I’ve been attending the fêtes de St. Barthélemy & St. Louis, patron saints, respectively, of the island & Corossol, nearly annually for 40+ years . . . though there were years of hurricane damage, pandemic, & personal scheduling conflicts that kept me away some years. I even was a judge one year in choosing Mr. & Ms. Corossol (a funny story in the experience!). So I wandered again today to this serene, mystical corner of St. Barths.
No longer of the exuberant energy of many past years, I nonetheless reveled in walking through the heart of Corossol . . . its soul & sincere character still evident, despite small neighborhood inroads of encroaching modernity. Images of the ‘hood included in “Case et Cuisine“ (https://www.cieux.com/rvw/stBCuisine.html) remain . . . . though twenty years post-publication, many such portrayals of a simpler time elsewhere on SBH are gone. Here are a few photos to illustrate the simple modesty of this first neighborhood settlement on St. Barths.
The festival was musically led in the early afternoon by famed local musicians, Henri & Leon Ledee (noted, among other reasons as co-composers of Jimmy Buffet’s legendary “Autour du Rocher” (https://buffettworld.com/albums/far-side-of-the-world/autour-du-rocher/):
“This a a little tale about a hotel in the Caribbean
Well it wasn’t really a hotel, it was a patio
bar with funky rooms and an outdoor disco
with bad wiring. Some people said if you looked
between the cracks of the floorboards of our dance floor you would see Hell
. . .
Some say it was a planet
Some say it was a rock
For five wild years in L”Orient
The party never stopped . . .”
The beach was lovely, as always
. . . with St. Louis watching nearby, bestowing blessings on the festival & daily on the Village.
No longer of the exuberant energy of many past years, I nonetheless reveled in walking through the heart of Corossol . . . its soul & sincere character still evident, despite small neighborhood inroads of encroaching modernity. Images of the ‘hood included in “Case et Cuisine“ (https://www.cieux.com/rvw/stBCuisine.html) remain . . . . though twenty years post-publication, many such portrayals of a simpler time elsewhere on SBH are gone. Here are a few photos to illustrate the simple modesty of this first neighborhood settlement on St. Barths.
The festival was musically led in the early afternoon by famed local musicians, Henri & Leon Ledee (noted, among other reasons as co-composers of Jimmy Buffet’s legendary “Autour du Rocher” (https://buffettworld.com/albums/far-side-of-the-world/autour-du-rocher/):
“This a a little tale about a hotel in the Caribbean
Well it wasn’t really a hotel, it was a patio
bar with funky rooms and an outdoor disco
with bad wiring. Some people said if you looked
between the cracks of the floorboards of our dance floor you would see Hell
. . .
Some say it was a planet
Some say it was a rock
For five wild years in L”Orient
The party never stopped . . .”
The beach was lovely, as always
. . . with St. Louis watching nearby, bestowing blessings on the festival & daily on the Village.
