Location: Saba
The morning started off with the wonderful smell of bacon and eggs coming from the galley. With Kaden and Benno hard at work cooking up a nutritious breakfast, everyone quickly got out of bed to pack their bags for the exciting day ahead. After breakfast, we loaded up the dinghy and met up with the dive boat for our morning of diving. The first dive site was a deep wall where some people saw nudibranchs, many colorful sponges, and some reef sharks showed up at the end to keep us entertained on our safety stop. Getting back on the boat, we quickly drank through the 5-gallon jug of cold Gatorade to rehydrate for our second dive in Tent Bay. With the high likelihood of seeing the resident nurse shark, Tammy, everyone was eager to get back in the water. Tammy did not disappoint, showing up within 5 minutes of us descending and hanging out for most of the dive (don’t worry, Mom, she was a friendly shark). With diving done, everyone was excited to go to shore and see the long-awaited Joe Bean – a local who runs a glass bead shop where you can make your own glass bead. While everyone went to shore, I went back to the boat, so I will hand the blog over to Emma to tell you all about their afternoon adventuring on Saba.
Sup gang! It’s me again, hehe. Shore time on Saba was so sick today! Straight off the dive boat, we all started hiking up the road towards The Bottom in hopes of hitching a ride with some locals. I think we were all a bit hesitant when Steph told us that we could just get in the car with random strangers and that that was safe here, but she was totally right. Within 5 minutes of walking, a car pulled over and told us to hop in. I was in a car with Arielle, Sophia, and Frida, and our driver was part of the police force, so that was cool. We then hitched a ride with these two guys up the windy cliffside roads all the way to the town of Windward. While we were in the car with those two guys, we were all in the back seat talking about how excited we were to go to Jo Bean’s Beads, and the next thing we knew, we were outside her front door. We then spent the next, I don’t even know, maybe two hours in the jewelry shop picking out necklaces and bracelets and then melting our own glass beads. It was so sick! Unfortunately, Jo Bean was not there, but other than that, we got the full experience. After that, we found a little spot for lunch because, at this point, it was almost 4 pm, and we were all pretty starving. After lunch, we walked over to this cool little dive shop, and we all picked up a tee shirt, sticker, or something to commemorate our time here on Saba. After that, we started the trek back down to the dock for our 5 pm pick-up time. Once again, after just a few minutes of walking, a car stopped to pick us up. Frida and Sophia got in the car, but for some reason Arielle and I couldn’t open his back door, and at this point we were causing a traffic jam, so the guy in the car behind said he would take Arielle and I. Our driver was this super kind man named Sean. He told us all about the Island and his life, and then asked Arielle and I if it was ok if we picked up his son at school on our way back which we of course said yes to. We then stopped at a daycare to pick up his adorable 15-month-old, Seth.
Arielle and I were playing with him the whole rest of the car ride and he was loving it. When we got to the dock, Freddie was there to pick us up and take us back to Vela. We then took some deck showers and got ready for dinner. The squeeze question tonight was, “What movie reminds you of your childhood.” Answers included movies such as Matilda, Shark Boy, Lava Girl, and Spy Kids. And that brings us here! I think it’s safe to say we all had a great day full of sharks, sea turtles, and Jo Beans Beads. Love ya, Fam! I hope this fills in the blanks from our FaceTime call with a horrible wifi connection, lol.
– Meg and Eems
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