From the Bottom to the Top of Saba

Cath’s birthday sail to Saba

Having sundowners hanging over the ocean at Shearwater

We had a great sail from St Martin to Saba – and even better it was Cath’s birthday (notice, we did not specify which birthday it was!) This was our second trip to Saba, and it is one of our favorite islands. We tied up to the free mooring balls in the late afternoon, had a quick cocktail and them went into town to clear in and in search of our friends, Kathy and Picky that live on the island. Our friends on s/v Ultra and s/v Solmate made the trip from St Martin to Saba with us, so we dragged them into town too. After clearing in, we found Kathy and Picky, picked up some goodies from the store and had an impromptu birthday party at their house. The next day, we hired a local guy with a van and did a full day’s island tour, with the highlight being the stop at Shearwater Resort where Kathy works for some sundowners. The balcony at Shearwater hangs off a cliff and all you can see is blue blue ocean with a few islands speckled in for good measure. It is truly one of the best places in the Caribbean for a cocktail!

Beautiful diving

Worse than a Stairmaster

We set up a dive trip with a local dive shop. In Saba, you can only dive with a local guide, so we picked our guide up in our 11 foot Boston Whaler and brought her out to our boat. Solmate and Ultra then dingied over and we had the dingy train going out to the dive site. Now, those of you who know Saba know that this in not an easy feat, as there is no such thing as a “calm day” on Saba! But, our guide was a good sport about it as water was coming in over the gunwales on our low free board skiff! Our first dive was at the famous Pinnacles and they lived up to their reputation. The top of the Pinnacles lie in about 80 feet of water and we followed them down to about 110 feet. The visibility was awesome and there was tons of fish and bright coral. It was a beautiful dive. We went back to Joana for lunch and then headed to another dive site. It had just as much life on it, the visibility was also great and we got a good workout as there was a current ripping through the site! We made it back to our boats around 1pm and decided that we need more exercise, so we went for a hike up to the top of Saba! We are nuts! We hiked through the rain forest and up pseudo stairs for 3 hours! Finally, Brandon, Maria and I made it to the top (Bill, Joanne and Carryn declined to go up the last 10 minutes in favor of a bench we found!) The view was unbelievable and we even saw an airplane flying below us!! It was getting late so we hiked down as fast as our wobbly legs would let us, but even then we had to hike the last bit in the dark. No worries though – as soon as we got down, we ordered some pizza and beer!

We relaxed for the next day or so, visited with Kathy and Picky some more, and then we had to say goodbye to this magical island and head off to the BVIs.