I finally arrive on Dec 31st.

If you are planning on coming, make sure that you have the neccessary travel documents on you or in your carry on. Do not check it in your checked baggage. Because you will delay the rest of passengers for approx. 2 hours. All you need is a passport when you arrive at Saba. And Patience.
You need a lot when you get to SXM. It took me 2 hours to get my luggages at SXM. And I'm still missing one. It got lost in Atlanta. If your hotel picks you up, go for it. If not pay the extra for them to. A taxi ripped me off. Also If you plan on going shopping at Cost u Less, take a bag. They pack everything in boxes. You can find just about everything in SXM. Some things are about the same price and others at the extreme.

Ferry takers, pay $5.00 per bag at the ticket counter. If you are first in line and put your bags at the ferry first, it will get on. If not then you just have to wait till they send it over. The ferry ride is not that bad. I've had worst. I believe it probably took like 1 hour to get here. No one came for us at SABA. We arranged our own travel to the dorm and elsewhere.

Hitch hiking. Even though the books said it is allowed and the locals will stop for you. Forget it. I've tried about 20 times and I've gotten 2 rides so far. Unless you are planning on buying a car, walking will be your form of transportation. For the time I've been here, I think that some of the locals are fored to be nice. I'm the one iniating greetings, conversation.

Grocery Shopping. Things are really expensive. I bought 5 items and paid $36.00 US. Even though Colorado is expensive, I would have paid $10.00 with tax. Thank God I shipped 3 boxes of food. Vege. Stuff is expensive, esp. soy milk. I also have purchased water to drink. I got sick from the water. I still have not figured out why I itch from the shower water.

That is it for now.
Winters

LOL... I am sooo glad to be done with school on the rock and I wish all of you luck! As for the hitch hiking, you can always get a ride on SABA when you hitch hike... its just a matter of how long you want to wait. Also, the more locals you know, the more likely you are for them to stop.... have a great semester guys!

Val

Sounds like Saba really is part of the real world, after all.

Do you think it would be possible to attach a water filter to the shower somehow?
How about something like this: http://www.plumbingsupply.com/spriteshowerfilters.html

__________________
PGY-1 Psychiatry

I believe shower water is collected from the rain drained from the roof. Is there any mechanism in place to purify this water? Any Saba veterans would know? Dust, leaves or any kind of debris that may sit on the roof will enter the cistern and rot and surely will cause itching.

Alright... to purify your water, your best bet is to buy a whole home water purifier that has a double reverse osmosis system built into it. You can purchase these at Home Depot or any other store that deals with hardware/H2O stuff. For an example of one of these, goto

www.Homedepot.com

Then in the top right of the page you will see a search area and type in

reverse osmosis

and then when the results come up, click on the GE one for $159.99

That one is a under sink unit and it purifies your drinking water. You may also want to try specialty stores for drinking water because you can get units which clear out even smaller particle sizes and also units that fit onto the end of your water pump coming out of your cistern so that every drop of H2O is purified coming into your house. The only problem with that is that if your house has old piping then you may end up drinking some metals from those pipes! So that will at least give you some ideas. When I was on SABA we have a reverse osmosis system as the water came out of the cistern. I still didn't trust it to drink, but knowing what I know now, it would have been fairly safe. Anyways, hope this helps

Val

Thanks Vals. I guess water does not have to be itchy then.

Your other option for drinking water is to call over to St. Maartin and order 5 gallon jugs of water from a company called "HEAVENLY WATER" which is what we also did (if you call them, talk to URSULA). The 5 gallon jug costs 15 dollars to buy once, and 5 or 6 dollars to refill. All you do is drive it to the pier once a week and the following week the boat brings your jug back full. So technically you need more than one jug, but it makes water a lot cheaper than buying water by the gallon. Also, Ursula has used water bottle dispensers which cost about 80 dollars versus the 160 that cost-u-less charges... that will save you a nickel or two! You guys can thank Peter in 2nd or 3rd semester (I can't remember right now) for that little tid-bit,

Val