01/05/07
Sailing to Statia! Even before we came to meet Bosse, I read in the lonely planet about all the islands and I knew Statia is an island I want to visit, since all the island is a marine park and the dives suppose to be very good. The sailing was nice, the wind was ok and we arrived to Statia in the afternoon. Assaf and Bosse were working to fix the radio on the boat and I was resting because my knowledge in such of things is around zero…
02/05/07
Statia is a very small island, only around 3000 people live on it. Their main income is diving (even the license plates of the cars have fish on it…). Its an island that belong to Holland, so some of the people that live there are originally from Holland (for example, the diving
instructors…).
Today we went to the island. First, we had to pay for custom and for the marine park, but the marine park were very useful. Bosse had to buy some things to repair something on the boat, so the girl that worked in the marine park office offered her boyfriend’s assistance, so we climbed up to town because in Statia there are no beaches, everything is cliffs so for getting to town, you have to do a little trek.
So we arrived to her boyfriend and he was helpful and then we needed something else and his friend took us in his car to his house to find it for us. It was very nice of them, they were very friendly.
After walking less than an hour in town (its about 2 streets), I went to find my self a diving shop to go dive with.
03/05/07
In the morning, Assaf was my dinghy taxi and took me to shore because I had to get to the dive shop. From the beginning it looked much more professional than the diving in St. Kitts, I filled forms and got all the equipment and we went diving 9 people (6 of them are above 60 years old but very good and professional divers and I was the only one without an underwater camera) and 2 guides. The dive was very beautiful and I didn’t stop smiling all of it. It was a huge reef that you cant see its end, everything so colorful. We saw very big lobsters hiding in caves or walking. Since there were many people and 2 guides, we split to 2 groups, and the other group saw a shark… The second dive was something like a “micro” dive. They took us to an area with not many corals and a lot od sand (and I can say that this area with “not many corals” is more corals than Eilat… in this dive we stayed close to the sand in order to see all the small marine life. We saw tiny shrimps and very small fish that hide inside the sand and go up s little bit like a snake from the ground and many baby fish that I saw them much much bigger in other dives. Since usually in dives you are looking for the big things, this dive was very special.
When I came back to the boat, lunch was ready. We ate good fish (this time Assaf bought and not caught).
04/05/07
The time we need to start crossing the Atlantic is getting closer, so we had to move on to Saba (funny name for an island). This island is even smaller than Statia, and the most beautiful island we were in until now. Saba looks like a fairy tale picture with tall cliffs of red, pink and brown rise from the sea.
As we arrived. I looked for the nearest dive shop and paid for next day’s dives. For lunch we had a goat meat (sounds very strange, but its ok…) and we were too lazy to climb up this day to town so Assaf and me went snorkeling with the dinghy (we saw a sea turtle) and it didn’t look as far as it was, so in the way back we ran out of fuel and Assaf started rawing but it was a long was with a current against us. Lucky us, people from one of the other yachts saw us and came to help us and drugged us all the way to our boat and then he ordered us for a drink in their boat the next day.
05/05/07
Diving!
The first dive was to the Pinnacles. it’s a reef made from volcanic activity. It was a deep dive and finally I saw 2 reef sharks (the guide said it probably was the same shark, but I saw it twice, so for me its 2 sharks) and I was so happy to see it. Beside this, we saw baracuda, queen makarel, groupers and other big fish (as deeper you go, the bigger fish you get to see here). The second dive was shallower (22 meters) and it also was very beautiful, the reefs here are full of sponges, corals, hundreds of fish around you, like you can see in national geographic diving movies. We saw sea horse in this dive which is very special and the nurse shark was not in his regular place so we didn’t see it…
When I came back from diving, I made 2 cakes, one for us and the other one for the “party” we were invited to this after noon.
So in the afternoon we went to this couple’s boat and we found out that they invited people from other 2 boats also. it’s an old couple from Austria-Germany that live since 1965 in the virgin islands and they are sailing a lot (she was even pregnant when they cruised around the world and her girl was born in Figi) and they said that most of the time people sit in their own boats at night and don’t know the people from the other boats, so why not meeting together and know each other? And they do this kind of “parties” almost in every place they arrive with the boat, and it was a very good idea. Accept for them and us, there were another couple from France (that almost don’t speak English) and another father and son from France. They gave us so much food and drinks and it was a very nice evening. We planned to leave Saba the next morning but after this evening, we decided to stay one more day.
06/05/07
In the morning I decided its time to clean the boat. Of course you don’t have all the materials for this like you have at home, but still it is much cleaner now. At noon Assaf and me made a pizza, a very good one and after that we went up to town. It was not easy at all, I am not in such a good shape anymore as I was in Patagonia plus it is very hot here. We had to climb many many steps and after I thought we finished with it, there were more steps… but it was worth it because the island is very beautiful. The trees and vegetation is amazing and you just go near papaya, mango and banana trees.
07/05/07
Today we sailed to our last stop before crossing the Atlantic, St. Martin. This island belong to Holland and to French. There is no border, but around half of it is Dutch and half French. The legend about how they split the island to 2 is funny… they say that they put a Dutch man in the southern point in the island with a bottle of Rum and a French man in the northern point with a bottle of wine and they started to go and drink towards each other and because the rum was stronger than the wine, the Dutch man went slower, the French people got a bigger part… another funny thing is because of our visa problems with French islands, we could not check in from the French side so we checked in from the Dutch side but we can go without a problem to the French side…
This island is different than the previous islands we were in since it’s much more touristy, many restaurants that remind the USA and even shopping mall. There are hundreds of yachts everywhere, including super yachts and cruise ships with very rich people (at least it looks like it).
In the evening we went to see the town and were surprised from the amount of people and restaurants. We sat in a yacht bar (the bar was on a yacht). I think it was more special if we were not living on a yacht anyway, but it was still nice.
08/05/07
In the morning, we split. Assaf and I went to see and buy few things, like sailing books (Assaf are looking for them for a long time). After many hours of walking around, we ate ribs in a nice restaurant and then we went to meet Bosse in the Yacht club that located near the bridge. The bridge is opened 3 times a day and is separating between Simpson bay and Simpson bay lagoon. We are anchoring inside the lagoon so in the day we arrived here we waited until the bridge will be opened and we motored inside. So from the yacht club its nice to watch all the boats going in both ways in and out (first out and then in).
09/05/07
Today again we split, but this time I went alone because Assaf and Bosse were working on fixing things in the boat. I took a bus to Philipsburg, which is an area that looks even richer than Simpson bay with a lot of jewelry, alcohol and perfumes stores. My first task was to find music we heard few times in the Caribbeans, this music is very happy and I found out the type of music is called Soca, so I bought one CD. After walking around in town and feeling different than the people that just went down for a shopping day from the huge cruise ship (I mean different in financial way), I went to finish our provisioning in 2 big super markets. It was harder than I thought… First, it was hard to decide what to buy where, and after I finally decided, it was so heavy that it took me a lot of time to get to the bus station, and then, the bus drivers didn’t want to stop because I had too many things, and then it was exactly the bridge opening time, so we had to wait in the minibus for a long time until all the boats will pass. But the good thing from all this story is that now we have all the food we need for crossing the Atlantic and that I bought chicken breast, bread crumbs and vegetables and in the evening we made Shnitsels with salad, like at home!
Sailing to Statia! Even before we came to meet Bosse, I read in the lonely planet about all the islands and I knew Statia is an island I want to visit, since all the island is a marine park and the dives suppose to be very good. The sailing was nice, the wind was ok and we arrived to Statia in the afternoon. Assaf and Bosse were working to fix the radio on the boat and I was resting because my knowledge in such of things is around zero…
02/05/07
Statia is a very small island, only around 3000 people live on it. Their main income is diving (even the license plates of the cars have fish on it…). Its an island that belong to Holland, so some of the people that live there are originally from Holland (for example, the diving
instructors…).Today we went to the island. First, we had to pay for custom and for the marine park, but the marine park were very useful. Bosse had to buy some things to repair something on the boat, so the girl that worked in the marine park office offered her boyfriend’s assistance, so we climbed up to town because in Statia there are no beaches, everything is cliffs so for getting to town, you have to do a little trek.
So we arrived to her boyfriend and he was helpful and then we needed something else and his friend took us in his car to his house to find it for us. It was very nice of them, they were very friendly.
After walking less than an hour in town (its about 2 streets), I went to find my self a diving shop to go dive with.
03/05/07
In the morning, Assaf was my dinghy taxi and took me to shore because I had to get to the dive shop. From the beginning it looked much more professional than the diving in St. Kitts, I filled forms and got all the equipment and we went diving 9 people (6 of them are above 60 years old but very good and professional divers and I was the only one without an underwater camera) and 2 guides. The dive was very beautiful and I didn’t stop smiling all of it. It was a huge reef that you cant see its end, everything so colorful. We saw very big lobsters hiding in caves or walking. Since there were many people and 2 guides, we split to 2 groups, and the other group saw a shark… The second dive was something like a “micro” dive. They took us to an area with not many corals and a lot od sand (and I can say that this area with “not many corals” is more corals than Eilat… in this dive we stayed close to the sand in order to see all the small marine life. We saw tiny shrimps and very small fish that hide inside the sand and go up s little bit like a snake from the ground and many baby fish that I saw them much much bigger in other dives. Since usually in dives you are looking for the big things, this dive was very special.
When I came back to the boat, lunch was ready. We ate good fish (this time Assaf bought and not caught).
04/05/07
The time we need to start crossing the Atlantic is getting closer, so we had to move on to Saba (funny name for an island). This island is even smaller than Statia, and the most beautiful island we were in until now. Saba looks like a fairy tale picture with tall cliffs of red, pink and brown rise from the sea.
As we arrived. I looked for the nearest dive shop and paid for next day’s dives. For lunch we had a goat meat (sounds very strange, but its ok…) and we were too lazy to climb up this day to town so Assaf and me went snorkeling with the dinghy (we saw a sea turtle) and it didn’t look as far as it was, so in the way back we ran out of fuel and Assaf started rawing but it was a long was with a current against us. Lucky us, people from one of the other yachts saw us and came to help us and drugged us all the way to our boat and then he ordered us for a drink in their boat the next day.
05/05/07
Diving!
The first dive was to the Pinnacles. it’s a reef made from volcanic activity. It was a deep dive and finally I saw 2 reef sharks (the guide said it probably was the same shark, but I saw it twice, so for me its 2 sharks) and I was so happy to see it. Beside this, we saw baracuda, queen makarel, groupers and other big fish (as deeper you go, the bigger fish you get to see here). The second dive was shallower (22 meters) and it also was very beautiful, the reefs here are full of sponges, corals, hundreds of fish around you, like you can see in national geographic diving movies. We saw sea horse in this dive which is very special and the nurse shark was not in his regular place so we didn’t see it…
When I came back from diving, I made 2 cakes, one for us and the other one for the “party” we were invited to this after noon.
So in the afternoon we went to this couple’s boat and we found out that they invited people from other 2 boats also. it’s an old couple from Austria-Germany that live since 1965 in the virgin islands and they are sailing a lot (she was even pregnant when they cruised around the world and her girl was born in Figi) and they said that most of the time people sit in their own boats at night and don’t know the people from the other boats, so why not meeting together and know each other? And they do this kind of “parties” almost in every place they arrive with the boat, and it was a very good idea. Accept for them and us, there were another couple from France (that almost don’t speak English) and another father and son from France. They gave us so much food and drinks and it was a very nice evening. We planned to leave Saba the next morning but after this evening, we decided to stay one more day.
06/05/07
In the morning I decided its time to clean the boat. Of course you don’t have all the materials for this like you have at home, but still it is much cleaner now. At noon Assaf and me made a pizza, a very good one and after that we went up to town. It was not easy at all, I am not in such a good shape anymore as I was in Patagonia plus it is very hot here. We had to climb many many steps and after I thought we finished with it, there were more steps… but it was worth it because the island is very beautiful. The trees and vegetation is amazing and you just go near papaya, mango and banana trees.
07/05/07
Today we sailed to our last stop before crossing the Atlantic, St. Martin. This island belong to Holland and to French. There is no border, but around half of it is Dutch and half French. The legend about how they split the island to 2 is funny… they say that they put a Dutch man in the southern point in the island with a bottle of Rum and a French man in the northern point with a bottle of wine and they started to go and drink towards each other and because the rum was stronger than the wine, the Dutch man went slower, the French people got a bigger part… another funny thing is because of our visa problems with French islands, we could not check in from the French side so we checked in from the Dutch side but we can go without a problem to the French side…
This island is different than the previous islands we were in since it’s much more touristy, many restaurants that remind the USA and even shopping mall. There are hundreds of yachts everywhere, including super yachts and cruise ships with very rich people (at least it looks like it).
In the evening we went to see the town and were surprised from the amount of people and restaurants. We sat in a yacht bar (the bar was on a yacht). I think it was more special if we were not living on a yacht anyway, but it was still nice.
08/05/07
In the morning, we split. Assaf and I went to see and buy few things, like sailing books (Assaf are looking for them for a long time). After many hours of walking around, we ate ribs in a nice restaurant and then we went to meet Bosse in the Yacht club that located near the bridge. The bridge is opened 3 times a day and is separating between Simpson bay and Simpson bay lagoon. We are anchoring inside the lagoon so in the day we arrived here we waited until the bridge will be opened and we motored inside. So from the yacht club its nice to watch all the boats going in both ways in and out (first out and then in).
09/05/07
Today again we split, but this time I went alone because Assaf and Bosse were working on fixing things in the boat. I took a bus to Philipsburg, which is an area that looks even richer than Simpson bay with a lot of jewelry, alcohol and perfumes stores. My first task was to find music we heard few times in the Caribbeans, this music is very happy and I found out the type of music is called Soca, so I bought one CD. After walking around in town and feeling different than the people that just went down for a shopping day from the huge cruise ship (I mean different in financial way), I went to finish our provisioning in 2 big super markets. It was harder than I thought… First, it was hard to decide what to buy where, and after I finally decided, it was so heavy that it took me a lot of time to get to the bus station, and then, the bus drivers didn’t want to stop because I had too many things, and then it was exactly the bridge opening time, so we had to wait in the minibus for a long time until all the boats will pass. But the good thing from all this story is that now we have all the food we need for crossing the Atlantic and that I bought chicken breast, bread crumbs and vegetables and in the evening we made Shnitsels with salad, like at home!
