Dec 25 Christmas St. Barts

 Christmas in St. Barts, a quaint little French city that Santa has given many presents to.  Except for a reasonable airport.

St. Barts is a tender port, so whether you're on a cruise ship or a mega-yacht, you have to take a tender into the harbor.  If you're a small yacht, but still rich, you can tie up in the inner harbor.

These were are neighbors when we dropped anchor.  There were similar, or bigger, yachts on the other side of the ship.  To separate the mega-rich and their yachts from the merely rich, look for the onboard helicopter. Gossip columns had it that Jeff Bezos and Heidi Klum were in town (but not together).

The cheaper anchorage

Our tender dropped us off in the inner harbor.  Not much traffic -- it was Christmas.

Everything goes uphill quickly from the harbor

It was about 80F as we walked around in the morning

No stores were open.  Only 650 possible purchasers, even if it was a premium cruise ship, was not enough to disturb the holiday for the French.  But the cafes were open, and looked to be inhabited by locals.  I could tell because most of them were smoking.

This was in the window of a closed shop, hence all of the reflections.  I don't know if this was a picture, painting, or something created by AI.  That is the St. Barts airport in the picture, but the plane had definitely not taken off from there.  I'm guessing that if it is a picture, there was an air show and the runway served as the center line for the show.  Look at all the cars parked to the left of the runway along the road there.

If you're not familiar with the St. Barts airport, just find some videos on YouTube. The runway is steeply downhill and the approach goes over a ridge that has a traffic circle on it.  Cars don't enter that traffic circle when planes are approaching because the planes go over it with 10' or less of clearance. A WW2 P40 would not be landing, or taking off, from that runway.

The priests were ringing the bells summoning parishioners for Christmas services at the Anglican Church.

A short walk from the inner harbor is Shell Beach.

It's not a big beach, but there were a number of locals there (more than in the church).  It's also popular with the yachts.  We did see a small inflatable deliver some people from a yacht, although I think they were heading into town. There was a cafe right on the beach.

We passed the Catholic Church on the way back just as people were leaving.

Here's a parishioner walking away from church, VERY SLOWLY. He was about a foot in length and seemed well fed.

Here's our tender back to the yacht. We have a skilled and friendly staff running it, always important on a yacht (or cruise ship).

Not ours, but looks almost as big.

A traditional Christmas dinner was served in the buffet.  Carved turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and all the rest. Or, lobster and steak if that's your preference.  I'm not sure about the spelling on the Christmas cake here, but it's the thought that counts.  And the taste, and the cake was very good.