...Saba is not off the list either.
I'm going to make some comments about Saba that will probably annoy some people, but here goes - and remember this is just my opinion. We had a lot of fun on Saba but I am not interested in going back because it's hard to get around, the vermin are terrible, and it is noisy!
A number of years ago we spent a week diving off Saba on the Caribbean Explorer and it was a great trip and we loved it, the diving was beautiful and I would recommend it to anyone; but then we spent the second week living on the island.
It is a gorgeous island and very picturesque, but it is so steep that it is very hard to move around whether you are on foot or in a car. There weren't many hotels at that time and none of them had air conditioning. We stayed in a cottage at Juliana's which was rated as a nice hotel, but it was hot and we couldn't get any rest because the tree frogs and crickets made an awful racket and the mosquitos were ferocious. (Ever try sleeping in the steamy tropics under a mosquito net bombarded by the din made by millions of insects and frogs? It's not that much fun!)
The islanders talk about the "serenade" and refer to the "crickets" but I have seen them with my own eyes and they looked like huge, noisy, flying cockroaches to me. I was afraid to go outside after dark. The crickets/roaches were bigger than the tree frogs and they were all over the place, the bushes and trees were full of them and they were crawling on the buildings and scuttling across the ground. There were probably some actual crickets out there too.
There were also rats scurrying around at night. I actually don't mind lizards or bats (they eat the bugs) but there were bats flying around too. Below is a blog entry about the hazards of maintaining fruit trees on Saba and it mentions the abundant vermin. I know that it is a tropical island topped by a rain forest and so you should expect that there will be bugs but this was too much for me. I have been to places where the mosquitos and no-see-ums were worse but Saba had the worst "overall vermin" problem in my experience. Oh, and did I mention the giant centipedes?!
Fresh water is scare and most people use cistern water to shower and wash and drink bottled water, or filtered cistern water. That's okay but not ideal, but I do remember that the people were very friendly and it wasn't at all a "touristy place" and there were no concerns about crime, so that was nice.
To be fair, let me say that things have probably changed since we were there, and there are now more hotels and even Juliana's has some rooms with A/C. Being able to shut tight all the doors and windows would help a lot, but some places only have A/C in the bedrooms. I have read that they have taken steps to control the mosquitos, including putting guppies in the cisterns - that's good but that makes the bottled drinking water seem more attractive to me!
Visiting Saba was an interesting experience and we have many good memories and I don't regret it; but if I were to return it would probably be on a liveaboard and not a land-based trip. I might enjoy spending a day or two on the island but that would be enough. And I just don't think it would be a good place to induce quiet reflection or be conducive for writing.
Fruit Trees
