So yachty

Jon and I hiked the Quill yesterday morning up to "Panorama Point" - the highest peak on the Western side of the volcano rim. I conveniently forgot my camera at home so I missed a photo op of an ENORMOUS yacht in the harbor. I thought my eyes must be playing tricks on me because it looked bigger than the new Seventh Day Adventist church building, which means nothing to people who haven't been to Statia (but trust me, that building is HUGE). And who has ever heard of a yacht that big?? Well it turns out you can Google super-yachts, and here's what we turned up about this one. Interesting article - or maybe I just think that because I actually saw the boat. Key points: It's called the "A", is 394 feet long, cost around 300 million dollars to build, has 37 crew members (including armed guards), and the water knobs in one of the bathrooms cost $40,000. EACH. Facepalm. There are also yachts INSIDE the yacht. Yachts in a yacht. I realize it sounds like I made that last part up, but I didn't.

We were unaware of any of this as we stood at the top of the Quill, though. We trekked back down (as it turns out, narrowly missing the Russian billionaire who owns the thing - he was hiking the Quill that morning, too. We heard his group going down into the crater as we descended Panorama Point), headed home to shower, then walked to Chicken Day where we ran into a friend who filled us in on it. So of course we had to go get a closer look. We walked at least a thousand miles yesterday.

By the time we got to a good vantage point (stopping at home to pick up our binoculars first), the sun was setting, hence the terrible quality photos. We got there just in time to see it disembark, and ten minutes later it was out of sight.

Disgusting, lavish opulence. But still really really cool to see.


Macaws!

Sort of upset this picture is out of focus:



Dutch Reform church from Fort Oranje, Quill in the background:



Killy Killy Kestrel: