St. Barthelemy
We anchored before breakfast off Gustavia, named after the king of Sweden, in a French colony, popularly known as St. Barts, that nevertheless retains numerous architectural reminders of its Swedish heritage.
Sweden gained this Caribbean outpost in 1784 in exchange for concessions to French traders with the port of Göteborg in Sweden. The island had never been developed for plantation agriculture and lacked an African slave population; its attraction to the Swedes was as a deep-water harbor servicing transatlantic merchant ships in the heyday of the age of sail. When the age of sail came to an end, the island reverted to French control. Today, in what might be termed the second age of sail, the island has become a fashionable destination for the upper echelons of the yachting fraternity, with waterside boutiques representing a good cross-section of the world's luxury fashion houses.
A stroll around the inner harbor enabled us to inspect the yachts and sample the architecture: the Anglican Church, the Swedish Consul's townhouse and several other houses fronted with Swedish bricks (brought hither as ballast) and wooden tiled roofs. There was a good choice of beaches, including the attractive Shell Beach, close by. As an afternoon option, a sizeable contingent chose to visit the delightful Inter Oceans Museum, a lifetime's collection of seashells amassed from around the world by Monsieur Ingénu Magras, now 88 years old, who personally showed us around the collection with Gallic pride.
Although the French restaurants were a great temptation, our ship's chef de cuisine, not to be outdone, had prepared a special French buffet dinner on deck. We were thus able to enjoy a truly French ambience before departing, bound for Jost van Dyke.
We anchored before breakfast off Gustavia, named after the king of Sweden, in a French colony, popularly known as St. Barts, that nevertheless retains numerous architectural reminders of its Swedish heritage.
Sweden gained this Caribbean outpost in 1784 in exchange for concessions to French traders with the port of Göteborg in Sweden. The island had never been developed for plantation agriculture and lacked an African slave population; its attraction to the Swedes was as a deep-water harbor servicing transatlantic merchant ships in the heyday of the age of sail. When the age of sail came to an end, the island reverted to French control. Today, in what might be termed the second age of sail, the island has become a fashionable destination for the upper echelons of the yachting fraternity, with waterside boutiques representing a good cross-section of the world's luxury fashion houses.
A stroll around the inner harbor enabled us to inspect the yachts and sample the architecture: the Anglican Church, the Swedish Consul's townhouse and several other houses fronted with Swedish bricks (brought hither as ballast) and wooden tiled roofs. There was a good choice of beaches, including the attractive Shell Beach, close by. As an afternoon option, a sizeable contingent chose to visit the delightful Inter Oceans Museum, a lifetime's collection of seashells amassed from around the world by Monsieur Ingénu Magras, now 88 years old, who personally showed us around the collection with Gallic pride.
Although the French restaurants were a great temptation, our ship's chef de cuisine, not to be outdone, had prepared a special French buffet dinner on deck. We were thus able to enjoy a truly French ambience before departing, bound for Jost van Dyke.
