Saba

Itinerary:
Day 13-16: Sail to Saba, explore the island and dive

Up till this point, I haven’t really touched on the Islands themselves; rather, I have focused on my personal experiences. However, with a place as unique as Saba, it is selfish for me to write only about myself.
Saba’s got spunk. There is definitely a more eloquent way to say that, a way that I’m sure would sound more professional, but it wouldn’t do Saba the justice it deserves. Deemed the “Unspoiled Queen” of the Caribbean, Saba is five square miles of craggy cliffs surrounded by raging winds and strong currents. By any standard—modern or otherwise—Saba is inhospitable. For the life of me, I can’t understand why people looked at Saba and decided they were going to live there; but they made the right choice. The people of Saba are hearty yet refined. You could stick anyone from Saba out in the wilderness or send them to a swanky cocktail party in Manhattan, and they’d thrive. Living in Saba isn’t easy, but they have made it a luxury, and as soon as you sail into sight of Saba, you are transported into an alternate reality.
Before the current customs house was built, everything imported to Saba had to go through the old customs house, which sat on a sharp cliff that was only accessible by steep, ladder-like stairs. The inconvenience didn’t thwart the efforts of Saba. In fact, they carried everythingup those stairs—including things that were deemed impossible, like a Grand Piano. Likewise, the inhabitants of Saba were told that it would be impossible to build a road due to the treacherous topography of the Island. Once again, they would not accept this defeat, and together they engineered two roads—the road that couldn’t be built, and the road that shouldn’t be built. To this day, those are still the road names. As if automobiles weren’t enough, Saba soon decided they wanted an airport. Multiple engineers told them landing a plane on their island was, once again, impossible. But they wouldn’t have it. So when a pilot doing a flyby of the island told them that there was one strip of land he thought he could possiblyland in, Saba jumped on the opportunity and built the airport. People from Saba are funny, stubborn, spunky, and ardently believe there isn’t anything that can’t be fixed with hard work and a little moxie.
We sailed into Saba on a dark and stormy evening. It was as cliché as it sounds; in fact, we all joked about how Saba looked like the lovechild of a Pixar villain’s lair and a Bond villain’s vacation home as we sailed in. Massive waves crashed on the cliffs, spraying salty foam meters into the air. Any sign of civilization was discretely tucked into the valleys of the Island, ingeniously protecting itself from the harsh reality of extreme weather while simultaneously making the Island look abandoned. It wasn’t until we turned the corner that we began to see signs of life—a few boats moored outside of the customs and immigration center, which was a converted shipping container. With great difficulty, we moored the boat as our skipper dinghied ashore to customs. As soon as we had settled in, he returned and we left one mooring ball to sail around the other side of the island and moor once again. It was raining, and the waves couldn’t seem to decide which way they wanted to crash, but still Saba’s natural beauty was undeniable. That first evening, we all stood speechlessly watching the Sun disappear behind angry rainclouds, utterly befuddled by what we had sailed into.
The next morning, we woke up earlier than usual for another dawn dive. The wind had yet to ease up, and before we stepped off the boat we were given countless reminders on how to react to a strong current; for the first time all trip, it was a real risk. The current was indeed there, but the waters were still navigable, and thank goodness they were, because the dive was absolutely stunning. Earlier in the trip I had this same feeling of wonder about my first open water dive. Then, I remarked that I understood the appeal of diving because you could really see what’s below the surface. In Saba, I understood whyyou’d want to see below the surface. Even in the faint light of dawn, while much of the reef was still hidden, the nature was unbelievable. It was the kind of thing you see in a nature documentary, and then doubt its authenticity because of special effects. Together, we kicked alongside pillars of lava rock and through a maze of coral. However, beauty is pain, and as we exited the dive, we had our first introduction to Saba’s jellyfish who happily floated right at the depth we did our safety-stop, and were impossible to avoid. Weeks later, as I sit back in upstate New York writing this, I still have remnants of a scar on my wrist.
After breakfast, we took Saphiroff her mooring, and moved to the next dive site, about 200 meters further out into the ocean. It should have been an easy move, but Saba’s waves and current made for a memorable second mooring attempt.
At this point, I should explain the seven-person procedure for mooring a boat. When we get about 100 meters from a mooring ball, we leave our sailing posts in the stern of the ship to head to the bow. One person stands in the center of the bow with a long metal hook. Their responsibility is to hook the mooring ball, and hoist it up to the level of the deck. Once they bring it up, two people—one on port, one on starboard—quickly thread lines through the loop in the mooring ball, and then cleat them off on their respective sides of the boat. Usually, a second person stands on either side of the boat to help the people one port and starboard lines. The sixth person stands a bit back on the deck and points to where the mooring ball is while shouting both distance and location of the ball back to the helm, which is easier said than done while facing into the wind with five other people trying frantically to communicate with you. All of this is done while the skipper stands in the helm and tries to maneuver us into the correct position. For many, this is a simple task, but our group struggled time after time again to master mooring.
On this particular occasion, we had moored successfully the night before, and believed we finally had the process down to a science. I was given the hook. As we sailed towards the ball, it rapidly became clear that the conditions were far from what we were used to. Regardless, we were determined. A few meters away, I reached down, successfully hooked the ball, and started pulling it up. But the lines weren’t prepared, and the boat was still moving forwards. Someone behind me called for me to “drop it,” meaning the ball, but feeling pressure on the hook, I misinterpreted, and let the hook fall into the water. “HOOK OVERBOARD,” someone else screamed. The skipper thrust the wheel towards the hook, and we all scrambled to try and somehow help. After about half an hour of a wild goose chase, we recaptured the hook, and tried mooring again. Once again, someone handed me the hook. It took three more attempts, now that we were all hesitant to fail, but we finally got on the mooring ball, and threw on our dive gear.
Once again, the jellyfish greeted us enthusiastically as soon as we entered the water. But once we had descended down to about 80 feet, they finally left us alone. From the mooring line, be swam along the bottom across a sandy patch till we reached the main attraction, a giant panicle that we spiraled around while ascending. More like a wall dive than a reef dive, all of us wondered at the stunning ecosystem. On this dive, we saw two blacktip reef sharks, and a hawksbill turtle amongst countless species of fish, invertebrates, and coral. When we ascended, we were stung once again by jellyfish. My dive buddy and I remarked that we could hear each other squeal in pain while underwater with our regulators in, and our instructor even noted she had heard a zap as we were stung.
Nevertheless, we persisted; the stunning waters were worth it, and after lunch we were moving the boat to a new mooring ball and diving again. Battling our jellyfish pals once more, we pushed through the pain to the most stunning dive of the entire trip. Two coral covered mounds sat in the center of the dive site, which we decided to make a figure-eight pattern around while taking pictures and marveling at the beauty. We saw a third blacktip, and a particularly curious green sea turtle in addition to the indescribable abundance of biodiversity of Saba’s reefs. Three dives in and reeling with stings, we decided to postpone our fourth dive till another day, and call it for the evening.
Thank goodness we did. The next day, we received news that for our community service with the Saba Marine Park, we got to dive and help clean the coral nursery. Excited beyond belief, we dinghied to the Marine Park Office, near the customs house where we met Yella, the man in charge of the coral nursery project, and he introduced us to the project.
Essentially, staghorn coral, a large branching coral, is a keystone species in Caribbean reefs, but the population has been struggling in recent years due to storms, bleaching, and disease. However, without the staghorn coral, the reefs cannot reach their full potential. So what Yella and the MPA have been doing is propagating the coral, and then once it reaches an appropriate size, epoxying it to substrate in an existing reef to foster the growth of a healthy colony. The research Yella and his team are doing on reef restoration and coral propagation could become vital in coming years as greater percentages of reefs are lost to bleaching. However, due to the lack of a lab—caused by low funding and no real place to put one on the island—all their experiments happen in the open ocean with too many uncontrolled variables to determine which are direct causes of failure or success, and therefore few scientific conclusions can be drawn. Our job while underwater, was to clean any algae off of the staghorn fragments that are going to be propagated. We were handed steel wool, and brushes with different bristles to accomplish the task. For 54 minutes, we bobbed below the surface, scrubbing in the name of marine conservation. I absolutely loved the task, and getting to work with the coral. I did not, however, love the fire coral that grew on the propagating corals that stung me and made my hands blister for weeks. Nevertheless, I would do it again in a heartbeat—fire coral and all.
That afternoon, we had the rare opportunity to head onto land for the afternoon. We dinghied back with Yella to the MPA office where we caught the end of the Japan Germany 2018 FIFA World Cup game. I’m more of a hockey fan myself, but the shocking upset of Japan shutting out Germany was thrilling to watch, and the experience of sharing a global sports moment with locals was exhilarating after living on a boat for the last few weeks. To my dismay, no one at the MPA office knew Sweden’s stats off the top of their head. After watching the final moments of the game, we parted ways with Yella and caught a taxi into one of Saba’s two towns, Windward Side, via the road that couldn’tbe built. I wouldn’t recommend the drive if you aren’t a thrill seeker, or if you don’t like heights, but having neither of those fears, I found the drive stunning, and a wonderful break from being on Saphir. Once in town, we set off together in search of lunch. In the end, we found a quaint restaurant with a beach club vibe (inflatable toucans and all) overlooking the ocean. I ordered their lionfish dish, which is probably the most delicious meal I have ever eaten: lemony and delicious, and helpful for local conservation efforts.
Everyone we met in Saba was raving about a glass shop: Jobean’s. Following our meal we made it our mission to get there. With only two roads on the island, we couldn’t possibly get lost on foot. Or so we thought. You see, the dirty little secret about Saba’s one road is that it’s twisty, with a million tiny unofficial side roads. Within minutes, we were lost. Luckily for us, Saba is gorgeous, and we got to see a large chunk of the Island. Eventually, we made our way to Jobeans, where we met the owner and artist, and she showed us a stunning collection of her work, let us pet her dogs, and fed us cake. She and I bonded over our mutual ties to Central New York. She had trained at Corning Glass, which is about 45 minutes away from my hometown. We spent the rest of our time on land with Jobean before being whisked back down the road that couldn’t be built, piling onto the dinghy, and then back onto Saphir.
That evening, we wet-suited-up for a night dive, and sat on the bow in our gear watching the sunset. In the first step of what would turn out to be a very eventful dive, a giant fish—which we believe may have been a Cobia (giant terrifying fish that resembles an angry shark)—rushed after its catch of the night, right below our boat. Now at this point, all of us were comfortable swimming with wildlife, large predatory fish included, but moored off this menacing island at dusk, about to jump into the water, we were all hesitant. Once we were all in, the dive only got more exciting. Night dives never have good visibility, but on this particular evening, we could barely see one foot in front of our faces with a flashlight. At first we saw some very neat life, such as a brittle star and a basket star, all unfurled. However, the part of the dive we were all dreading, where we turned our lights off for three minutes to observe bioluminescence, was still to come. Without light, it is safer to be seated during a night dive and the safest place to be seated during a dive is in a patch of sand. But the catch to that is, especially at night, the sand is where the rays dwell. As our instructor motioned for us to descend and sit, I noticed a ray flutter underneath my dive buddy. I tried to point it out to her, but with the bad visibility she kept descending, so another diver and I realized she was positioned to sit on the ray, grabbed her and pushed her aside before she fell on top of it. Shaken from that, we looked for a ray free spot to kneel and turn our lights off. As soon as we were all sitting, we did one more sweep with our flashlights and saw another ray swimming directly towards us. Not willing to take any chances, we rapidly swam away. I was under the impression that we were going to scrap the dive and start our ascent, but our instructor was determined, and so we kept searching for a sandy patch free of rays until we found one. Those three minutes in the dark were the scariest moments of my life. But by the time we ascended, we were all laughing about the chaos of the dive, and how well we handled the series of unexpected events.
We finished the evenings with hot drinks and retelling the tale of the night dive until we had exhausted all sides of the story. That evening, we slept well, and were well rested for the busy day ahead.
The next day we ate a quick breakfast, got through our academics, and then assembled our dive gear for the first dive of the day—our third deep dive. We went back to the site of our first Saba deep dive, which was the pinnacle that we circled around. For this dive, we tested our reaction time at depth versus on the surface. Weirdly, my personal reaction time was significantly faster at depth. While circling the pinnacle, we saw another blacktip shark in addition, of course, to the gorgeous Saba reef. For our second dive of the day, we headed back towards the customs house to find a completely new dive site. This dive was led by our marine biology professor, and taught us the basics of doing a SCUBA transect, something all of us would need in the fields of marine science, or scientific diving. Doing the transect itself was a bit rocky, since it was our first time, but the dive was gorgeous. In addition to accomplishing two transects, we also observed a very curious juvenile green sea turtle scratching itself on octocoral—quite possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
Mooring for the second dive was difficult, and took about 45 minutes in the current and tall waves, so following that dive, we decided to scrap our plans for a third dive, and spend our last night in Saba enjoying the world above the surface. However, as we sailed back towards our overnight mooring location, we made a split-second decision to go through with the third dive, just for fun. Thank goodness we did. The location was gorgeous with volcanic extrusions from lava that had recently erupted out of the island, and coral that had begun to cover the flow. It was also one of our group member’s 50thdive, which meant that since she had completed the rest of the stated requirements, after this dive she was a certified Master Diver! It was amazing to share that accomplishment with her, and was a window to what I wanted to accomplish in the future. The rest of the evening was quiet and drizzly, the perfect end to our incredible stay on the Caribbean’s Unspoiled Queen.