Location: Oranjestad, Sint Eustatius
Hola people! Today was pretty solid. We woke up early to get the sails up and ready for the short trip over to Statia. For breakfast, Max made some pretty solid banana bread with the bananas that they bought on shore in Dominica, which we ate while underway. During the passage, we had some downtime to chill, where most people slept below deck in extreme heat or sat on the deck and were scorched, where Annika lost Owen’s hat when Nick shouted whale. When we arrived in Statia, we ate a good lunch of chicken tacos and some leftover banana bread from earlier that morning. After lunch, Nick left to clear us through customs, and we filled out dive release forms. After we were supposedly cleared into customs, we all went to shore and got cold smoothies and found out, in fact, customs was requiring us to all come to the office, so we had to wait and walk over to the office only to be told they didn’t need to see us. After all the customs drama, some of them went on a brutal hike. Ben and Allie took Rhianna, Katherine, Claire, Chloe, Jaxson, Nadia, Zoe, and myself up to the top of Mt. Quill. This hike was up the dormant volcano and into the crater of the volcano itself. During this hike we found ourselves drenched in sweat and had finished our water quickly, I cannot stress how miserable this hike was. We got to the crater rim, the second-highest point in the Netherlands, and then descended into the volcano’s crater with ropes and stairs. (EDITORS NOTE: I won’t censor Will’s opinion of the hike, but I will deem him quite dramatic and upset to be sweaty, but I also wanted to note he did the hike with no socks on in leather shoes) After the hike, Allie spotted this bar that we went to, and we all cooled down at Rita’s. Here, we all ordered water and cold drinks, where Jaxson kept ordering more and more water, and Katherine kept bugging the poor woman about snacks, and she left to go next door to retrieve two perfectly baked and amazing little chocolate and red velvet cakes. These two cakes were the most delectable things I have ever tasted. On our way back, we stopped at a little convenience store we found to buy some snacks and more cold drinks. By this time, the sun was setting over the hill, and we all decided to sit down and chill for a little to enjoy our newly purchased snacks before heading back to the dock and going back to the boat. When we got back on the boat, we took our well-deserved ocean showers and had a final great meal. Max made us of pasta and roasted veggies. When I came down here to write the blog, Meg was a meanie for me. GOODNIGHT GLORIOUS PEOPLE!!!!!!