Some fantastic panoramic views from the terrace of our (rented) villa in Saint Barth. These panoramic pictures are based on 5 to 7 pictures and are stitched with The Panorama Factory (v3.4).
Be careful, the original versions are quite big:
Not so bad, as I didn’t use any tripod…
Yesterday, before the Saint Barth carnaval, a good time at the Shell Beach.
http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2008120101.swf
Short video message, taken from the Gouverneur beach (sorry for my “French” accent ;-).
http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2008120101.swf
First news from St Barth!
…was quite long this time ;-) We first took a flight from the EuroAirport to Paris-Orly, then from Paris to Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe (about 7.5 hours and 6’800 km). Flight on time, quite good, only about 1/3 of the plane was full, as there are some heavy strikes in Guadeloupe since weeks now. When we arrived in Guadeloupe, we were “informed” (in the French West Indies, the proactive information has another definition as in the rest of the world, i.e. you *have* to get information by yourself, customer or not, it doesn’t matter!) that our direct flight from Pointe-à-Pitre to Saint Barth was canceled and that we have to take a flight to Saint Martin and then, from there, to take a boat to Saint Barth. This cancelation was clearly due to the strikes.
Actually, it was funny because we had flight-tickets with Air Caraibes, which has delegated our “canceled” flight to Air Antilles Express. After a while, Air Antilles didn’t have any plane left, so they had to delegate themselves to … Air Guyane Express! The flight was very nice (some pictures below), the landing extremely tough (lots of wind and turbulences). On the other side, we have discovered the second (super small) airport of Saint Martin, Grand-Case…
After that, we had to take the so-called Voyageur (high-speed boat) to Saint Barth. The trip takes about 1.5 hours, but this time, the sea was really awful, with a very strong lateral swell. A nightmare, specially for my wife and my son, who were both sick during the whole trip.
All in all, and as usual, I must say that the service and the people from Air Caraibes were just *extremely* bad. And I am not talking about customer-orientation, just about the minimum level of politeness we should all have among human-beings… These Air Caraibes employees just deserve … nothing! On the other side, the Air Antilles Express people were informative, polite and have really tried to find a solution for everybody. Our detour through Saint Martin was properly organized, we had to pay nothing, and we had also the full excuses from the company. Well done!
Anyway, we arrived at St Barth “by night”, in the harbor instead the airport, with about 4 hours delay, which is definitely not catastrophic ;-) We had also the chance to see some great sailboats before entering the harbor, illuminating in a fantastic way! Great experience.
We had the chance to have a marvelous sunset before landing at Saint Martin.
And a good view on Saint Martin before landing.
…is really cool, with a nice swimming-pool and fantastic views on the ocean!
The back-side of the villa, which is called “L’Abricotier”:
And the main terrace with the “infinity” swimming-pool, and the view on the Lorient beach, Saint Jean Bay and the airport, plus the Anse des Cayes in the background:
This morning, we were at the Gouverneur beach, one of our preferred. Fantastic colors, and the ocean and its waves were quite … interesting for having fun with my son ;-)
The weather is typical for Saint Barth at this time: 28°C during the day with a very strong sun, 23°C during the night, 26°C in the ocean. Some sudden rains this afternoon, but during perhaps 10 minutes.
Click on the different pictures to see the full-sized versions!
More to come when I will have time again!
Some of the fantastic sunsets we have seen last year, from the villa Ella.
In about 10 days, we will there again, so I don’t know if I will publish new ones or not till then ;-)
Let’s see!
As usual, you should have a look at the high-res version here.
http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2008120101.swf
Yes, today is my birthday. 37 years old.
Thanks to Laurent and Mathieu for their wishes via Twitter.
And thanks to Stephen, Thomas, Patrick, Robert, Géraldine for their nice words via Facebook.
And thanks to all my friends and colleagues who have sent me a mail, as Martine, Doris, Bruno, Manu, Olivier, Andreas, Salah.
And thanks to all, my friends and family, who has contacted me per telephone today.
And thanks to my wife and son, Laurence and Julien, for their surprise this morning :-)
Special thanks to Martinique for her Frangipani (picture taken in Senegal).
And to the Xing team for their virtual birthday cake ;-)
From an Innoveo CI/CD point of view, Andreas (our designer) won the price ;-)
A year more, but thanks to everybody, a nice and brilliant day!
PS: yesterday evening, we had a cool dinner at “La Table de Louise”. Very nice local, very friendly and professional service, great food, and … 3 birthdays to celebrate the same evening at 3 different tables :-)
After the short presentation of the the villa Ella, a third HD video about Saint Barth, this time concerning one of our preferred beach, Colombier. One of the must of the island and a marvelous location for snorkeling!
As usual, you should also have a look at the high-res version here.
http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2008120101.swf
And still not the last video.
The next one will be for Laurent.
As mentioned in this post, I am publishing some HD video (720p, i.e. a 1280×720 resolution) on SmugMug.
Below, the second one (embedded in DVD quality). Topic is still Saint Barth, this time, with some views of the villa we were in, and the fantastic panoramic views on the Saint Barth airport and the Saint Jean Bay.
You should also have a look at the high-res version here.
http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2008120101.swf
Some other new HD videos to be published in the coming days!
I am not using so many Firefox Add-ons but this one – ScrapBook – is just great!
You can download it here.
ScrapBook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and manage the collection. Key features are lightness, speed, accuracy and multi-language support.
Major features are:
Good tutorial here (pdf, 692KB)
Some thoughts concerning 2008+ and wishes for 2009.
Actually, 2008 started for me already in 2007 :-)
Difficult to make the cut in January 2008, as we have started Innoveo in October 2007…
So, below, some pictures which are representing my 2008+, a mix of private and professional stuff, as usual.
And, without explanations, for sure ;-)
All in all, 2008 was again extremely “different” and “stable”.
Looks interesting, isn’t it? As during all the downturn and crisis time, we will all have our ups and downs.
Hopefully with more “ups”, and not too deep “downs”!
Flexibility will be essential, as speed.
I wish you and your beloved ones all the best for the exciting coming year, a lot of fun, good wines and meals (!), success in your new business(es), and a lot of new learnings!
And keep dreaming :-)
Take care, Didier
[click on the calendar-zone to enlarge]
