Statia

We left Saba in the early afternoon, after a morning dive trip.  The dive shop in Saba had contacted a dive shop in nearby St. Eustatia for us to arrange for diving the next morning and help with clearing in since we would not make it to Statia before close of business.  They also checked on the conditions of the anchorage for us, we were concerned it would be as rocky as it was a Saba. 

Statia was another small Dutch island, about 12 miles south of Saba.  As we got closer we could see that Statia appears to be a fuel holding station for the area.  They had quite a few tankers off shore and holding tanks along their northwest shore. 

Statia is also a volcano island, but different from Saba.  It is larger than Saba, but you can see that it’s volcano must have erupted differently.  On Statia you can easily see the crater of the volcano.  Hiking up to and in the crater is also popular here, but we wouldn’t have time to hike here.  It was Friday afternoon.  Our plan was to dive Saturday morning – hopefully a good wreck dive, since they have quite a few here.  Then maybe a short walk in town, and then we would need to head straight for St. Kitts.  We hoped to be able to clear in to St. Kitts and attend church there.  Neither Statia or Saba had branches of our church there, St. Kitts was the closest branch along our path.

About a mile out from shore we were greeted by over a dozen dolphins.  Some just swam by, but a few stayed to play for a while in our bow wake.  They were so fun to watch as they would swim and jump near the boat.  It reminded me of traveling along the Intercoastal waterway in North and South Carolina where we would see dolphins everyday.  Out here we only see them occasionally.  But we do see turtles a lot, so I guess it is a trade.

We arrived in Statia just after 5pm.  We found a spot to anchor and settled in for the night.  It wasn’t as calm as I was hoping for, but it was slightly better then the Saba anchorage.  Viewing the town from the boat, it looked like a cute little Dutch town and we were excited to go for a walk in the town tomorrow. 

I woke up the next morning feeling sick.  I really wanted to go diving, but I did not feel well at all.  We decided to re-plan.  We would scratch diving.  Should we still go into town for a walk and see it?  I wanted to, but again I didn’t know if I would make it on a walk.  Also, we had not cleared in and customs would not be in for another hour, plus we would then have to pay the clearance fees even just to stay for an hour.  We decided to pull up the anchor and head down to St. Kitts.  We waved goodbye to Statia with regrets of not being able to stay and see more.