Anse de Grande Saline takes its name from the large salt pond nearby. The beach is a favorite of nudists who turn right and gay visitors who turn left , but everybody takes time out for lunch at Le Grain de Sel.
At various turning points in my life, I have run away and washed up on St. Barts like a worn piece of beach glass. There was the time I hid from a mad Italian boyfriend in a hillside villa near Luri.
There was the Easter Sunday I spent with my best friend on Anse des Flamands, heartbroken, eating conch salad. There was also the time I went to St. Barts madly in love with my husband, Bruno, and our two-month-old baby, stressed out to the point of madness, the result of late motherhood after too many years reporting on too many wars.
For me, the island has never been a place, like Mustique or Harbour Island, where chic fashionistas get dressed up to go to the beach. I want to be invisible, peaceful, low-key. And over the years, I have discovered a parallel, private universe on St.
Barts, a completely different world from the one you see splashed all over the pages of magazines. In early May of last year, at the start of low season, I came back with my husband and that newborn, who was now five and just learning to swim. The trip did not start well. Our toy plane landed, but the bags didn't. Apparently, they had decided to stay behind and vacation on the tarmac in Guadeloupe. The pilot told us, reassuringly, "We can't carry luggage. Too heavy. Last week we crashed a plane.
