A Week on St. Bart's

Custom Arrangements for a family of three on St. Bart’s
Correspondent: T. Bartlett, Illinois

There are many aircraft situated about the runway as we depart our very late American Airlines flight. Men, presumably of Caribbean descent, greet us as we deplane inbound from San Juan. Their assistance, if you can call it that, foreshadows a certainty we are but one of many this day who shall spend the first twenty-four hours on St. Bart-a-la-mee, as the French pronounce the Island, in the clothes we arrived. As a charter customer, and the last flight of the day from Sr. Maarten to St.Barth (Bart, or Bartholomew, an Island in the Caribbean archipelago, first discovered by Columbus and named after his brother), our custodians are intent on seeing our small twin engine aircraft depart as quickly as possible. This is Saturday evening, and our clothing plight will not exact any further delay in their ritual entertainment. As we depart onboard our chartered aircraft before dusk, the fog rolls in and blankets the small Island ahead. Any later and the precarious landing in St. Barth should, in good conscience, be avoided. We say goodbye to St. Maarten and unwittingly leave our luggage stubs behind in the possession of our charters ground personnel. No problem, our luggage will be transported to St. Barth first thing tomorrow I am assured. No problem, no worry, no care. We head to Eden, where fittingly, clothing is optional.

As we depart in our solid but slow Aero Commander, our manifest now includes a Frenchman returning home from his first trip to the US, late like us, and without passage to his home on St. Barth. We are more than happy to accommodate his request for a lift to the Island. He shows us photographs from Chicago, one of several cities he visits while away and advises of the “vee-o-lance” found on St. Maarten. St. Bart, he opines, is without “veeolance and perrfect! You will be safe. St. Bart-a-la-mee is very good.”

The fog covers much of the Island as we approach. I question how we will land on what many describe as one of the most challenging runways in existence. The pilot tells me the perfect landing requires full flaps, throttle at idle and hard forward yoke, for the rapid descent from fifteen hundred feet to sea level and the short air strip, terra firma for royalty, celebrity, and on this particular evening, the Frenchman and the three of us. We touch down towards what appears to be the end of the runway and the sea approaches rapidly. The plane comes to a complete stop feet from the beach. Moments later, we deplane from the six seat high wing sturdy aircraft, all the more thankful for headwinds. We make our way up the ramp and into the arrival building where we are stopped by an unwelcoming, or simply French, customs agent. Perhaps we have kept him from his dinner. After presenting our passports he ushers us through the arrival area still stern but now more receptive. He recognizes our stowaway and the two begin a rapid sequence of communication; The French language is deceiving. One can never tell for sure if it is the language, the conversation, or both that makes their communication sound so rapid. Perhaps it is simply the growls of the agent’s stomach. The two continue to greet and we bid our stowaway farewell with hopes of seeing him again at some point. Charming and gracious he clearly is. We depart all the more informed about our journey ahead. Le Guanhahani, he exclaims, is the Islands best.

Two days later, some six thousand miles from my place of work, I am informed that our hard work and diligence has led to the successful acquisition of a business that will surely prove to be a catalyst in our required growth. For three months now, my days and nights, have been preoccupied with nothing more than succeeding in acquiring this particular business. My call to the US mainland, and to our chief financial officer, is the most promising in recent memory. He informs me every sign suggests our bid topped all others. Now my thoughts turn to the integration of the business and the possibility, as I have opined repeatedly to my spouse, of living in California. Tonight we will celebrate, although as I consider the possibilities, it will likely be quite similar to every evening we enjoy while on vacation in the Caribbean. Every night is indeed a celebration.

Our son, Derek Thomas Bartlett, is a precocious, uninhibited, theatrical six-year old who is about to turn seven. He is blessed with golden locks, hazel green eyes, and copper tone skin. His budding physique and frame foretell a surfer-dude. He is lean, with broad shoulders. With pronounced jaw line, consuming eyes with thick, long eyelashes, the girls like the lad. Women of all ages notice him, though he remains steadfastly oblivious to everything except the present. He looks like a young Brad Pitt, only more so.  There is little doubt he will tower, perhaps beyond the six foot four frame already suggested by his pediatrician. I get the impression he will require a security detail when he arrives at the clubs the youth of his generation will frequent. The same environment his parents frequented only representative of a more enlightened and technologically intensive environment, where young adults come to know one another via handheld device. 

The realities affecting all age groups intersect in St. Barth during the hottest and most humid month of the year, July. Reality for us represents the flesh eating insects that seem to prosper on these Caribbean islands this time of the year. We awaken each morning with mosquito bites on our skin the size of lunar craters. Our son is molested each night by unsavory winged creatures that prey on any fair skinned and ill equipped Caucasian who cannot protect the flesh beyond dreamland. Each and every morning he is awakened to a conspicuous assault about his abdomen, face and neck. He has bite marks everywhere, all of whom his mother cures with some type of tree oil, identified and provisioned thanks to its perfunctory healing powers prescribed back home by the pseudo-physicians run amuck in the satellite continuum circling the globe of modern civilization. Something must fill the void created by five-hundred channels.  Derek Bartlett is clearly better off nonetheless, and thankful for both the tree oil and a mother that tends to his every need.

This experience, like every one he experiences, will prove to be so much richer, thanks to Divine intervention in the natural selection of his mother. She is his shoulder, always and forever. The need for her is evident in everything he does and all she is. The love of a mother is the most convincing and compelling example of God here on Earth and here in Eden this particular holiday. The boy rests effortlessly that night, the creatures abated by a mother, her oil, and some high pitched and horrifying electrical device the Guanahani employs to deafen the Mosquitoes. Once deaf, our son surmises, the Mosquitoes apparently lose their navigational skills and crash. At said crash, other deaf blood-mates cannot discern the pleas for help from below, and so ultimately goes the entire nest of them each and every night; How sadistic the French truly are. As abundant, are swarms of tiny little ants we find in places around our suite, a two bedroom villa with private pool, overlooking the ocean. The bugs however, are soon forgotten in this setting. We sleep peacefully in these surroundings, albeit once discovering how to disarm the cruel mosquito deafening device.   

According to many, the enemy of rational argument is emotion. Enlightenment, like seeing the ocean floor through one-hundred feet of water, is enhanced in relationship to the distance from one perspective to another. The greater the degree of initial separation, the greater the potential for enlightenment. Here in St. Barth, the water is crystal clear producing the most vivid turquoise colors imaginable. From just about everywhere you experience postcard perfect settings that are immediately uplifting. And so, with such a backdrop around every turn, the somewhat tarnished American stereotype affixed to our French hosts is confronted as we pursue greater enlightenment.

The St. Barth atmosphere is one of serenity. The tropics can be no more civilized. Here, conflict does not exist, not on the roads, not at the beach, not at the hotel reception areas welcoming inbound guests, and not in the many locals we encounter throughout the daily exploration of this pristine Mountain Island. Here, people are relaxed, openly warm and friendly, and intent on the purely selfish exercise of recreation, one heavily influenced by food. St. Barth inhabitants fascinate in gastronomic delight. The Bartians dream of food and talk about it endlessly. The Island is navigated in proximity to beach first and then to restaurant. It seems that almost every local has memorized the shortest distance between an inquirers immediate location and that of their pending restaurant recommendation. They question about ones personal food experiences with great interest and expectation, and engage in what seems like a religious experience when talking of their own.  Rarely do the adjectives change. It would appear every restaurant on the Island is remarkable, magnifique, and simply very good. A culinary experience of unequaled proportion awaits everyone only for the asking. The French are clearly seduced by food. The seduction overcomes their tables and their moods resemble spiritual actualization. Contrast this to the somewhat more expedited customs of the modern American and you can see why there is a divide in the perspective of the two cultures on many things, especially food.

Their music accentuates the dining experience, as hips beats repeat and repeat, but you never really tire of the repetition. Instead, you succumb to it as the wine flows. Here, even rap sounds good. An Australian rapper repeats the same four words, over and over, accompanied by background singers repeating the same, only with the addition of an unintelligible phrase in what sounds to be French. The Australian has one note, and only one, and were it not for his good fortune as a recording artist, you get the sense he would be shearing sheep somewhere in New South Wales. Yet in the midst of all this seduction, even it appears to work. French music intoxicates and radiates sensuality. Women dominate these airwaves, with a sexuality as thick as the humidity this time of year. The music, and the heat, provides the requisite setting for the clothing optional lifestyle practiced discreetly here on the Island, along with the siesta where virtually all retail establishments close for the lunchtime meal, and whatever else meets their fancy during the hottest part of their day. 

In confronting the French stereotype loathsome of Americans, we are enlightened. The Island possesses the best the French have to offer, their gift of romance, leisure and culinary art, distilled nicely in the charm of a tropical paradise void of the vitriol common in contemporary Franco-American relations. They actually appreciate tourists, American’s included. They greet and smile without duplicity. These are a content and happy people. The island is blessed with cleanliness and people are clearly invested in its appearance and safety. They speak often of both and in context to other Islands in the Caribbean chain. Police exist, only in the background. To be sure, the Island is protected yet in an inconspicuous fashion. You get the sense the police are in close proximity, watching perhaps by closed circuit monitors, invisible to the untrained eye. Or perhaps, as our stowaway remarked, there is no violence which presumably includes crime. Maybe everyone here was raised in a loving nuclear family, where a premium was placed on civility. Switzerland is a very safe place as well. They do however have about twenty words in their language that all define the same warning: FORBIDDEN. No such warning exists here, that is of course, unless they are unspoken. It might be that the less civil visitor now resides in Davie Jones locker somewhere off the coast.

An ancient fort at the foot of Gustavia harbor now serves, according to some, as the equivalent of a CIA reconnaissance post surveying the landscape by satellite in order to detect and protect the archipelago against villains on the high seas. Whatever the case, they agree, the place is very secret serving to remind one and all that the paradise will remain so.

My son consumes more butter during our visit than should be legal. Morning, noon and night, the boy replenishes on bread, croissant, and other baked goods heaped in bright yellow butter, individually wrapped in colored foil with as many certifications stamped on the packaging as you might see on a controlled substance. The butter, or “Beurre” is ubiquitous. The Island seems to prefer the individually blue and gold wrapped, Echire’, in thirty gram proportions apparently intended for “deux-sevres” or two services. He takes no notice and consumes them in order of increasing magnitude. Of all the food he experiences here, butter he exclaims, is his favorite. On our third day his cholesterol level is visible in his eyes. They too are bright yellow. The word “Beurre” appears on his forehead. He speaks French fluently at this point in the trip and engages in lengthy conversation with the indigenous about the butter and its spiritual relevance to him personally. He confides that when returning to the mainland, his piggy-bank will subsidize the first in a succession of cows he plans to acquire. Butter production appears to be his calling; my wife suspends all further Mozart exercises. 

Aside from the bread and butter, he replenishes in the desserts. To be sure, the desserts here are to die for. My last day should be so good. The chocolate is richer, the ice-cream creamier, the many fruit sauces accompanying the latter, sweeter. The environment is possessed by a sweet tooth, and in moderation, these sweet delights complete most every gathering, save perhaps breakfast, where one will most certainly find fresh baked pastries just as satisfying. Meals here are an experience of considerable investment in both time and money, and at the conclusion of each of our meals, the investment seems entirely appropriate. The experience can be euphoric. Even the service is unique. They serve politely, respectfully, void of the ingratiating familiarity imposed on guests so often in US restaurants. Wait staff due not consider themselves celebrities, nor the sommeliers who are careful never to patronize. They serve rather effortlessly never lingering, hovering, or imposing their personal beliefs on guests. “My favorite” does not exist in context to food recommendations. Instead, and fittingly so, they ask for preferences. If it does not exist on the menu, no worry. This is a French Island, where the resident chefs are mainly French and the word, “violla” is used to introduce and punctuate a unique request. Clearly, they desire to accommodate. The espirit de corp in all settings we visit is friendly and hospitable. Personnel appear to enjoy paradise themselves as much as anything. They are professional no matter the vocation. If a pecking order exists, it is not visible here.

St. Barth is a magnificent Island, resplendent with towering peaks and hillsides that tuck away many homes the fortunate have come to possess. A typical villa requires about a million dollars. That is a one bedroom on a small piece of property. We are told months earlier, the Rothschild family sold a home on the Island for twenty-one million euros, approximately twenty-four million dollars. Gustavia, the principal port on the Island, can accommodate yachts of all proportion and propulsion except of course, Paul Allen’s behemoth, the four-hundred foot trawler that births two helicopters. As U2 singer, Bono remarked when encountering the beast during its maiden voyage a few years ago somewhere in the Caribbean, “that’s a ship not a yacht.” Indeed, Allen currently holds title to three of the four largest private ocean going vessels in existence today. One for every hemisphere, and a backup. His private 757’s shuttle family and friend around the planet in time for whatever benefits await. Allen has, and will continue to find this particular harbor, unreceptive to his latest trophy. He nonetheless perseveres, finding sustenance for a similarly disproportionate frame ashore, via helicopter.

The super rich are here as are the proletariat, albeit a more refined and sophisticated slice of the demographic. All walks of life intersect here, a confluence of equal proportion, never exaggerated or overly influenced by any degree. Hermes, Gucci, Patek, are minutes away from everywhere. Domaine Romanee Conti, the first growths, and similar surrogates from around the world, are snapped up like coffee beans, cases of Haut Brion, Chateau Petrus, Margeaux disappear, notably during the most congested and taxing period the Island endures: Christmas and New Year. A time when two-hundred foot yachts pay for the privilege of being in harbor during the New Year by docking early, on or before December first, at a daily rate that can easily amount to the cost of the finest suite on the Island when considering the size of these craft. Otherwise, first come first serve, an experience not unlike Monaco for that matter.

The playground triangle, Aspen, St. Barth, and Monoco, connect royalty and the rest of the world, in the same manner the trade winds helped connect Europe and the Americas. They intersect at changes in temperature. Winter in Aspen and St. Barth, summer in the Med. Royalty, and lesser inhabitants, come to rely on one another. A symbiosis that enables a lifestyle, that for some we meet, would be otherwise impossible. They know each other by name and greet accordingly, a kiss to each cheek and the best table in the house. Many here on the Island are like early spice traders seeking faster passage. They follow the money. And the money is provocative, overwhelming, inextricable in every paradise, especially this one, and yet the atmosphere observed, at least toward the end of July, is unpretentious. The natural order here is understated, relaxed, and above all, serene. The Ocean radiates crystal clear, the sand pure white, and each home appears to have a red roof, much the same way the European countryside appears. Color abounds and heightens the senses and cool summer breezes at this time of year seem unabated. It is, in every sense of the word, beautiful.

The locals confirm their love of summer. No traffic, no congestion, no wait. We wonder how the experience might be when Paul Allen typically frequents. For many reasons, this may be a better time to visit, especially on a budget. Our particular hotel, and perhaps the best on the Island, does not differentiate between euro and dollar during our stay, providing a twenty-percent efficiency. Breakfast, a lunch, a dinner, massage for two, cooking and wine tasting class, sunset cruise, and vehicle are included on this particular trip. Economics clearly favor our host, however, shortly after we arrive. The wine, shall we say the wine we enjoy during our stay, quickly absorbs the aforementioned economies, as does the lingerie, swim-wear, sportswear, Cuban cigars and all other six-year-old fascinations. Impervious to the power of paradise the wallet is not. Where food, wine, music, sand, sun, beach collide, no extravagance is unreasonable. For me personally, food and wine, a passion and preoccupation surrendered to at a premature stage in my infancy hypnotizes me, clothing-optional-wife-not-included.

By now, the sommelier and I are friends. We have exchanged business cards, wine preferences, his French, mine from Kahl-ee-forn-ya, as we drink the same wine, the best his cellar offers this Thursday afternoon, a Sauvignon Blanc named Silex, (pronounced See-lex). The Silex vanishes and we migrate to Sancerre, which by now my wife actually prefers. French wine, complex though it is, is made even more so by the Byzantine regulation controlling it, not to mention the language barrier. Only in France, is counterfeit wine produced as a result of strict appellation control essentially limiting production of the more favored wine, thus heightening demand. The first growth Bordeaux’s, the best Burgundies, the more limited Rhone’s, the super rich Sauternes, fall prey. The French prosecute and imprison counterfeiters with considerable notoriety. Seriously, is how they regard wine. And, like the Japanese and beer, they consume vast quantities of wine in almost spiritual conformance. Wine with every meal, save breakfast of course. At breakfast, coffee, espresso, latte thick and black, sweet with steamed hot cream, arouses the digestive system for the coming assault, aperitif, muse, appetizer, first course, main course, dessert, and wine. Wine for every course. Wine enhances the tropical experience and good wine enhance the wine experience.

For us they are white, Sancerre’s for easy, endless afternoons, Chassagne Montrachet, Puligny Montrachet’s dominate our meals. They are remarkable, unencumbered by overt fruit and alcohol as is often the case with new world wine. There is a simplicity and balance about good French food and wine that accentuates the experience. The wines subtlety pares well with food it is designed to complement. When paired well, like most of our experiences dining on the Island, and in particular here at our hotel, the word “magical” comes to mind, perhaps because our friend, Franck, the sommelier, is fond of the phrase. Whatever and no matter, we concur. Magical seems justified. My wife, Pam, now contends the better French wines are superior, in the same class as only a handful of select and impossible to obtain wines back in the States. Here though, they are abundant, easily obtained if not slightly more expensive than a good bottle of wine back home. We spend our days at the beach, book in tow, enjoying the sins of food and wine while our six-year old discovers his European counterparts, who he maintains, wear their underpants to the beach. He notes adult nudity, but not for long. He discovers women his age, perhaps French, and succumbs to their magnetism.

The French women are most certainly attractive. The language accentuates their attractiveness, a sensual, stimulating language. They appear to care about there appearance but not overtly so. Both French sexes are well toned, not necessarily athletic or overtly muscled, but a thin healthy appearance. The French are not obese, and just the same, they are not adipose-free. They appear comfortable in themselves and silicon enhancements of any kind are not apparent. Nudity is an accepted practice here, and although we see little of it during our stay, the French are typically scantily clad revealing much of themselves all the same. Their anatomy seems proportionate and real to me, nothing extraordinary that might poke an eye out. French men here on the Island, have a shipwrecked quality about them. They are disheveled but fashionably so. They prefer light colored un-laundered long-sleeve collared shirts, rolled up to the elbow. Similarly colored and wrinkled shorts or pants prevail. The French male mane is long and unruly and worn without any discernable part, simply pushed back over the forehead before it conforms to a series of waves around the ears and neck. All of this works, naturally. They have a definite sophistication about them, though not pretentious, at least they don’t appear to be. During our many lunches poolside at the Indigo bar and restaurant, the majority of the guests eat fashionably late and well into the late afternoon. Sometimes couples, families with young, very well behaved children, also quite captivating, and sometimes extended families representing multiple generations. They dine slowly, over wine, and converse. They laugh often and one senses these encounters are of greatest relevance to them. Like the Italians, and European’s in general, they appear to love life. For the most part one cannot discern whether the men are tourists like us, reside here in Eden, or have recently washed ashore after some harrowing experience at sea. Either way, they blend in well and seem quite at home here.

They smoke often and carry packs of cigarettes with them almost everywhere, most certainly to dine. They inhale long and deep and emit smoke eternally, as they converse, and everything else. Watching them smoke, you get the sense they are oblivious to the risk, that disease will spare them and target the less fortunate.  I do not smoke cigarettes, but if I did, I would hope to smoke with as much passion and obvious enjoyment. You get the feeling they would respond to any inquiring about such risks with a polite and casual, “No problem, no worry, no care.”

The Europeans are fascinating. European women are eye-catching, as is my wife who is often identified as European, presumably French, during our stay. We are always greeted in French and I wonder if it’s because we appear to be so, or as suggested, my wife appears to be. I do my best to pronounce the three or four phrases I know as realistically as possible. Sometimes it works. My son asks me what the words mean and I respond by telling him to address me only in French. He winces and wonders why such parental influence is permitted to continue. Surely, by now, I should be neutered or something. My boy has the time of his life on the Island. He is a water boy and rarely leaves it. He befriends other young children at our hotel and becomes smitten with a young French girl visiting with her family, who we believe is slightly older, which in kid-years is equal to canine-years. Appeal magnifies with age for both of them and it is apparent his youth is to his disadvantage with this slightly older French beauty queen. He nonetheless moves on and conquers the language during his stay, contradicting all those with obvious disregard for French history. We appreciate his gifts and drink to the gene pool.          

On our last full day in Eden, we toast often to this glorious place and begin to think about our return and when exactly it will occur. With responsibility increasing back home in very short order, I suggest we might be ready for a breather even if it falls smack in the middle of peak season. Whenever, my wife and son confirm their readiness. Our time here was slower than expected, and yet on this last day, as we look back, we realize just how fast our time went by. All of our experiences, every single one is an adventure we would surely repeat. Once again, our friends at Churchill & Turen, experts in leisure extraordinaire, have steered us with skill and precision to an Island of our dreams, the Island Royale, St. Barthelemy. As we bid farewell aloft in our charter en route to St. Maarten the following day, close to dawn, we circle the Island yet awakened. The ocean is serene and vivid blue. Sailboats scattered in and around tiny coves and inlets are motionless, static but for the slow rolling waves cascading ahead on the beach.           

As our plane climbs higher in the sky we say farewell to enchanted Eden. “No problem, no worry, no care.”