Shell Beach, in Gustavia, was a simple spot to swim and snorkel in the sun.
I waved up to get the attention of Neile, who was at the helm of the tender taking me and the boat-full of other passengers from the moored Oceania Cruises ship Vista into Gustavia, St. Barth’s. When Neile snuck a peak down at me, I pantomimed for him to push the throttle all the way forward to full speed. Neile laughed, but I was excited to get ashore in St. Barth’s, the rocky island of 7,000 residents described as the “Monaco of the Caribbean:” part French Riviera-part French Polynesia.
When we did finally reach the dock, I teased Neile by saying the pirates’ line from the film “Captain Phillips:” “Look at me…I’m the captain now.”
“You might be,” Neile answered. “Because after you encouraged me speed up the Officer of the Watch saw me from Vista’s bridge and radioed to tell me to slow back down.”
There is lots of fast money in the designer boutique shops of St. Barth’s where there is a small concentration of people but a high ratio of beautiful ones. “He told me he’d buy whatever car I wanted, so I decided to design my own Porche,” I overheard a diamond-ringed brunette say.
I hoofed it through town, past the Anglican church and Bagatelle’s bougainvillea-covered, yacht-filled harborside restaurant to Shell Beach, where not all the women wear their bikini tops in the scenic, butte-surrounded sandy cove along warm water bluer than the sky. As I swam between the shore and the giant luxury yacht called “Flag” anchored out in the bay, my eye was caught by a bejeweled blonde woman reflecting the sun off her shimmering, silver bikini while preening with her toes in the surf.
While paddling past, I called out to her, “Your bikini is glamorous!”
“Merci,” the beauty happily answered.
“Lots of bling!”
She swooned and said, in her charming French accent, “Oui, it is perfect for this place!”
“Si bon!”
“Merci.”
“Non ‘bon,’” I corrected myself, “c’est magnifique!”
Just then a group of eight kayak paddled by French schoolchildren passed in front of me headed for shore. “Bon jour, monsieur!” one of them looked down and greeted me.
“Bon jour, les petit enfants,” I responded to their surprise. This triggered one of the children to ask me a long question en France, to which I could only smile. I may have been swimming but I was out of my depth in French.
I watched these little children, under the supervision of a teacher, dutifully carry and put away their kayaks on a rack. They then stood in line each holding, vertically, their yellow paddles, which stuck up above their heads to make them look like a tiny, toy army.
Two young men swam by with snorkel gear and I asked them if they were seeing much?
“Oui. Many fish, yes. Near the rocks,” one of them responded.
Bring your own towel, but otherwise Oceania cruisers and other tourists had all they needed at Shell Beach, where there is an admittedly expensive ($40 fish sandwich; $18 daquiri) “barefoot casual” bar and restaurant – Shellona – on Shell Beach.
I preferred my “cheeseburger in paradise,” at Le Select, the bar that inspired Jimmy Buffett, who loved St. Barth’s, to write the hit song. The scruffy, colorful, indoor-outdoor Le Select, boasts it has “avoided progress since 1949.” If it was good enough for the prince of parrot-heads and David Rockefeller, it was good enough for me to swill a bottle of Tibarth, the local beer, with my burger in homage to Buffett.
The chefs around the corner, if they smelled the burgers grilling, were probably secretly envious as they cut carrots at L’Atelier, the French restaurant of Michelin-starred super chef Joel Robuchon’s restaurant L’Atelier.
Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at MShiels@aol.com His new book: Travel Tattler – Not So Torrid Tales, may be purchased via Amazon.com
