St Eustatius or Statius - Wednesday 8th April

Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Thu 9 Apr 2015 10:49
17:28.88N 62:59.32 W

A three hour sail from Basseterre St Kitts the first couple of hours in the lee of St Kitts and then an hour across open water to this island. Once known as the Golden Rock.

We are now on a buoy in the bay at Oranjastrad - the main town of this island.

It's a small bay with a beach and few houses surrounded by cliffs on top of which, is the town and The Fort. We are the only yacht in here at the moment and it's amazing to think several hundred years ago it used to be a main trading port with 300 hundred plus ships anchored off and the town had a population of 20,000 in its peak trading era. Now outside the bay there are several large oil tankers. We have no idea what the town is like now but we do know that hopefully we shall be able to climb the volcano The Quill (Dutch for pit is KUIL) - it's not that high and it appears not to be covered in cloud as has been the case on other islands. From here we can also see the island of Saba which we won't be visiting. This island now Dutch since the 1800's but has had both French and English occupancy over the years . It was the first island to recognise Americas new independence from England in 1776 at which the English were not at all happy about. Apparently now on November 16th each year the island celebrates Statia- America day with a carnival.