SABA

While the true rainforest is atop Mount Scenery, the lush vegetation extends most of the way down to the sea. Flowers abound everywhere on the island, both in quantity and variety. I believe there must be every form of hibiscus known from plain to fancy, as well as an enormous variety of others.

DIVING     RAIN FOREST

DIVING     RAIN FOREST

St. Maarten is 28 miles from Saba and your last contact with the modern world. When you fly across that 28 miles of open water, you seem to go backwards in time. Just the look of the cloud enshrouded island as you approach reminds one of the opening scenes from ‘King Kong’. You can imagine that the top of 3000 foot Mount Scenery was the perch from which that huge simian watched those intrepid explorers approaching .

But enough of that! Saba actually is the top of a once active volcano as are many of the islands of the West Indies, but the good news is - it hasn’t erupted for about 5000 years. Saba is a very vertical island with rocky precipitous shorelines and homes built on steep slopes, and Mount Scenery actually does have a perpetual cloud hanging around it’s crown.  There are (mandated by law) starkly white houses with bright red roofs dotting the steep slopes all around the island. One of Saba’s claims to fame (albeit dubious) is that it boasts the world’s shortest commercial runway with sheer cliffs on each end. One little mistake by the pilots and  .. oops! When leaving, the plane quite literally flew off the end of the runway and dropped to gain flying speed. We don’t even want to talk about the approach to landing.  It’s just best you occupy yourself otherwise than watching!