Down island starts.  Moving south for Hurricane season.

Saba – a huge rock that can be seen from Saint Marten its a divers paradise, but we’ve just have never been.

Its pronouced sAaaaaba, not SahBa like the one in the BVI.  Also one of the places the weather has to be just right to visit comfortably.  We had that weather so we went.

Left SXM with full sails and rocketed over to Saba, a mere 20 miles away – found a Wahoo along the way.

Arranged for a taxi after clearing customs to show us the island, a town at the bottom called “Bottom” where the government offices are and another town called “Windward side” where the rest of the folks live.  Kevin gave us a great tour, and we scheduled him for the next day too.

We hiked to the top of that gnarly rock.

The top is covered in clouds, it rains, its wet, its slippery .. but nothing a good set of flip-flops can’t handle.   And Christine needed her steps on her fitbit after all.

We made it to the top and back down safely, but since its in the clouds there wasn’t a view as reward at the top.  The only reward was at the “windward side” grocery store that sold cold beers.  And an awesome bakery for breakfast after the hike.

The down sides of going to Saba first is it cuts the wind angle so it was more of motor into the wind from Saba to Statia – no biggie, its a new island to see.

The Saba White/Red/Green (uniform colored) houses were not the same on Statia, they import more than 3 colors.  Saba was unique that all the houses had Red roofs, white buildings and green Shutters – its a law there – made everything look nice.

Statia was back to whatever colors you wanted.  Statia has a volcano crater, so yup, we hiked that the very next day after Saba.
As we were out looking/wondering around – a local gave us a ride to the trail head. The ‘Quil’ is what its called, he said we would need some water, as he noticed Wayne and I had fresh beers and Christine had a single water bottle.

We hiked on anyway, heck its shorter than yesterday’s hike.

I saved one sip of beer for the top, then we climbed down in to the crater, its says proceed at own risk or with a guide.  We had met a fellow Catana owner, Morning Glory, out in the bay, who is returning to the states after an 8 year round the world trip and they were also on the trail that morning.  We passed them on the way up, and as we were cooling off at the top, they caught up and we all scampered down the rocks to the crater bottom.

Ropes and rocks and awesome banyon trees at the bottom.

We made it back to the grocery store for a cold beverage, and then found a place for lunch.   Back to the boat for some relaxation and dinner and vowed no more hiking of volcanos on this trip as everyone’s legs were sore!

So I have not updated this in like FOR EVER…

We partied like rockstars in St Barts for New Years, and then headed to SXM for get some much needed repairs.  SXM is known as the garage, for the super yachts of which there are many here – its where the duty free parts and shipping are very convenient, hence the garage for repairs.

Had been meaning to get the rigging replaced for a couple of years, but schedules and other personal items prevented that from happening..  Grenada could replace 1/2 of the rigging, not the rod that keeps our mast straight, but FKG (awesome by the way) had the tools/skills to do it all – tho not cheap.

FKG and the easy international airport was the reason SXM was the final destination last year.

Our rigging is 15 years old, normally it needs to be replaced every 8-10 years, so we were well over due.  I had been emailing Kevin from FKG and he assured me they could handle the job.

We arrived and would have been done within 4 days, but since the eSpace Carbon mast was down, it was a good time to make it pretty too.  Kevin called the local painters and it added 3 weeks to work schedule.  We ended up going with Kenny Awlgrip.   Terrible experience, more runs and paint sags than a 2 year old with finger paint.  Turns out that his name is not Kenny, he bought the company but lets you call him Kenny – his real name is Babu.  The attention to detail is severely lacking, even his business card has misspellings – ugh just a terrible aggravating experience.

In the end FKG did a great job, Colin/Arthur/Ryan/Lee were awesome to work with on time and on schedule.

Fast forward to down island trip back to Grenada .. coming up.