havecarryonwilltravel

Interesting place this Saba. There is basically one road. From the north-east end of the island up to the top and down to the south-west side of the island.

There are a few branches of the main trunk but roads there are few and the roads are all very steep. The flattest is about 300 M across the saddle between two peaks in the village of Windwardside. The views from most places is stunning when you are not surrounded by clouds and moisture.

The days around here are quite calm. There is the occasional cooing of a dove or two and maybe a dog barking but both are rare. There are not too many cars but because there is only one road there is minor conjestion but that only means you may see three cars go by in a bunch. After darkness falls though is a different story. The sun goes behind the mountain and the tree frogs start to crock and creak and whistle. The noise constant and really quite loud. The symphony will continue all night. I suppose if you let it bother you it will but if you just let the random sounds become background, the white noise of it all is very soothing. This calm will soon be broken at dawn when the roosters start to tell you it is time to get up. Cock-a-doole-do is not a gentle way to be awoken but hell it’s daylight so you might a well get out of bed especially since the rooster will eventurally win the battle.

The folks here are all very friendly. Almost simple in that respect. They have absolutely no barriers that might inhibit a stop in the middle of the street conversation. We know absolutely no one yet anyone yet everyone we meet wants to know how are day is going, where we are from, how the diving is and what we think of the island.

Today is delivery day. There is a big ship moored at the dock and there is major hub bub off loading semi loads of goods and distributing them all over the island. Everyone waits in anticipation to see if what they have ordered from the mainland has arrive. It might be a new TV, a computer, something as utilitarian as a fridge, or it might be new car. If it is not on this boat, oh well, after all we are on island time. Maybe it will show up on next weeks boat.

Today after diving we are doing the shopping tour.  Beside the two grocery stores, a couple of dive shops, a hardware store, there are 5 tourist type shops. They sell Saba t shirt, shorts, souveniers of all kinds, a small bit of fancy clothing, and some high end jewellery. Even though one of the stores is up a steep (22+%) side street it takes of all of 1 hour to complete our entire tour.

Yards are not the quite the same as they are in our home town. They are more ‘natural’. The ‘grass’ is a cover of green plant material not the ubquitous carpet of fine bladed green material as it would be in the northern climes. On our way up to the jewellery store we walked by a fellow cutting his lawn, Saba style.

If you want to ‘get away from it all’ Saba is a place to do it. There is not much to do here, you can dive and you can hike but for the most part you ‘chill’. There are not hoards of tourist types and the whole place is laid back. You can come to Saba rest up and go home without any of the built up tension you arrived with.

Trunkfish are one of our favourite fishes. They are triangular in cross section, spotted and have big eyes and cute lips. They search for food by blowing on the sand and then gobble up lunch. This is what an adult looks like…..

We are always in search of juveniles. They juvenile trunkfish is very special as it looks like a dice. They are hard to find because they are so tiny and they flit around under neath corals, never staying still long enough to be spotted.

Today, K makes the big find and spots one on our second dive. He is gorgeous! I take six photos hoping that one comes out clear and recognizable. If you look closely you can see his eye and his nose.

Isn’t he cute! What a find!

Today we are headed to the dive site Saba is famous for, the Pinnicles. Most of the sites are close to shore and within 10 minutes boat ride from the harbour. Today we travel 11 minutes and we are maybe a kilometer where the water meets the land. More in the “middle” of the ocean but hardly.

The test rope is dropped over the edge and things look like a go. The current is hardly moving. We are set to go to the mooring point at 90 ft. and proceed down to 110 ft. our maximum depth. As this is deep and there are quite a few of us we are to descend together. In tight fomation we follow the mooring line headed for our destination. At 70 ft. we encounter a bit of resistance, by the time we hit 90 ft. we are making no headway what so ever. Kicking harder and more determined gets us to the coral head but it is tough work and at 90 ft. air in the tank is drained very fast. Does’t look like this dive will be very long. A, the dive master makes an executive decision and we abort the dive. All present and accounted for except 2. Every one is quite pragmatic about the whole thing. Still we are missing 2. At the surface we spot the two missing folks at the next mooring bouy. All is good and chalk up another interesting experience.

The next dive is on the side of the island considered to be “rough”. The surface is a bit choppy but underneath is as smooth as silk. There is no current and only on the safety stop do we fell any surge.  A relaxing dive, very different than our first one.

Debbie and I do a third dive today, “Hot Springs”. Another relaxing dive with no current and plenty of sealife – turtle, crabs, lobster, lionfish, damselfish and cowfish. The second two dives definately make up for the first dive.

You never know what you are going to run into and it is OK to mess with extreme conditions at 50 ft. but at 90 with a variety of folks with different skill levels it is a great call to abort the dive. Life is full of suprizes and it is good when all turns out well, all the divers end up back on the boat and everyone of us will learn from our experience.

The colours are remarkable underwater. From far away the pinnacles at the dive site called Man o’ War are dark looming shapes with monochromatic colouring. Get within a couple of feet, the colours pop out and they are fantastic.

Bright reds, oranges, yellows and greens fill my camera lens. When looking out towards the deep, blue is the predominant colour.

The fish are every colour combination. Black and yellow, black and white, green and orange, silver and yellow, black and neon blue.

The corals and sponges are crisp yellows, burnt orange, gold, mauve.

A colourful day.

Murray and I enjoy seeking out miniature creatures under the waves. It takes some practise, patience and moving very slowly to spot them. Here is some of the tiny wild life we discovered today.

Yellowline Arrow Crab

These tiny creatures move about and carry on while we photo and video them.

Lettuce Leaf Slug

Hermit Crab inside his home

This hermit crab climbed out from the rim of this sponge and down the side. Perhaps going to meet his crab friends for beer and pizza?

Anemome with shrimp inhabitants

Inside this anenome there are a number tiny tiny shrimp living. They are dark red and white and only about a half inch long. As the aanenome moves in the surge, we spy the creatures deep inside their home.

Today brought many miniature creatures. Wonder what tomorrow bring bring?

The second day of diving is always much better than the first day. The morning nerves are gone that appear on that first morning. Our breathing is more relaxed, our buoyancy is almost back to where it was when we left Kona in November.

We are finding the unusual fish we love to discover.

We are taking more photos. And, sometimes, trying to be arty doing so.

We are enjoying the colours, corals, crustaceans and comraderie of fellow divers. A good second day.

We wake up this morning and we are surrounded by clouds. You would think we were still in the Rockies ready to go skiing, instead we don our bathing suits and descend 1250 ft to the ocean and dive to the ocean bottom.

Travel day. Yesterday went without a hitch. Westjet. No canceled fights, no delays, nothing. Every flight left on time and voila we are at the hotel when we expected and only tired because we boarded a plane at 12.05 am and flew through the night.  We flew the last leg from St. Maartin to Saba on the pizza delivery flight. Domino’s in St. M. has a delivery on Saba and it is on our flight.

The people here on Saba are friendly to a person. The immigration guy  is pretty dead pan but very nice and wishes us a nice stay. The taxi driver is a bit dry but gets us here safe and sound. Wim the hotel owner and Lynn the diver shop owner are both enthusiasic and great ambassadors for the island. They want you to like the place and the amount of info each inparted to us is far more than we can remember.

Today is our first dive day. Always an apprehensive time. Today is no different. The first dive is test. When we moor there is no current. When the dive brief is over the capitan says the current has picked up and suggests when we jump in hang on to the line. We get in the water and the current is raging. Kicking into it we make not forward progress what so ever. By the time we reach the coral head we seek I had used 500 lbs. of air and thought “This is going to be a short dive”. It is. I don’t feel so bad because everyone is hanging onto the bowline at the same time. 38mins, one of the shortest dives I have done in a long time.

The second dive is much less stressful until we try to exit the water and the seas are tossing the boat around so much I cannot remove my fins and have to assend the ladder fins on.

The boat trips are not long so we are back in port early. That gives us time to peruse the village. Yesterday the trip to Windwardside, the village at the top of the mountain was an eye opener. The whole island is only 4 sq mi and the Windwardside is at 1250 ft. That is 1250 ft in 1 mi. Very steep. I didn’t count the switchbacks but there are a lot.

The ride down to The Bottom, the village where the dock is, is not much different than yesterday’s ride. These roads are not for the faint of heart. The traffic is not heavy but there is no shortage of cars either.

Today we had a chance to do a bit of exploration. The roads are steep enough that walking is labourious. We head up one road and I am able to pace of the slope. It works out to about 22% and this is the norm. At the top of this climb we find a Chinese food restaurant. I not  sure how many tourists would be will to take that walk. I hope for the restaurant’s sake there are a lot of locals that like Chinese food or the tourists willing to spring for a short taxi ride.

The people here have pride in the properties they own. Most of the house are in very good shape. I would say this is not the case in most of the Caribbean. The climate is hard on buildings and maintance does not seem to be a priority. Hear the houses are whitewashed regularly. The metal red or green roofs, which are easy to see because of the steep slopes, are in good repair. The streets are clear of junk and a good protion of the yards are kept up so they can be used as an outdoor room.

This island seems to take its toll on inhabitants. There is no single expanse designated as grave yard but there are graves here and there through out the village. In fact the view out one of our hotel windows is a grave plot with two or three above ground concrete plots. Nicely done but a bit weird. There are sure a lot of graves considering the size of the population.

First impessions are very favorable. Diving has been diffcult but from what we understand that is not the norm. The place is completely different from other places we have been. The people of course make the place and those we have run into have made a very good impression.

After our dive we rose again into the cloudy mountain top. The fog has been getting steadly thicker and it now slightly obscures the restaurant 100 ft across the road.