- Where
- Northern Leeward Islands
Caribbean Netherlands - Coordinates
- 17.6333° N
63.2333° W - Area
- 13 km²
(Wikipedia) - People
- 2,158 (January 2025)
(Wikipedia) - Runway
- About 400 m
Twin Otters and Islanders only - Mount Scenery
- 870 m (Wikipedia)
887 m (Saba Tourism) - Advisory
- Saba and Sint Eustatius Level 1
Every bend in the road was a hairpin, and the road was mostly bends. It climbed through cloud past white cottages with red roofs, and a hummingbird working the hibiscus, and the sea far below on every side. In a front room a woman was drawing threads out of white linen and tying the rest into flowers. I asked how long a piece took. She smiled and went on.
The short answer
Saba is a Caribbean island of 13 square kilometres, south-east of the Virgin Islands and north-west of Sint Eustatius, and since 2010 a special municipality of the Netherlands; with Bonaire and Sint Eustatius it makes up the Caribbean Netherlands. It is essentially one dormant volcano, Mount Scenery, whose summit is the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands: Wikipedia gives it as 870 metres, and Saba Tourism’s trail page as 887. Wikipedia gives the population on 1 January 2025 as 2,158, living in The Bottom, the capital, and the villages of Windwardside, Zion’s Hill and St. Johns. English is the main language, and the US dollar has been the currency since 2011. Saba calls itself the Unspoiled Queen.
Why it's worth knowing
Getting onto Saba has always been the hard part. The coast is mostly cliffs a hundred metres high or more, and until the late 20th century, Wikipedia records, everything landed by boat was carried up some 800 stone steps called the Ladder. The airport, the Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport on the island’s one flat point, has a runway of about 400 metres with a hillside on one side and cliffs dropping to the sea at both ends. Saba Tourism describes it as reputed to be the shortest commercial airstrip in the world, and Winair, the airline that flies it, calls it the shortest commercial runway in its own account of landing there. Jets cannot use it; the scheduled flights are Winair’s Twin Otters, which carry up to 16 passengers. The pilot Remy de Haenen made the first landing on the island on 9 February 1959, and the airport opened in 1963.
The road came first. Saba had only footpaths and stone steps until 1938, when work began on what islanders call The Road; Wikipedia records that Dutch and Swiss engineers had judged a road impossible, and that it was built by Sabans without machines, reaching The Bottom in 1943, Windwardside in 1951 and Hell’s Gate in 1958, and extended to the airport in 1963. The man most often named as its builder is Josephus Lambert “Lambee” Hassell, a self-taught engineer who, by Saba Tourism’s account, took a correspondence course in civil engineering. The Saba Islander, a history site written by the island historian Will Johnson, gives a fuller credit: the first section, Fort Bay to The Bottom, was engineered by the Department of Public Works on Curaçao and funded through the efforts of the councillor Errol Hassell, and Lambee Hassell, then living on Aruba, came home afterwards to engineer the rest.
The field notes
Saba lace
Saba lace, once called Spanish Work, is drawn-thread work: threads are pulled from cotton or linen cloth and the remaining threads tied into patterns. Saba Tourism and Wikipedia both credit Mary Gertrude Hassell Johnson, whose parents sent her to a convent in Caracas, Venezuela, where the nuns taught her the craft; Wikipedia has her teaching it on her return in the 1870s, and Saba Tourism dates her bringing it home to 1884, the year regular mail service reached the island. Mail made it a business. Wikipedia records that the women wrote to American firms whose names they found on goods arriving from the United States, that by the First World War about 250 women on an island of some 2,000 people were making lace, and that by 1928 sales to the United States alone brought in $15,000 a year. With most of the men away at sea, Saba became known as the Island of Women. The craft was documented by the folklorist Eric A. Eliason in two books, in 1997 and 2010, and the lacemakers received the Prince Bernhard Caribbean Culture Prize, in 2014 by Wikipedia’s account. Saba Tourism lists sessions with the Saba Lace Ladies, who meet at the Saba Lace Room in Windwardside, where visitors can watch the work being made.
Cloud forest and pinnacles
The top of Mount Scenery is cloud forest. Wikipedia describes an 8.6-hectare Elfin Forest Reserve above about 825 metres, of mountain mahogany hung with orchids and other epiphytes, and Saba Tourism counts 1,064 steps on the trail up from Windwardside. Below the waterline, the Saba National Marine Park, set up in 1987 and run by the Saba Conservation Foundation, protects the reefs and volcanic pinnacles around the island with permanent moorings and a small per-dive fee; Wikipedia records that the shoreline holds the Caribbean’s largest breeding colony of red-billed tropicbirds, and that the Foundation has run a hyperbaric chamber at Fort Bay since 1991. The island has an older history too: in the 17th and 18th centuries its plantations of sugar and indigo were worked by enslaved Africans, and most Sabans today descend from both Africans and Europeans.
Windwardside's white houses and red roofs below the cloud on Mount Scenery.
Photograph: Carl Pruneau · Windwardside · CC BY-SA 3.0 · cropped
The Road, cut across the slopes of Saba high above the sea.
Photograph: Patrick Hawks · Saba1798-Hawks-The Road · CC BY 2.0 · cropped
Saba lace, the island's drawn-thread work, at the Harry L. Johnson Museum in Windwardside. One piece spells out SABA.
Photograph: Gruepig · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
Wells Bay on Saba's north-west coast, where volcanic cliffs drop into the sea, with Torrens Point beyond.
Photograph: CareAhLine · CC0 · cropped
- Book the seat by the window for the landing, and clap afterwards. Nobody will mind.
- Drive the road slowly, or better, let somebody who grew up on it do the driving.
- Climb to the cloud forest in the early morning, before the mountain pulls the cloud up over its ears.
- Buy your lace from the lacemaker herself, and pay what she asks.
- Keep the list small here. The island is small as well, and the two of them got on famously.
A piece of Saba lace. A square of white cotton or linen from which threads have been drawn out one by one and the threads that remain tied into patterns, so that the design is made of what was taken away as much as what was left. It is still made by hand by the island’s lacemakers, who learnt it from one another, and for decades, sold by post to the United States, it was one of the island’s leading sources of income.
Tally, in the marginMost of my own stitches are the ones holding me together, and none is as tidy as the smallest flower in this. I have resolved to be more careful with a needle, and to keep well away from scissors.
Getting there
How to get there. Saba is reached from Sint Maarten. Saba Tourism lists four Winair flights a day, taking no more than twelve minutes, and two ferries: the Makana, about 75 minutes, several days a week, and The Edge, about 90 minutes, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Check both timetables when you plan. There is no aviation fuel on the island, and flights depend on the weather at that short runway.
When to go. Any time of year for hiking and diving; Wikipedia records the island’s Carnival in the last week of July, and Saba Day, when offices, schools and shops close. Start the Mount Scenery climb early in the day.
What to arrange ahead. Flights or ferry seats in both directions, a room in Windwardside or The Bottom, a dive operator if you dive, and a taxi or a careful driver for The Road; Wikipedia warns that its curves in Windwardside are hard to drive, and sets the speed limit at 40 km/h outside the villages.
Safety. The State Department has Saba and Sint Eustatius at Level 1, exercise normal precautions, its lowest level. It warns that bringing guns, ammunition or even spent shells and casings onto the island is illegal and can lead to long detention, and that medical services are limited.
Mark this place
Common questions
Where is Saba?
Saba is a 13 square kilometre volcanic island in the northern Leeward Islands of the Caribbean, south-east of the Virgin Islands and north-west of Sint Eustatius. Since 2010 it has been a special municipality of the Netherlands, part of the Caribbean Netherlands, and Wikipedia gives its population in January 2025 as 2,158.
Does Saba have the shortest runway in the world?
Saba’s Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport has a runway of about 400 metres. Saba Tourism describes it as reputed to be the shortest commercial airstrip in the world, and Winair, the airline that flies there, calls it the shortest commercial runway. Jets cannot use it; Winair flies Twin Otters from Sint Maarten.
How do you get to Saba?
Saba is reached from Sint Maarten, either by Winair, which Saba Tourism says flies four times a day in no more than twelve minutes, or by ferry: the Makana takes about 75 minutes and The Edge about 90. The airport’s runway of about 400 metres takes only small short-take-off planes.
What is The Road on Saba?
The Road is the main road of Saba, nicknamed the Road That Couldn’t Be Built because foreign engineers had judged it impossible. Wikipedia records that islanders built it by hand from 1938, reaching Windwardside in 1951 and Hell’s Gate in 1958. Josephus Lambert Hassell engineered much of it; the island historian Will Johnson credits its first section to engineers from Curaçao.
What is Saba lace?
Saba lace is drawn-thread work, made by pulling threads from cloth and tying the rest into patterns. Mary Gertrude Hassell Johnson learnt it at a convent in Caracas and taught it on Saba in the late 19th century, and by the First World War, Wikipedia records, about 250 Saban women were making it for mail-order buyers in the United States.
How high is Mount Scenery?
Mount Scenery, the dormant volcano that forms Saba, is the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Wikipedia gives its height as 870 metres and Saba Tourism’s trail page as 887 metres. The trail from Windwardside climbs 1,064 steps to cloud forest at the summit, according to Saba Tourism.
Is Saba part of the Netherlands?
Yes. Saba became a special municipality, or public body, of the Netherlands on 10 October 2010, when the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved; with Bonaire and Sint Eustatius it forms the Caribbean Netherlands. English is its main language, and its currency is the US dollar.
Is Saba safe to visit?
The U.S. State Department has Saba and Sint Eustatius at Level 1, exercise normal precautions, its lowest level (advisory dated 20 August 2026). It warns that bringing guns, ammunition or even spent casings onto Saba is illegal, and that medical services are limited.