Part Two
Saba is the most unusual island I ever visited in the Caribbean. They have this road that the locals made by hand. It goes up and up and up etc. etc. I really mean UP! You feel like the taxi you are in just might tip back roll down the mountain rather then up it. The Europeans sent engineers to look at the island to see if a road could be built. They said no way, impossible. So a local went over to Europe, did a little engineering studying and came back home. He and the island people built the road by hand. Pretty Amazing. When you look at Saba all you see is one HUGE ROCK, which is the island. No beaches are on the island just the big rock. It was very interesting going up this crazy road they had and the view of the Polynesia anchored was pretty good. I got a good picture of the ship from way up high on that island. I bought a neat tee shirt and some Saba Spice which was a rum spice that was home made by different folks. So each bottle had a different taste. I bought one bottle which I finished off when I stayed on St. Martin the next week. They did have a hike up to a rain forest if you wanted. Me I passed on that because of all the dancing I did the night before. We had lunch brought up to us by the Poly crew at a local place called Scouts. It was a good lunch and the place (Scouts) was nice with real good views of the ocean from way up high. The name of the town was called The Bottom and of course it was way up top of the mountain. Typical Caribbean humor. The island people were all almost all Swedish or their ancestors were. Real nice friendly people. Not an island for party time but a great island to get away from it all. If you Scuba dive they do offer great Scuba diving. The island is known for being one of the better places in the Caribbean for Scuba diving. They have a national Preserve just for the fish. The people who went Scuba Diving were very pleased and impressed. They also had a deep water snorkeling trail which was cool. Like I said before there are no beaches here, just one big rock that goes into the sea. Once again we raised the sails, listened to the Amazing Grace. Never got tired of that. Off we went to Prickly Pear, which is an island off of Anguilla. We had a FULL beach day and what a beach!! Crystal clear water, great snorkeling and a terrific tan type day. The wind was just right. I loved the beach there and had a blast. For the second time that week we had a great lunch brought on shore to us by the Polynesia crew. I was on the beach the whole day and ended up on the last launch back to the ship. Even helped clean up the litter on the beach that was left by the Poly passengers. Windjammer likes to leave the beaches clean. That last night we sailed a little ways to a place that the crew called (and now us passengers) Gilligans Island. It sure looked like it from the vessel. It only had thirteen palm tree’s surrounding it. The rest was sand and beach. Gilligans Island was the goodbye night which was kind of sad. But it was also a great night! Party Time! They had a band playing music and a great big cookout. The food was great. Ribs and all sorts of other type food. Chicken, fish and such, plus vegetables. During dinner the band started playing. I ate my dinner quick and started to dance once again. That week I was always dancing it seemed. The thing that made the dancing special this night was that you danced in the sand! Now that was tough on the legs! They had a limbo contest. Guess what? I was one of the winners! I have no idea how I ended up as one of the final four contestants except that I did not quit as the bar got lower and lower. I did fall backwards a few times but I kept coming back and refused to quit! I was given a bottle of Champagne which I shared with a girl named Holly (actually she was a doctor) who arrived a day and a half late to the ship. Plane troubles. It seemed the plane took a big dive while over Texas. I thought that she deserved it. We both drank out of the bottle and danced once again. That night was a complete blast. Great way to end the cruise. Around midnight we went back to the ship and once again (for the last time) we raised the sails with the Amazing Grace playing. As usual the millions and millions of stars were still in the sky!
Copyright © 1996 Lee Burke