We have now has our second day ashore in Sint Eustatius (or Statia for short). This place is really a find, and a huge contrast to Basse Terre in St Kitt’s. Lots of reasons: it is really tiny, with just one town, high on the hill, full of charm; the people are very friendly; one takes a big step back in time, to the Dutch Colonial era, and the town has loads of buildings from that time; it has a classic volcano, the Quill, with excellent hikes (we are told); the sunsets are first class; there are just a few tourists around, probably here for the fabulous diving; it has some lovely wee hotels (must remember the Old Gin House for the future). It is just a really fun, relaxed and simple place to stop. We are one of only two yachts here in Oranje Baie – hurricane Irma put paid to the visits of charter fleets out of St Thomas and Sint Maarten.

The history is fascinating, and they have a small but well organised museum. In the 18th-19th centuries, Statia was the centre of trading in the Caribbean for a long while, on the basis that they would trade with anyone (much to the annoyance of the British at the time). It was also a centre for slave trading, between Africa and the rest of the region, and in the 18th century was home to sugar plantations. They say in its zenith around 200 boats a day would dock in the bay to trade, often illegally. It changed hands (between the French, English and Dutch) many times. You can still see the ruins of the hundreds of warehouses along the seafront, built on reclaimed land that the sea has in turn reclaimed again.

It is Dutch here, but Statia is not in the EU. We think we kind of worked out its status but would struggle to explain it. They speak about four different languages on the island – Dutch, English, Creole and sometimes Spanish.

All in all it’s been a very interesting stopover, and Statia is somewhere that we had never heard of until we saw it was on our route so decided to stop.

Tomorrow we head for Sint Maarten, where we will stop for about a week and let some weather go through as well as catching up on maintenance.