Marine Pristine

Statia has established a marine park for the last 14 years. The island is steep to, with few beaches of volcanic black sand and natural rock reefs. The water clarity is spectacular. We could see every grain of sand below Croix des Gardes on her mooring despite the bottom being 5m away.

Amazing visibilty at 30m on wreck of Chin Tong, Statia

The only tourists that arrive here come to dive and stay at either the Golden Era or the Old Gin House hotel. Two dive outfits operate – Scubaqua and Golden Rock, and I dived with both. The first was a reef dropoff with immaculate corals, hoards of fish and even a placid adult blacktip reef shark (my first shark sighting of the Caribbean). The second was on a fishing boat sunk about a decade ago off the harbour deliberately to attract fish. The local fishermen (of whom we saw no trace at all) had complained about all the fish being in the marine park, so the wreck was created specifically for them to use. They all ignored it so now it is another dive site, although slightly unnerving in that the dive is accompanied by the constant  surge of tug engines and roar of large ships in the nearby fuel depot. The wreck was home to small hawksbill turtles and rays, as well as an immense barracuda and massive numbers of fusiliers, grunts and snappers.

Closer inshore, we snorkelled with the kids and were treated to another turtle in just a few metres of water. We also visited Fort Oranje up on the cliffs. Despite being a small fort, it has been restored to its working glory, complete with wooden garrisons with painted shutters. There is no tourist tat here as there are no tourists. In fact, it is difficult even to find an open bar on a Sunday unless you hang out with the dive stores!

Arthur and Kia borrowed James to see if he could help with their boat leaks. They were desperately trying to head south to Dominica for Carnival on Mardi Gras, after leaving their employment with Richard Branson as tennis and water sports coaches on his island Mosquito. James showed them how to patch it up and they spent a frantic afternoon trying to get some silicon and quotes for glass fibre work. Eventually they got patched up enough to leave overnight. I hope they won’t sink!