Alegria, Makai and Salida all headed out of St Martin early this morning and to the island of Saba.  We had a great sail, at one point going 8.4 knots, averaging 7.6 knots.  I can’t say enough good things about our bottom paint!!    The seas were higher than we expected about 5 to 6 feet, but it felt great to sail!

Saba was visible 26 miles in the distance when we left.  The next chain of islands, Saba, Statia, St Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat are known as the islands that brush the clouds, due to the fact that they are volcanic islands.  They shoot nearly vertically from the sea and lose their peaks in the clouds.  Saba looks as if she is wearing a sombrero.  These are islands the likes we haven’t seen before.

Saba has free mooring balls available to use and we joined Dawn Dancer and Fine Line who were already moored at Ladder Bay Anchorage.  Customs is a very wet dinghy ride around and we were soaked by the time we got there.  This gave us the idea to check in and out at the same time.  Check in was fast and friendly and us, Makai and Salida were soon in a taxi driven by Gustav Hassel for an island tour.  Saba is a Dutch island with some Scotch Irish thrown in.  The houses on the island follow the island color scheme and can only be painted white or green with red roofs.  They are well maintained, some carrying gingerbread trim.  Gustav was a great guide and took us all over the island.  We stopped at a few gift shops and Dan bought me a beautiful necklace at Jobean Designs.  The artwork on the island, from the lace to local crafts is really outstanding.  An interesting note is a medical college on the island that has mostly American students.  The medical college and tourism is the islands primary source of income.  According to Gustav, Saba sees about twenty eight thousand tourists a year.  Pretty impressive for such a small, hard to get to island. 

After the tour, we stopped in town and had a drink at the Swinging Door restaurant.  A quick stop at the grocery store across the street scored some White Castles!!   That was a surprise.  That was no doubt influenced by those American medical students!!!  Tomorrow we will head back in and hope to do some hiking.

  Catholic Church in Saba

Fresco inside Catholic Church

It reminds me of the mountains of North Carolina.