Location: Windwardside, Saba
(Will offered to write Nick’s blog after taking a lot of flak for his last blog in its short + sweet (or less sweet) nature) (He wants you all to know this is his magnum opus)
Today was an awesome day filled with crazy adventures on Saba! The day started out with an early wake-up at 6:45 AM so we could go to shore and see more of the island before our dives that afternoon. This morning, we had a delicious breakfast prepared by Allie, which consisted of homemade cinnamon rolls and yogurt. After breakfast and clean up, we were dropped off close to shore to begin the climb up the ladder. The ladder was the old port where ships used to anchor to transport goods and other items (including grand pianos!) up this steep hike to the bottom of town. Once we finished the ladder hike, we began the trip into the bottom town. On Saba, there are two towns, bottom, and Windward, where the most common form of transportation is hitchhiking between them because the locals are super friendly. Once we made it to bottom town, we wanted to get to the Windward, and the fastest way was to hitchhike, so we found someone who was willing to give us a ride. The guys who picked us up were going to the port, unfortunately, so we rolled with it and went with them. The road down to the port is pretty steep but a fun ride with a lot of switchbacks. When we got to port we said thank you to the guys and walked around and went into the marine conservation gift shop which had some really cool shirts, I got a shirt with a shark who had a SCUBA tank. After our experience in the gift shop, we decided to try to get to the windward side once again and started to hike up the steep hill we had driven down.
Shortly after we started our climb, we were able to get a ride in the back of a kei truck, which was super cool, and fortunately, the guy was able to take us all the way to the windward side of the island. During the drive to the other side of the island, we saw some amazing views of the bottom town and the island as a whole. Once arriving in Windward, we made a beeline for a coffee shop because Claire was craving a mocha coffee. As we were waiting for Claire to get her coffee, she and Rhianna got slices of some delicious apple and cherry pie. After they devoured the pie, we started wandering the town while waiting for the dive shop to open. Following Allie’s advice, we decided to make our way over a small hill to a little glass-blowing shop owned by this super crazy and nice old woman named Jo Bean. The sweet old woman named Jo Bean was quite the character, she had been glass blowing for 25 years and had the coolest shop with the coolest little glass sea animals. While there, Jo Bean told us we could make a glass bead if we spent 25$, so naturally, Allie and Rhianna made ourselves beads. Chloe, Nadia, and Katherine later came by and also made their own beads. While we were making them, she would make crazy comments like “Wow, that’s a sexy bead,” and tell us which of her son’s girlfriends she liked the most. After our fun hanging out at Jo Bean’s store making our beads and buying small trinkets, we headed to the dive shop on the island, which was our main objective of shore time. Our walk from Jo Bean’s to the dive shop was short but nice because we got to look over the top of the hill and see the view down to the water. It started to rain, so we got the chance to cool down. At the dive shop, we met the owner’s mom, who had just moved to Saba from the US and was adjusting to living on the island. While there, we bought some stickers and looked around at all the cool shirts they had. Once we finished up at the dive shop, we began the walk back to port. On our way back, we got hitchhiked with this cool guy who called himself “the island rebel.” While in his car, we asked him a few questions about his life on the island, and he was super interested. He said he owned most of the catering business on the island and also lived in Florida in the food industry, but decided to leave to escape whatever is going on, Idk he was a cool and strange. Thankfully, the guy took us all the way to the port, and we were able to get lunch at this strange restaurant that seemed half open. After we ate, it was time to dive.
Today, the dives were awesome! We did two super cool drives. The first one was at hot springs, and the second was at a shallow tent. The first dive was super awesome because when we descended, we were overlooking a reef shark. As the dive progressed, we made our way over turtle grass, where we saw a bunch of green sea turtles eating. After finding our way out of the grass, we found ourselves along a new reef where there was another reef shark, which was also super cool. While concluding our dive at the 15ft 3min safety stop, we saw another reef shark, which was again super cool. After getting back on the boat, we swapped tanks and waited 45 minutes for our next dive. Our second dive was at Tent Shallow, which was another cool reef dive with interesting rock formations. We saw a bunch of cool things, including but not limited to more reef sharks. Seeing the sharks today was super awesome because we have almost never seen a shark on any of our dives except for one. At tent shallow, we got to swim through this super cool chasm in the reef, surrounded by fish and beautiful coral on all sides. It was one of our best dives yet. And now everyone is officially Advanced Open Water Certified! There are a few of us still working on becoming Rescue Divers, but it’s been really cool to see everyone grow after their first breaths underwater a few weeks ago. After our dives today, we got back on board the dive boat and headed back to Ocean Star to clean our gear. For dinner tonight, Allie made us chicken kabobs with peppers and onions, which were delish, and we had cous cous and potatoes with it as sides. For squeeze tonight, our question was, “How do you deal with the Sunday scaries?” This question was open to interpretation. GOOD NIGHT GLORIOUS PEOPLE!!!