Saba and St. Eustatias

   We spent the past 5 or 6 days exploring the Dutch Indian islands of Saba ("Say-Bah") and St. Eustatias ("Stay-Sha").  As described in the editorial below from a couple days ago, the sea conditions were not very enjoyable...not really rough, but just annoying enough to make us roll all day and night, for 7 days, from gunwale to gunwale.  Not awesome for relaxation.

  However, the islands were pretty cool.  Saba was too rough to go ashore, but we did manage to get in the water and snorkel.  We saw about 10 sea turtles and tons of fish and lobsters.  The water was unbelievably clear, even for Caribbean standards. Saba is well off the beaten track for tourists, so we were the only visiting boat on the island for a while.

   The neighbor island of St. Eustatias is also off the cruising track, so we were only one of two or three boats on the whole island over the weekend.  The island has a big fuel refinery, so there were plenty of tugs and oil tankers, but no tourists, which was great.  We got some really inexpensive food and supplies from the Chinese Mini-Market and did a great hike to the top of Mount Mazinga, otherwise known as "The Quill."  The hike was to the crater rim of a dormant volcano, and the views were great.

  Today we arrived in St. Kitts (St. Christopher), which is very beautiful from the sea.  We are doing our monthly marina visit to top off on water, groceries, and to clean the boat, but since the marina only charges 50 cents per foot for the night (about 15 dollars for us), we decided to splurge and spend four nights in the marina, with access to wifi, running water showers, and flushing toilets - ah the sweet lap of luxury!

  Here are a few pictures of our latest trips, when bandwidth improves we'll post full versions of them on Flickr, under "Pictures" above.  Should be done in a couple days, latest.

 We caught a big Dorado (Mahi Mahi) along the way.

Checking out the view from the top of a barren island.

 Kellee posing on the crater rim of Mount Mazinga on Statia.

 This feral chicken came up to us while Kellee was posing.  The chicken decided to pose too, so we took it's picture.  I can't say I've ever seen a chicken on a volcano before.

 St. Eustatias had a fort on it, which was restored a few years ago and has some great views and artifacts.

On the hike down we got hit by some rain, but luckily the local vegetation was big enough to shelter under.