The Quill, The Quill, The Quill is on Fy-ah

We hiked the Quill! And it was fun, and I only fell once. Three cheers for extinct volcanoes!

Ready, set, go.

The sign at the trailhead. We took the “Quill Trail” which led right up to the edge of the crater, then the “Panorama Point Trail” which was pretty much straight up from there.

HOLY HUGEST CRAB EVER. We saw hundreds of these things marching through the foliage. They tuck and roll as soon as they sense you, so the prevailing sound in the forest aside from your own footsteps is the thump-thump-thump of soldier crabs tumbling down the hill. Half the time they end up rolling right in front of you on the trail. Jon may or may not have accidentally stepped on two. Crabs are so stupid!

Here’s the view from the crater rim. We’re standing right next to the edge looking across to the other side.

After resting and having a snack on the rim we took the Panorama trail straight up to the highest point on the North side of the volcano. I’m looking at Zeelandia Beach in this picture. If the day had been less hazy we would have had views of several surrounding islands including St Maarten and St Barths. But it wasn’t.

And that was the hike. Okay, so WEIRDEST THING EVER - yesterday Jon and I went snorkeling together and we saw a sea snake - an actual snake about 20 feet below us. Not an eel, a SNAKE. It was slithering along the bottom of the ocean. A real snake. WE BOTH SAW IT. With our eyes. We know what eels look like, and we know what snakes look like, and it was a snake. Greyish-purple with yellowish dots on its back, and around four feet long. We watched it for about ten minutes. It was awesome - the coolest thing either of us have seen since we've been here. Anyway, so of course the second I had internet access I tried to research what kinds of sea snakes can be found in the Caribbean and everything that came up said NONE. THERE ARE NO SEA SNAKES in the Caribbean OR the Atlantic ocean. Zero. How can this be???? Consider my mind blown.