We're sitting on a mooring ball outside the capital and only port, Orangsted. The shore is a long row of battered rock foundations, with a few habitable buildings. Behind this is a road, and behind the road is a steep cliff. The modern town starts up on the cliff. Beyond the town is a massive green volcano, rising 2000 feet, with a jagged cone, called the quill (an english form of the dutch word meaning pit).
St. Eustatius is typically referred to as Statia. The whole island has a population of only 2300. In the 1700's the Dutch ran the place as a free port, and funnelled tremendous volumes of trade between the warring european nations and then to the blocaded american ports during the revolution. The shops that sat on the rock foundations held fine fabrics, silver, gold, household supplies, guns, sugar, tobacco, and sadly slaves, waiting for buyers. The population of 8000 mixed Dutch, English and
Jewish merchants were fabulously wealthy, but were regularly brutalized by the navies, pirates, and privateers that roamed the waters. These groups would steal and resell all the goods and slaves, and set fire to the place. Each time, they rebuilt, and resumed business; and hundreds of merchant ships would soon be back in harbour, running little boats to and fro.
Yesterday, Dawn and I cut short our morning coffee, and were hiking by 9:00. We stuck to rather steep trails through the growth maintained by volunteers organized by the National Park. We made it into the volcanic funnel after a reasonably tough climb by 11:00. The inside of the volcano holds an evergreen forest within its steep walls. Leaving the funnel, we hiked up and down the cone along a rough trail that took us to the far side of the volcano to a steep white wall of limestone, and further
to a developing botanical garden. We were at the garden by 2:30, but were just too hot and tired to enjoy it. Maybe some other year. We hitchhiked on the lower road the rest of the way around the volcano, and ended up in a burger joint with fish burgers and beers.
During the hike, we saw hundreds of hermit crabs dragging their shells around, many lizards, and interesting trees and flowers. We didn't see the Antillean Iguana or the Red-Bellied Racer Snake, two species we were really looking for. There were wild, homeless chickens, and during our ride back on the narrow eastern road, our vehicle was blocked by a herd of wild donkeys. Our driver, a National Parks employee, answered many questions we had about the island, parks and trails.
We have also seen enough of the little town and the fort(s), and will be checking out for St. Kitts after coffee. We just heard by SSB radio, that our friends aboard Madness are still there.
