The Very Green Unspoiled Queen
In June, I visited Saba for just one day of hiking with the SXM Trails hiking association. It’s a small and beautiful volcanic island just twelve minutes away by plane and about two hours by ferry. Much newer than St. Martin, it is part of an arc of younger islands (or St. Martin is part of an arc of older islands) that sit beside each other in the northern part of the Lesser Antilles. It is known as The Unspoiled Queen, which is pretty accurate. With steep slopes and a lack of natural harbors, it is sparsely populated and very beautiful.
This first set of photos shows some views of Saba from the ferry, the towns of The Bottom and Windwardside and a few other hilltops and landscapes.
Saba is also an island where, to me, the plant life is probably more outstanding than the animal life. The top of Mount Scenery catches a cloud almost every day, providing plenty of water, and the height of the island naturally creates a variety of habitats, from tropical scrubland at the lower elevations to rainforest and elfin cloud forest near the top. I really didn’t photograph very many plants, the tree ferns are particularly wonderful, but here are a few. Some of the flowers were in town, so I’m not sure which are likely to be native.
