Day 10: St. Kitts to St. Eustatius (Statia)

So the bar that we didn't like last night we now really don't like. They blasted music all night - by 10 all of the guests had left so the waiters and staff cranked the music louder and danced and partied til 3am.  It was really obnoxious.  I picked tonight to try to sleep on deck in the hammock and I gave up at 1 am and moved back inside.  I guess we learned a new way to judge character...If people have a dock at a restaurant but don't let boats use it as a dock, there is something wrong with those people.

Whitehouse Bay was a pretty rolly anchorage (meaning the boat moves around a lot during the night).  This along with the loud music meant none of us slept well last night.  We were all up by 6:30 and went for an early morning snorkel before leaving for Statia.

The snorkeling was pretty good...we swam from our boat over the reef to a wreck near some rocks sticking out of the water.   We saw a good assortment of fish - my favorites were the ones like Dori in Finding Nemo and a puffer fish (the ones that blow up like a balloon when the get scared).  We are still hoping to see turtles but haven't yet.

Right as we ended our snorkel,  two dive boats pulled up and let out about 30 people over the wreck.   We timed it perfectly because it was so nice to be there by ourselves without all of those people scaring the fish away.

So we set off for St. Eustatius (known as Statia) which is the next island northwest up the chain from St. Kitts.  The sail was really nice.  We had great wind and had the most speed yet (13.5 knots) - we were sailing with the current so that really made Raindrops fly.  It took us about 4 hours and we tacked (changed direction) just 3 times.

We are all feeling much better on the sail - I guess you could say we have our sea legs now.  We all have a place that makes us feel comfortable that we've kind of claimed as our own on sail days.  My favorite is on deck lying right under the boom (bottom of the main sail).  I found that when I look at the mast and the clouds I feel better. Grant likes it up front near the hammock and jib sail.  Lindsay likes to drive or lay behind the wheel in the stern.  All of us caught up on our sleep on the way over.

Statia has a lot of history, but our main purpose in coming here is to hike The Quill - the dormant volcano.  We plan to do that tomorrow.