Day 6 on Statia - The Quill

We'd designated Sunday as our day to hiking up and into the Quill, intending to set off early to avoid hiking in the midday heat. Luckily the day was cloudy with rainy patches which meant it was going to be less hot, but more slippery on the trails.

The trail up the Quill starts at the end of the road I am staying in, so we set off on foot.

The Quill, as viewed from Rosemary Avenue, Statia

The Quill is a dormant volcano, and inside the crater is a lush damp tropical rainforest, inhabited by some of the island's more interesting wildlife, including the elusive Bridled Quail Dove, which on Statia is only found in the Quill. The highest point on the crater rim is Mazinga, at around 600m, but we were hiking up to 400m and then down again to 200m into the bottom of the crater itself.

The lower slopes of the volcano are covered in dense undergrowth, and secondary forest, once you leave the (invasive) coralita zone. The slopes were cultivated in the 18th century to grow sugar, cocoa and bananas among other commodities. On the lower slopes we were greeted by the beautiful zebra longwing butterfly,  as well as the striking red flash of the tropical dead leaf butterfly, seen here while at rest and camouflaged well as a leaf.

Tropical Dead Leaf Butterfly (resting with wings closed)

Here I also managed to spot Caribbean Elaenia and Yellow-crowned Night Heron, although I was far from being able to get a decent photo of either. In fact the only bird I got a clear photo of was the hicken that followed us up to the top in hope of being fed!

I was only able to identify these courtesy of Hannah's knowledge of the Quill's birdlife. Also seen were a metre long red-bellied racer snake and numerous hermit crabs of varying sizes.

The final part of the climb to the rim was a little steeper although wetter and cooler, and even though I had seen the view down into the crater before it still took my breath away when I got to the top. Photos don't really do it justice, the scale of the crater and the distance across just can't be captured well enough, you really have to be there.

Inside the Quill crater as seen from the rim

The climb down into the crater was much harder than the climb up. The well-maintained but steeply descending trail was at times little more than a hinted path over volcanic boulders of all sizes. The rain had made the rocks slippery, and the mud wet and slippery too, I only slipped a few times and was thankful to be wearing walking boots. Celie navigated the rocks with the sure footedness of the goats that scale the near-vertical cliff down by the harbour, and even four-year old Lalia put me to shame with her stamina and determination.

Heading down into the crater

On our way down, Hannah spotted another first for me - the scaly-naped pigeon (also known as the red-necked pigeon). The vegetation inside the crater was completely different to that on the outside slopes, we saw cocoa, wild banana, silk cotton (which produces kapok), Gum Tree (the tourist tree - as it has red flaky bark), trumpet tree (with enormous lobed leaves) as well as a myriad of epiphytes such as bromeliads growing on the trees and a lot of other flora, too many species to mention here.

In the end there was no bridled quail dove, but that was only a slight disappointment in the scheme of things. Five and a half hours later we arrived home happy, tired and hungry.

We snapped up some lunch then headed down to the black volcanic sandy beach for the rest of the afternoon to cool off and de-sweat. By the time we left the beach our bodies were carb-hungry, so we rounded the day off with home-made macaroni cheese with turkey sausage, spiced rum for the adults and a well-deserved early night

Day 5 on Statia - Princess Corner

    My sixth day in the Caribbean was originally planned to be my first day on St Kitts, however with a lack of boat going across from Statia, it turned into my fifth day on Statia instead. Not such a bad thing - just an excuse for more diving!

 We managed to squeeze ourselves in to Scubaqua's busy schedule (busy, being as it was a Saturday) to do a morning dive and Mike led us on a dive to Princess Corner. This site is reasonably shallow (18m) and is made up of a large sandy area flanked by two fingers of solidified lava flow and coral gardens. A potential highlight of the dive was the chance of seeing yellowhead jawfish, which make burrows in the sandy area of the dive site.

Ready to dive! (photo: Hannah Madden)

 It was my first dive with Hannah and she brought along her GoPro, which meant the possibility of some good photos. Again I was diving with Nitrox, 32% O2. It always takes me a couple of dives to get back into the swing of it, so this being my fourth dive so far I was feeling pretty confident in my ability to prepare my equipment however that was soon dashed by the realisation I had attached my regulator over the bungee cords that were holding my tank from falling. Thankfully another diver in the party noticed and helped me out, as by that time I was already in my BCD. D'oh.

 A bumpy ride out to the site and we were first in the water and down to the bottom, just over 18m. Our first sighting was this sea cucumber. A nice big one just making it's way over the sandy sea floor.

A nice big fat sea cucumber (photo: Hannah Madden)

Sadly no jawfish at this stage, but it wasn't that we weren't looking hard...

Looking for jawfish (photo: Hannah Madden)

From there on we proceeded around the coral gardens. The dive site was pretty amazing, with a diverse range of fish, too numerous to mention them all, but highlights and favourites were porcupine fish, trumpet fish, smooth trunkfish (including a tiny ping-pong ball sized baby), french angelfish, queen angelfish and in the distance, a black-tipped reef shark cruising by at about 15m away.

No jawfish sighting for me as I had to end the dive after a total of 48mins, however Hannah managed to get some footage of two males in their burrows after I had surfaced. She managed a whopping 60 mins bottom time, so I've gotta train myself to breathe more slowly and get longer dives...

Visibility was about 20m, which means the water looks like it's clearing after the swell that was just calming down on the day of my arrival. I'm looking forward to more dives like this and more sharks. The plan is to dive the Charles Brown wreck on Monday.

In the afternoon we drove around the island, Little Miss Lalia showed us her skills with her scooter, and we wandered round the Berkel Family Plantation in the hope of spotting an Iguana, but no luck there. 

The Quill, seen from Berkel Family Plantation

However I did get to see what a pomegranate bush looks like, and added Green-Throated Carib and Pearly-eyed Thrasher to my birding ticklist.