Hi From St St Eustatius (Statia)

The Diary of Sonsy Lass
Alex & June Laidlaw
Tue 6 May 2014 22:17
17:28.970N 062:59.448W At last we left Jolly Harbour. We felt if we didn’t move we’d never move, as we like it so much. However we made our way to St Kitts. Had to do a bit of a detour on account of the wind, but eventually got to Basseterre the capital. As there were no cruise ships in and it was the weekend, we couldn’t raise customs, plus the anchorage was a nightmare because of the huge swell. Instead we found a lovely peaceful bay on the south of the island where they are going to build a up market new marina at some point. Luckily we got there first! Next stop was Statia (Dutch Antilles) which we had read a bit about. It was once the busiest port in the world as it supplied everything to everybody during the wars between the French, British, Spanish and Americans. They said that in the 1700’s, there could be up to 300 ships in the bay loading and offloading goods with hundreds more little boats ferrying to and from the dock. Unfortunately peace came and the prosperity didn’t last and it went into serious decline. There is a volcano on the island and they have made a path right up to the rim which we took. A long hard climb but worth it for the view into the crater which was amazing and the wildlife, even saw a snake (harmless we were told) very very close up. Luckily it was occupied eating a greco.

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Part of Statia’s prosperous past

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The fort which the Dutch are restoring for them

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Yes it was a very steep and hot climb!!

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This is the view into the crater. As you can see it hasn’t erupted in a while

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The red bellied racer snake right on the footpath

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