Statia - The Quill

The dominant geographical feature of Statia is the enormous cone of the Quill, a 1968 foot high volcano that last erupted sometime back in the 1600's and is now considered extinct. Instead of diving while we're here we decided to check out the view from up top so we packed a lunch and set off up the hill. It was a pretty relentless slog upwards. First, just getting to the foot of the cone took about 45 minutes, and that was the easier incline. From there it was another 50 minutes of steady climbing to get to the edge of the crater. But the forest was shady and at times there was a good breeze going, so it wasn't too bad. We saw all kinds of wildlife: snakes, soldier crabs, hummingbirds, feral chickens and tons of lizards. There were also some cool looking bromeliads growing out of practically thin air in the branches of trees. Supposedly the Quill is home to a wide variety of orchids as well, but unfortunately we didn't spot any. The view of the crater was pretty spectacular, it was covered in dense foliage and some of the trees were enormous. We didn't hike down the crater because by this time it was midday and we were so sweaty that practically all we could think about was getting back to the boat and in the water for a swim. Besides, heading back downhill to town was the easy part!

When we got back to the boat we put our snorkels and fins on and did a little more snorkeling around the anchorage. We saw one of the weirdest sea creatures I've ever laid eyes on. It's not in any of our fish identifiers, but I'll describe it in the hopes that somebody knows what it is and can email me. It was maybe as long as my forearm, had a face like a frog, and was using its two front fins almost like hands to dig at the bottom for food. Underneath it's body were spindly legs like a lobsters, and it also had these sort of winglike fins that it dragged behind it but occasionally it would fan them out like a fly. Then it had a tapering tail and it's whole body was covered in sort of iridescent spots, and it had kind of an antenna/lure like thing sticking up off its back. It was scuttling along the bottom, not swimming, and it used its front fins to scare up a small fish, which it then ate. Our divemaster back on Saba was talking about something called a "frogfish" which we didn't see on the dive so it's possible that this was one of them, but I'm not sure. I swear it was one of the ugliest looking things I've ever seen. I wish we'd thought to bring the camera so I could've snapped a photo. It seriously looked like something the editors of the "National Enquirer" would've dreamed up, kind of like the Bat Baby only real.