Mad Fish: Statia - 24th and 25th March 2013

Statia

Statia is a small Dutch Island 10 miles from St Kitts, and does not offer the best shelter. The guide said that you should expect to roll and with this in mind we expected to spend just the one night. We arrived mid afternoon and went ashore to see if we could get some US dollars from an ATM and also if customs were open to check in and out all in one go. Ruffian were also there and doing the same thing.

Customs was shut and we took a very hot walk up a steep hill. The ATM was experiencing a fault. We walked around a fort, more cannons and were surprised to see a small flock of brightly coloured parrots pass us. They were too quick to photograph but spotted by Ethan. He looked for them the next day on our walk but he was disappointed that we did not see them again.

With no money we returned to our respective boats for a cooling swim.

We decided to meet on Mad Fish for sundowners, which turned into dinner as we had caught a big tuna on the way, so there was more than enough to share. We were close to eating at 7.30pm when the coastguard passed us in a big black rib with about 6 people on board. They all wore dark clothing and carried big guns. We waved as they shone a search light, thinking they were just doing a security sweep of the bay. They then came along side and decided they wanted to board us.

Russell asked that the officer boarding, removed his hobnailed boots first and this did not go down well. We didn’t feel it was an unreasonable request as many people request removal of shoes before entering their home. We were asked for ships paper and passports and these were taken onto the rib and an officer dropped with us – we lost the battle of boot removal. We asked the rib if they wished to give us a line and they said they would just mill around. We were then asked to show them our flares and they looked in every cabin. The officer on board seemed quite sheepish and offered little understanding of what he was looking for. Fiona asked if they wanted to go and board their boat too but they were not interested. It seemed we were their duty for the night and that would be it. We were asked why we had not checked in with customs and explained they were not open and we were flying the Q flag and courtesy flag. Russell asked why when they had passed us in daylight they had not chosen to board when the experience would have been less threatening. The reply “we always board at night”. It was all very strange and we agreed that had we not had witnesses onboard then it would have felt worse.

If we were to have a repeat performance we would ask for ID and get authority by calling to check them out first. We would also insist that they check our passports on our vessel and not take them off as they could have just sped off with everything. I then suggested perhaps they were casing the joint to rob us later. After a long discussion we decided that we were basically powerless as there were 6 big guys with guns and if they wanted to do bad things to us then it was unlikely we were going to stop them.

It added some excitement to the evening but also made us realise how different sailing out here can be. You do hear stories back home of border agency vessels boarding UK sailors and them objecting to the way they are treated. The next day we asked customs and they said they would have come from Dutch St Maarten about 30 miles away. It seemed again like a complete waste of government money. The cost of employing staff to police the customs and immigration must be far higher than the fees they generate. We couldn’t pay the fees in Statia because even on Monday we were unable to get any money from the bank. The ATM was broken and they could not action any transactions over the counter. The island has an oil depot and Tankers were anchored offshore and also on the oil jetty. This again seemed completely out of place, however the people on the ships get paid on a Friday and this means that the banks get emptied of cash. This might also explain the coastguards looking for more on the big ships.

There is not much to do on Statia. We enjoyed the snorkelling in the bay. An artificial reef had been created to protect the beach from being washed away about 5 years ago and this had grown into a wonderful eco systems. There were hundreds of fish and corals just a few metres away from the boat. We found a conch shell and tried to prize the contents out to eat and keep the beautiful shell as a souvenir but we couldn’t work out how to do it.

The other thing to do is walk. We took the hike to the Quill which is 600 Metres above sea level. (http://www.statiapark.org/parks/quill/index.html) We set off early to beat the heat. So alarms were set for 6am and we met on the dock with Ian and Fiona at 6.30am. We checked customs and made sure they were shut before doing our walk. We walked along the dusty roads before they turned to tracks which then lead into the shaded forest of the quill. It was a good hour to walk to the top and it was a zig zag up the mountain. It was not too steep until we neared the top and ropes had been provided to help haul ourselves up. The view from the top looked into the crater. We were not quite at the top viewpoint so we could no see out to sea. There was a path to the very top, which would have taken another 30 minutes, but Chris Doyle suggested it was not for those suffering vertigo and it was quite a challenging path. We decided to take the less challenging 30 minutes’ walk to the bottom of the crater. This turned into an adventure of its own. The path quickly became rocks and boulders with ropes to help with the descent and also getting back up. The kids took it all in their stride whilst the adults were a little more conservative, perhaps because we realised if we fell it was along way down and would really hurt. It was hard work but very enjoyable. It felt like you were in the movie set for Jurassic park. Huge twisted trees towered above us. There were little red crabs hiding in shells. We also spotted a snake. The dog that had followed us all the way from the ATM machine desperately tried to get at the crab as it shot into a snail type shell. He also liked chasing the cockerels that seemed to live there too.

We were unsure if there was a path leading up the other side and also once we had got up if we could walk around, so headed back the way we had come. As we climbed we could hear a lot of school children and when we got to the top found a class of 30 to 40 children on a school trip. There were about 4 adults and the group were being given the chance to either return back to school or go down into the crater. This would obviously never happen in the UK, where health and safety would have deemed the whole trip too dangerous.

It took us a good 3 to 4 hours to do the whole walk and both our feet and legs knew we had done it. The next day my thigh muscles definitely knew they had been worked. We tried to get cash out and Ethan had to say goodbye to the dog after taking a few photos.

We got back to the boat and had a quick swim to cool off before heading off to St Barths. We had an excellent sail and caught a Barracuda and a little tunny.

Photos