This volcanic island in the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles has a rough rocky coast and no beaches at all. The island of Saba is part of Caribbean Netherlands, the municipality belonging to the Netherlands. It is small, its 2,000 inhabitants live in four settlements. The terrain here is mountainous, Mount Scenery in the center of the island, 887 meters/ 2,910 feet high is the highest peak of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The only road on the island was completed in the middle of the 20th century. Its construction was a difficult engineering task. Some say the "road" was almost impossible to build.
The local airport on Saba has a 400-meter runway that ends with a rocky cliff on both sides. It is widely considered to be the shortest commercial runway in the world. Only specially trained pilots from one airline are licensed to land here. It is an amazing experience to be in an airplane that slows down so much in the air while approaching the runway. A few seconds before touching the ground, we hear an alarm from the cockpit, beep, beep, beep... The onboard system warns pilots that the speed is too slow, but it should be this way. We have to approach as slowly as possible. There is not much room on this airstrip to stop an excessively speeding plane.
