Diaries of statia                                             -Blue beads

Here on the island there are these rare blue beads that people find sometimes. You can find them snorkeling or scuba diving, sometimes they wash up on the beach after a huge storm or something. Or people have even found them hidden on the island. They’re like a pentagon cylinder piece of blue glass that have a whole through them to string on a thread or a necklace or something. Everybody wants to find one, they can be worth hundreds of dollars sometimes if it’s a good size. They’re so rare and special because statia used to be a transport hub for slaves back in the day. So they would come from Africa and get sold off here and taken to wherever they were sold. The slaves weren’t allowed to have money as currency so they would get rewarded for good behavior or something with blue beads, and sometimes if a slave got a whole bunch of them they could buy back their freedom. Its pretty crazy! There’s a trail here call the slave trail where the slaves had to walk with their loads and stuff. It’s really steep apparently. I haven’t walked it yet.

Crazy statia!.    

Diaries of statia                                             - Volcano!

Well today I hiked the quill with Josh and his sister Jenna. (The quill is a volcano) it isn’t active of course! It hasn't erupted in a really long time. So it almost just looks like a mountain with all the trees and stuff all over it. But.. it’s a VALCANO! Yay! We saw 2 snakes, like a million geckos, and a few hermit crabs on the trail. We decided to have a hermit crab fight club that was pretty legit. The big crab pinched off the littler crab’s leg! Poor little guy :/ .. Oh and I walked through a spider web. Not fun. But when we got to the top the view was so cool! There’s a bunch of trails you can take to go either around the volcano or inside or up to the tiptop where you can see the entire island! We just took the normal trail that only took a couple hours. It went to the crater rim where we could see the inside wall of the volcano across from you.

Good day in statia.

Diaries of Statia                                 - About Statia

Well I haven’t described much about statia.! To be honest it wasn’t at all what I expected. Its a little bit ghetto! First of all the entire island is about the size of my small home town! Ya creepy. The roads are crazy. Like a 2 way street here is like one lane of a normal highway back at home. Most of the roads are pretty torn up too. No stop lights. Only like two signs, stop signs, and signs indicating if it’s a one way road. Some of the local drivers here are a little insane i think. Some don’t use the stop signs they just honk a few times before coming to the intersection so people know they're coming and speed right through. Nobody wears seat belts… Nobody. Except the new people do for a while sometimes. If you have a baby or toddler you just drive with them on your lap! No big deal. Really its crazy!

Most of the shops and little grocery stores are kind of shabby little buildings or whatever. Ghetto. Oh and I can't forget all the.. wildlife and little creatures. So there’s cows, donkeys, pigs, goats, chickens and whatever else scattered all around the island. Really, they don’t belong to anyone, they just wander around.. no big deal.

Then there are tarantulas, a variety of big and small lizards, iguanas, cockroaches, snakes, hermit crabs, scorpians, bats, ect. I’ve heard that the only really dangerous creature regarding poison are the poisonous centipedes, but apparently people never see them so that’s good news! I think I few of the other things have enough poison to make you sick if they bite or sting you like the red headed lizards, and the scorpions. No big deal.. AH! I think just the entire experience of getting bit or stung by an ugly, creepy little creature would have me on my deathbed! Juuuuust kidding! I’m really not a baby like that, promise… Anyways I’ve heard the tarantula bite just hurts a bit more than a bee sting. I just do my best to avoid all of it.

The sea creatures nearby are stingrays, lobsters, eels, sometimes jellyfish, lots of awesome looking fish, big Dori fishes!! Star fish, and barracudas of course..

So apparently because there aren't sharks nearby, the locals all say the barracuda is the next best thing to be scared of. Ya that sure makes me feel great about our little run in with one. Pheuff! Barely got away with my life there. ;) just kidding they’re mainly interested in fish so whatever. The only way I can justify myself going snorkeling is that I know for a fact there are no sharks. Ah, no sharks. No sharks!.

Statia, statia.. 

Diaries of statia                                 - New foods!

Today was a mini adventure. I tried a coconut, a mango, and my first ever seafood!!

So today we went to a friends for lunch, the Ericksons.

Todd Erickson took Josh and a few other guys out this morning to go fishing… Not including a boat or anything. They went spear fishing. Just snorkel attire and an under water gun. So for lunch… We got to eat the fish they caught that morning. The ericksons have a bunch of different fruit trees that I got to experience.

So the coconut milk didn’t really taste like anything to me, but the actual coconut meat tasted like almonds I thought! Hmm… Well I’m not really a big fan of the mango. When it was lunch time I got some seafood to try. (May as well, I’m in the carribean!) The barjack fish (locals call it the butter fish) didn’t really taste fishy at all, it kinda tasted like chicken. So I got that down ok. Lobster? No, not a fan! The barracuda was nasty, I couldn’t get that one down. But it did give me pleasure to see it fried up and dead on my plate :) It obviously couldn’t have bin the barracuda I saw snorkeling a few days ago that almost scared the pee out of me, but it still made me feel happy to see one dead. So conclusion; seafood really isn’t my thing. But hey! Yay me for trying all the crap anyway right!? Probably not something I would’ve done back at home.

Statia’s alright :) 

Diaries of statia                                            - Barracuda

August 11^th

Ok so i’ve gone snorkeling a few times with josh since I’ve bin here. Usually we go somewhat far out to what we just call the shelf. Its kinda just like.. a shelf  haha but there's always a whole bunch of big colorful fish. Its super cool! Apparently there hasn’t been sharks here for like 50 years or more so I feel a little bit safer. And the feeling of just floating around and seeing into the water is so great!. so ya the first time I really didn’t want to go because josh told me there might only be sting rays or eals.. ya only!?? When we were about half way out I started freaking out a little and we almost didn’t go, buut ya we ended up going to the shelf..  where we saw a freakin sting ray of course. So we go regularly now. Hannah’s too scared, she must be really really scared because I thought I was scared. I don’t even feel like myself going out cuz its so against being me. Haha well anyways we just kind of go out by or past the shelf where it's around 15-20 feet deep, and he points out sand dollars and I dive down and get them. They're super fragile! On the first day we went out and the first couple I got just crumbled in my hand.

Well today was an interesting day for snorkeling.. Josh and I went out with joel wolsey (also a statia medical student) so we were just doing our sand dollar thing and then we caught up to joel and he was pointing at something. You know at the beginning of nemo? When that long ugly fish with the teeth eats nemos mom and all his brothers and sisters!?. Ya that’s what joel was pointing at. A barracuda. It was just a couple feet away from us. Because our island doesn’t have any sharks or anything, they say to avoid barracudas, cuz they can be super aggressive and are really dangerous. Ya panicking! And just the way it was floating there looking at us. Honestly, not one of my favorite moments. So ya anywhoo.. I was hiding behind joal and josh and it swam away after a few minutes but came back a couple times. Mhmm surprised the water around me didn’t turn yellow..

I think I might take a little break from snorkeling for a few days.

- Statia diaries

Diaries of Statia                                     - Monster wave day!

August 4^th

Well its been a bit of an adventure so far I suppose. It is so flippen hot! Always! Like the sun isn’t even out half the time but its just so humid that its hot no matter what.

The first few days I was here the island was supposed to be going through some sort of “tropical storm”. When they have a tropical storm apparently it's like a big deal so they name it, you know like how they name big hurricanes and stuff. So tropical storm Maria only rains and gusts some wind and such. Its kind of like a normal cloudy day in cardston but blazing hot. And it hardly cools down at night. My first night here on the island with this supposed tropical storm; the ceiling fan was going and there was a fan pointing straight at me and i was still sweating to death! I sleep with a sheet beside me on the off chance I get a little cold.. really now?.

So Josh is at school most of the time so Hannah and i have our own little schedule. The girls wake up around 5:30 or 6. They have a morning nap at 8. That’s when I wake up and Hannah and I watch pretty little liars until about 10 cuz that’s when they wake up. So we play with them or whatever till 12 and have lunch. Eden and Fay have their afternoon nap at around 1. Me and Hannah watch more pretty little liars till they wake up. Then we go to the beach till like 5 ish. We have supper at around 6 and the girls go to bed at 6:30.  

Sooo ya we watch more pretty little liars haha!

Today the beach was crazy! The waves were sooo big! I couldn’t stay out for very long. The waves throw you under and roll you around and the salt water gets all up in your sinuses and down your throat and in your eyes! It kills! Especially in your nose, it’s the worst! And as soon as you stand up again and try to recover, another pounds down on you. Ya we got rocked!. Its crazy how helpless you can feel.  And when i’d try to run back to the beach its more dangerous if you get caught a bit shallower because the waves are crashing against the sand so it wipes you out and tosses you around in the sand. The whole thing can just kind of suck in a fun way haha! But anyways ya so I got destroyed today pretty much.

- diaries of statia. 

Diaries of Statia                                      - Oh hello paradise!

July 29^th

Finally here!!:) .. so my flight from calgary departed at 12:40 AM this morning. I landed in Toronto at around 6 AM . (Toronto is about 2 hours ahead of  cardston so the flight was actually only like 4 hours.) I had a three hour layover in Toronto and I was scared to leave the terminal so I just wandered up and down the terminal hallway and sat and read a book for most of the time.

I landed in St. Maarten at 1:40 PM. For some reason the baggage claim in the st maarten airport is before you get to meet and greet your people or whatever so I had to get my three monster suitcases (most of it wasn't my stuff, btw) and try to pull them around by myself.. I looked and felt pretty retarded. It was super hard. :/ poor poor me. Well josh met me at the airport and we went to this SUUUPER SWEET resort hotel, where (surprise surprise) Hannah and the twinners were waiting to surprise me! :) We have to stay in a hotel because the only flight to Sint Eustacius is on Monday.

So breakfast, lunch, and dinner at this resort is like heaven!! You go down to this half inside half outside restaurant type deal. Every meal is a buffet and it looks like a couple professional cheffs had a cook off! – there's all these decadent deserts and pastries, and all the food is presented and decorated so pretty! Its amazing, you go around grabbing everything!

They have this specialty guy.. so basically whatever the main course of the meal is he makes it for you right in front of your eyes, using whatever special goodies you want. Tonight for example, was pasta. So he had a couple skillets going and the main dish was pasta. First he had you choose the vegetables you wanted and he started them in the pan, then you chose from either alfredo sauce or marinara. Next was either Penne noodles or spaghetti noodles. Lastly you could choose any seasonings or chili peppers to top it off.  He could get two or three different pans going at once so Hannah, Josh, and I were served within 10 minutes. And let me tell you.. DIVINE!!!!!!! Plus everything else we piled on our second plates. I felt like i ate a small whale!

At the pool there's a swim up bar! But the only thing we can get is like a virgin pina coloda. And we have to say virgin.. haha.. (that means no alcohol if you didn't know, like me..)

Sooooo why would you even have to have a pool when you're meters away from an amazing ocean?! K I promised myself I would never ever swim in an ocean, due to shark week and jaws. But… honestly I couldn’t get out! Unlike statia, the sand at St. Maarten is so white and the water is clear blue! Beauty!. I even went and snorkeled around I little but stopped after a sting ray tried to chase me! Well not exactly but whatever.  

Well this has been my first day! It was suuper perfect! The girls warmed up to me again super fast and are cuter then ever<3

- let the diaries of statia begin:)