Harmony came over for a last sleepover and Charlotte arranged one more kids beach party with over 20 children (and assigned someone else to carry on the new weekly tradition!)
Charlotte announced our departure on the morning VHF Cruisers Net and said goodbye to all her new friends. Having already said goodbye to Ella on Tuesday and Harmony on Thursday, this seemed to be the last straw as a tear came to her eye as we sailed out. A reminder of other friends, who had left ahead of us, who we hoped to see again, soon improved her spirits.
Many times we have wanted to visit the island of Statia (St. Eustatius), but have not made it for various reasons (timescale, weather not right for the unprotected anchorage there...). As it’s our last season in the Eastern Caribbean with Heat Wave, we finally made the effort to go to Statia. It’s a due south 30 miles trip – although the winds were coming from the south, the winds were very light so it was a perfect time to motor over. It was exciting - the first time we had gone to a new island for many years! We were busy reading the cruising guide book on the way there, and examining the charts.
We spotted a large school of fish jumping out of the water, feeding – we got out the fishing lines – of course we didn’t catch anything but we did get to see a big whale shark (about 20 foot long). First time we’ve seen a fish this large down here. Not great shots but hopefully you can spot the whale shark's mouth open out of the water in the picture above, and the whale shark swimming 30 feet away from the boat in the picture below. We were circling with the boat, trying to get the sun behind us for a better picture but the whale shark wasn't cooperating! - and we were also hoping he wouldn't go for our fishing lines that were still trawling behind the boat!!
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