It was nearing midnight when the tender pulled alongside a tall-masted barkentine anchored off the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. I scrambled up the gangway in the dark of Philipsburg harbor as if stepping into the pages of Richard Henry Dana.
In fact I was about to embrace a new age of cruising. I was the last passenger aboard the Star Flyer–a vessel with 19th Century lines and 21st Century amenities–on a week’s run from St. Maarten down through the Leewards and back, and though I was glad to be treated to creature comforts and good food, I mainly looked forward to running with the wind under those big sails and exploring islands better known for historic fortresses and jungly hiking trails than casinos, resort hotels and duty-free shops.
Normally I don’t touch island cruises and the short shrift–off at 9 a.m., back at 4 p.m.–that their schedules demand, but given the difficulty and expense of hopping by plane or ferry between islands, I saw this as a way to snare some favorites (St. Eustatius, Saba, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua) in one swoop. In a way I Liked the brevity of the shore stops: it meant I had to skim the best off each island and not lie around frying my brain.
At midnight we were off, knots of American, French, German and English passengers standing on deck gaping as crewmen, barely straining, ran up the sails of this upscale tall ship.
I fell asleep in a cabin as roomy and well appointed as that of most cruise ships, and when I awoke, it was 7:30 in the eastern Caribbean and a high green island was framed in the porthole. Somewhere else, rush-hour fever was rising, but all I had to contemplate was this: Will I have time to see the restored fortress and other historic sights on St. Eustatius (Statia for short) and still hike to the top of the volcanic peak called The Quill, which had defeated me on a visit years before?
At 8:30, the captain called us on deck to share a message of good news and bad. It was Statia Day, an island holiday, on this tiny Dutch possession, so the shops and restaurants would be closed. On the other hand we could meet Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who was touring the Dutch Antilles and making her royal rounds on Statia all day.
A lot of my shipmates didn’t care one way or the other: they were ready for a full menu of water sports (a Star Flyer specialty). I figured I could snorkel or sail any day, so I was on the first tender to Oranjestad, and when I reached the top of the cobbled hill above the waterfront, I found the little restored fortress jammed to its ramparts.
People stood on the walls and crowded the lawns as the Queen, in flowery dress and pillbox hat, sat in a reviewing stand and watched young Statians perform songs and dances on a temporary stage. At her feet, restless schoolchildren waved tiny island flags. Seated beside her were local dignitaries and her three sons, in lightweight business suits. One of them, the tall, blond Alexander, would be her successor. Or so I learned from a Dutch businessman pressed beside me with a video camera.
“She is a very dedicated queen, and very serious,” he said. A steel band, the Soul Survivors, filled the warm air with a metallic jangle. As the stage show ended, Beatrix moved forward in a mob of admirers and spoke with the dreadlocked band leader. He handed her a drumstick and explained how to use it. She gave it a few noiseless flicks and handed it back. “Safer hands,” she said. Then she was off in a small caravan of well-polished cars.
As I poked about Oranjestad, I could see Statia had added little commercial development in 20 years. There were two small inns, a few cafes and mazes of winding lanes leading to small neat houses and vine-tangled ruins. A jolly lunch crowd had gathered outdoors at Sonny’s Place (the only cafe open), but I took my map and a pack lunch from the Star Flyer and walked down a back lane to the sunlit ruins of an 18th Century synagogue. I sat down on a cracked step to eat, while a rooster strutted and crowed on a vine-covered wall. Years ago, I had made a feeble attempt to climb The Quill, a 2,000-foot green peak that towers above Statia. It is the goal of every fit visitor. I wanted another crack.
I found the trail, off Rosemary Lane, and picked my way upward, cursing the mud and sapping heat. In the enclosing green canopy I heard the rustle of lizards. Now and then, bright, coral-tinged land crabs appeared at my feet, quickly drawing in their claws to resemble gray rocks. Dripping with sweat, I came to the brink of the crater and looked down into a steep-walled jungle. There were more trails, but I turned back. The descent was fast and tricky. Halfway down, I met two Englishmen from the ship, huffing their way up the trail. I think we were the only passengers to take on The Quill, and for the rest of the week we would share weary smiles, as if to say: Did we really do that?
At dinner that night, as the Star Flyer sailed toward St. Kitts, I sat beside second mate Andrew Ellers, a Clevelander. Ellers, with a gold earring and full beard, looked piratical or at least historical. There were several sailing mavens at the table, and we started throwing nautical terms around.
For a few days the air had been clammy and close, maybe a hangover from hurricane season, but in the morning the sky was a deep, cleansed blue, the trades were blowing and the only clouds in sight wreathed the uplands of St. Kitts and its smaller neighbor, Nevis.
St. Kitts was new to me, and I was impressed with the way this high green island, fought over by the French and English and granted independence from England in 1983, wears its history on its sleeve. Several of the top businesses and inns occupy onetime sugar plantations, recalling the island’s salad days, and the most intriguing landmark of all, Brimstone Hill Fortress, echoes with the crash of Napoleonic conflict.
Brimstone Hill, nine miles up the coast from the busy little port of Basseterre, is perched on a mountainside 800 feet above the sea, flanked by acres of waving cane fields and honeycombed with bastions and barracks. The 40-acre national park is a cool and breezy redoubt that encourages you to snake through tunnels, follow nature trails in search of the green velvet monkey and picnic on sunlit lawns.
If you want a colorful history lesson (the fort took more than a century to build and hasn’t been fired on since the French tried to wrest it from the British in 1806), look for Clifford Williams, a museum guide. Williams told me the first order of business when the Brimstone Hill Restoration Society was organized in 1965 was to stop residents from pilfering stones from the site to build their houses.
I had hoped to squeeze in a visit to Nevis nearby, but just missed the 2 p.m. ferry. So I took a taxi to Friars Beach on a remote stretch of St. Kitts and joined my sports-minded shipmates who had been deposited there for the day by Zodiac raft with snorkeling gear, sailboards and other water toys.
There were stops later in the week at Antigua, with its restored 18th Century waterfront, Nelson’s Dockyard; at the little Dutch Alp called Saba, where I hiked up Mt. Scenery on winding stone steps built decades ago, and at St. Barts, a sandy scoop of France whose sense of culture is largely epicurean (yum).
Just as rewarding as the shore visits were the long runs under sail, the 19th Century meeting the 21st, the salt spray cooling crew and passengers as we bounded toward another of the unsung, undeveloped but not unloved little isles.
CARIBBEAN SAILING SET
The Star Flyer and its sister ship, Star Clipper, will sail 7-day itineraries in the Caribbean this winter. The Clipper will make Barbados her homeport, calling at St. Lucia and Martinique among other islands.
The Flyer usually makes homeport in St. Maarten, but due to damage from Hurricane Luis, the company is in the process of moving the ship elsewhere. At presstime, details were not complete.
Most outside cabins are $1,345 or $1,595 (rates vary depending on time of year and are per person, double ouccpancy). A few inside cabins are $1,045 or $1,345. If available, guaranteed single cabins are $1,545 or $1,795. Air fare is extra.
For more information, call 800-442-0551.
