Day 7 on Statia - Charlie Brown and Gibraltar

I woke up this morning with the exciting prospect of diving one of the biggest wrecks in the Caribbean, I was also excited at the prospect of borrowing Hannah's GoPro to get some underwater footage of the wreck and practice my underwater photography.

I set off for the dive school - a short walk downhill from where I am staying, about a mile or so. One thing that is really hard for an Englishman in Statia to get used to is that absolutely everybody you see in the street says hello or 'Good morning', even car drivers wave or gesture while driving in acknowledgement. I now also wave and say 'Good morning', 'Good afternoon' to everyone I pass. I'm sure it's part politeness and part curiousness about who I am (there are only 3000 or so people on the island so I probably stand out as a visitor) but I have to say it feels good.

My walk passes through the old part of Oranjestad, and there are plenty of photo opportunities of colonial style architecture, some extremely well maintained and others not.

Kerkweg, Oranjestad, St Eustatius

Passing through the town, the steep descent down to the shore takes me along the Old Slave Road, a very steep cobbled (and very hot) path from the Upper Town to the Lower Town, one of the many reminders that Statia was one of the largest slave trading ports in the Caribbean.

The Old Slave Road, looking down on to Oranjestad Bay

After a blunderous start to the morning (regulator dropped into the dock and instructor had to rescue it, forgot boots, instructor had to drive back to get them) we made our way out to the Charles L Brown (or Charlie Brown). It's a huge wreck, purposely sunk just over ten years ago, sitting about 30m at the bottom. I was excited - this was going to be my deepest dive to date.

The Charles L Brown seen from above

This is an amazing dive site the scale of the wreck is phenomenal. Words can't describe it, so I hope you get a taste of it from these photos and video.

Me with a big smile on my face!

This was my deepest dive to date at 29.9m, managing 36 minutes in total.

Cruising above the deck of Charlie Brown

For the afternoon dive, I was joined by Hannah, we had to revert to 'Plan B' due to algal blooms at the original dive site 'The Aquarium'. Instead we headed for 'Gibraltar', a bumpy ride to the north of the island, passing steep cliff faces where Red-billed Tropicbirds were nesting, and a Brown Booby passed by in the distance.

This dive site was very different to those at the other end of the island, being a much older volcano, in stead of lava flows, the sea bed was covered with giant boulders from the volcano's landslide, including the huge boulder shaped in a way that gives the site its name. The current was also strong here in places, and the water colder as it was almost on the Atlantic side rather than the warm Caribbean side.

We were immediately greeted by an enormous hawksbill turtle, several lionfish (unfortunately), a barracuda lurking in a rock crevice and the usual plethora of fish species.

Hawksbill turtle (photo: Hannah Madden)

As we headed for our final ascent, we encountered a school of barracuda in the near distance, a perfect end to a perfect day diving! It seems that focussing on my breathing paid off, this time I was down for 56 minutes instead of 48 the previous day, and had a deeper dive.

A happy day indeed...