Location: Saba
Today, we got to explore Saba, which is a unique and really cool island. You have to do some work to get there, as it involves a wet landing (aka swimming from the dinghy) to shore and then climbing up 800-some steps that make up The Ladder. Up until the 1940s, all things that came to Saba had to be waded to shore and carried up the stairs – after walking up them with just our small backpacks, we could greatly appreciate how much work it would have been to get anything onshore here! Luckily, there are a few roads now, and we went off exploring the town of The Bottom (which, ironically, you get to after walking to the top of the ladder) and then off to Windward (they weren’t very creative when naming their towns). Saba is small, with only about 1500 inhabitants, and is full of cute white buildings with green trim. There are recycling bins next to every house, everything is neat and clean, and everyone is super friendly and nice. Most of us enjoyed burgers at various restaurants and wandered the little towns, and several of us made it to JoBeans glass-blowing shop. There, JoBean gave us a demonstration of how she melts glass into beads and then even let us try our hand at it! Apparently, our first mate Nick has been wasting his talents onboard Ocean Star, as JoBean tried to keep him as her apprentice after she saw his bead-making skills. We headed back down to Ocean Star, and as I jumped in for our ocean showers, I admired the clarity of the water. It made me super excited about our dives here in Saba tomorrow!