a bit kilometres by five.
But it rises incredibly steeply from the sea, to a vertiginous (well, comparatively vertiginous) 2885 feet, in the indomitable Mount Scenery...Saba, which is an autonomous territory of the Netherlands, is an extinct volcano, the most northerly of the inner chain of Eastern Caribbean islands. It is also a fantastically pretty island - but who would ever have thought it could be the highest point of a European Kingdom?
As a group of islands, you’d expect the Caribbean to have some, well... ‘sporting’ landing strips. And so it turns out. There are short runways, runways with cross-winds, runways with cliffs at either end, and runways that inconveniently have a hill in the way, just where you’d want the pilot to line up to land.
We have tested them all and have put together a roll of honour – the Caribbean’s top three scariest landings! And here they are. Enjoy...
1 St Maarten
There’s a rather short approach to this runway, so the beach-goers get a bit of a shock from time to time.
2 St Barths
You worry that as it comes in to land the plane will take the hat of the car drivers on the road below.
3 Culebra, off Puerto Rico
And yes, there’s a hill just where you want the pilot to line up here, so you swing around the hillside.
And before you go, if you would like to read a story about landing on Saba, a bright green pimple of an island whose airstrip is shorter than any self-respecting aircraft carrier, then have a look at Landing on Saba - Not Something for the Sane! which is the fourth video in the above playlist.
I am sitting on a veranda in St Maarten shooting the breeze, after a formal interview, with an old resident of the island. I mention my upcoming visit to Saba (my first, back in 1989). Saba is one of the other Dutch Windwards. It stands on the sea horizon somewhere just out of sight. Jokingly, I express concern about the landing.
Just to let you know some key facts - at 400 metres the airstrip is extremely short, it sits on the only (nearly) flat bit of land on the island – it’s still on a slope, though - on a promontory with a 150ft drop at one end and a 350 ft drop at the other. You don’t want to mis-time it, anyway. As you’ll see in the clip below there can be cross-winds too. They make you want to lean forward and tap the pilot on the shoulder and say –
‘Excuse me, I just think you ought to know, the runway’s over there.’
Sure, they have special STOL aircraft (Short Take Off and Landing), usually Twin Otters, which anyway are fantastically manoeuvrable, and the pilots have to retrain every ten minutes – and you know they want to crash even less than you do – all that bureaucracy... But still it’s a nervous moment, landing on a strip shorter than most self-respecting aircraft carriers.
Eventually the conversation was concluded by my wizened interviewee, in a voice that was calm, if slightly dead-pan, no lugubrious... or was that apocalyptic?
‘Doan worry, man,’ he intones. ‘They only use half the runway...’
Unfortunately, when I landed, they decided to use the second half of the runway...
When you’re dangling in mid air, seemingly on a piece of string tweaked by a malevolent air sprite, runways seem deceptively small. My mind shuffles quickly – fine, there’s the island, but where the actual landing strip? Hold on, he can’t mean that postage stamp, surely? Oh, he does? Well, you’re coming in far too steep, mate – manoeuvrability maybe, but you’re going to overshoot. At least he is pointing along the runway, so the cross-winds aren’t too bad. But then a blast buffets us from the side and we lurch left. He brings it back on line admirably quickly, but still he is aiming too far down the strip. I am sure of it.
By now he is gliding. We slide high over the cliff at the start of the runway, past the windsock, then 100 yards later past the terminal building with its diminutive fire engine. Eventually we touch down half way along the landing strip. Alarms beep all over the place. The woman next to me in Row One put her face in her hands and her husband goes into rictus, bolt upright with an electrified expression. And then there is something as close to panic as I have seen in a pilot. His faces furrows in concentration. He proceeds with his drills, putting on reverse thrust and the brakes at the same time. The plane roars, strains and judders under the load.
Suddenly a tyre bursts, and we begin to bounce sideways as well, slewing right. Finally we come to a halt. The pilot takes in a deep breath... And lets it out again... Sanguine feller. Later, my joke ran that when you opened the door you closed it again... having decided to get out the other side of the plane because of the 400 foot drop with no steps, but actually it wasn’t quite that bad. We have come to a halt, at forty-five degrees to the runway, with about fifteen yards to spare. That’s maximum runway utilization, but not much room for comfort. We walked to the terminal building wobbly legged. Except the man next to me, who is still stiff and moving like a mummy.
Welcome to Saba. Oh, I nearly forgot. What’s Saba actually like? Well it’s great. Odd but intriguing to visit. Once you’ve got there that is...
If you’re not up for the adventure, you can actually go by boat nowadays. Meanwhile, enjoy the video clip of a landing at Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport.
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