Sail on Sail Pending

 After a 30 mile, very wet and bumpy, sail we arrived at St. Eustatius which is also know as Statia. It’s a small volcanic island that rises from the ocean almost straight up to 1800′. The island has about 3400 residence.   

 The history of this small island is fascinating!! In the mid 1700’s, Statia was the trading capital of the West Indies and one of the world’s busiest harbors. This was because the Dutch remained neutral with the major powers of the world who were all fighting at the time and opened Statia as a free port. You could buy anything here, including fine fabrics, gold, slaves, guns, tabacco, sugar, and cotton. Countries who were not allowed to deal with each other,  could deal with Statia. From what we were told this is still going in today. Oil from another country is brought here and stored by a US company and then disturbed throughout the world. There were at least 15 large oil tankers anchored off of the coast just waiting for their oil to be off loaded or filled up. Filled up with what is now “US Oil” 
As soon as we arrived we cleared in with customs and paid $15.00, which allows us to enjoy their island for up to 3 days. It was a very easy process and the officials were very nice. Now that we are official, it was time for a beer and snack with Kevin and Barbara from Escape Claws.   

  The view from our table at lunch.

The Old Gin Mill Restaraunt.    

After our snacksit was time to go explore. The town has two different areas, Old Town which is below the cliffs by the beach and docks where we ate lunch ….         

… and “upstairs” (as the locals called it) which is the main area of town that is up a huge flight of steps and a very strep cobblestone road, called Old Slaves Road.
  

The walk up was gorgeous and had great views along the way.   

Upstairs is a charming town where everybody says good afternoon as they walk or drive past. The residence on this island are the friendliest out of every island we visited so far. The roads are made from cobblestone and brick.     

The churches and buildings are beautifully painted in bright Caribbean colors.    

 
We also visited Fort Oranje. It is a very well preserved fort. …..We didn’t have time to read about its history, but we will and add it here later. …   

  
After all this walking it was time to quench our thirst, so we stopped at a corner bar called Cool Corner, which reminded us of a British Pub. They had CNN on the TV and we all talked about how glad we are to be living the cruiser lifestyle  where we don’t have access to TV’s and the garbage of the political ads. It’s frustrating at the money that is being spent on this trash by all parties and candidates. Enough of my political rant!!! Here’s to not seeing another political ad until the election is over. Cheers!!