The Nantucket Clipper is docked at Statia, or St. Eustatius. Remember the big volcano on one end of this island flat island? (See December 19, 2000 journal.) This extinct volcano is called "The Quill." Today we’re going to climb almost 2,000 feet above sea level to the top and see what’s inside the volcano’s crater. Our guide up The Quill is a Statian teenager named Roosevelt (age 19). We start our hike at the base of The Quill, walking through a field past grazing goats. The trail passes through an open field, then leads through bushes covered with vines of colorful pinkish-red flowers. Roosevelt says these vines are called corallita. The flowers are not like regular flowers because they have no petals! What look like the flowers’ petals are actually heart-shaped pink leaves. Roosevelt explains that people here make a tea from these leaves and drink it for coughs. Now the trail is covered over with many skinny trees, and we are no longer in the sun since the trees shade the trail. As we climb higher, the trees get bigger and fatter. Roosevelt stops and points out an unusual tree. This leafy specimen is about 12 inches in diameter and 30 feet tall. It has a green trunk with thin, orange-red bark peeling off. Roosevelt tells us this is the gumbo limbo tree, but people here like to call it the "tourist tree" because it get red and peels – just like the sunburned tourists! The green tree trunk is also bark. The reason the bark is green is that it has chlorophyll in it. The chlorophyll in the bark makes food from sunlight, just like tree leaves do! The narrow dirt trail becomes rockier as we follow it, switching back and forth across the volcano. Finally we reach the top of the volcano and look into the huge crater, called the caldera ("call-dare-ah"). Thousands of years ago, this volcano blew up like Mt. St. Helens in Washington did in 1980. What was left is this crater, which measures 900 feet across. (That’s the length of three football fields!) We can’t see to the bottom of the caldera, 550 feet below us, because it’s covered with a minirainforest. Except for in this caldera, no rainforests exist on Statia. In fact, the island is fairly dry and doesn’t get much rain. But the top of the volcano catches the clouds as they blow by, dropping rain inside the crater. This rainfall allows the rainforest to thrive. Unfortunately, we can’t climb to the bottom of the caldera because it’s getting late. We don’t have flashlights, so we head back down the trail. (We don’t want to get stuck in the dark!) Before we leave, Roosevelt points out some animals that will be spending the night up here – crabs. We inspect the land hermit crabs, also called soldier crabs. Soldier crabs crawl to the top of The Quill looking for tasty plants to eat. Even though the crabs crawl far from the sea, they need water to survive. Just as we carry air in our scuba diving air tanks to survive underwater, these land crabs carry water in their shells to survive on land! |
The trail up The Quill passes through a field of bushes with colorful pinkish-red flowers. The houses below are the town of Oranjestad. In the distance is the island of Saba.
Our Statian guide, Roosevelt, and a young explorer, Chris, rest in the shade along the trail going to the top of The Quill volcano.
The gumbo limbo tree is called the "tourist tree" because it gets red and peels – just like sunburned tourists!
We are looking into the crater from the rim of the volcano. A minirainforest grows 550 feet below us, inside the steep sides of the crater.
At the top of volcano we find land hermit crabs, also called soldier crabs. This crab is in a shell about the size of your fist. Soldier crabs carry water in their shells to survive on land. |
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January 5, 2001
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