23 Days to Go!

Today, I wanted to post a few more pictures and tell you a little bit more about the island.

Many, many years ago St. Eustatius was a huge trading center and as many as 20,000 people lived on the island. That's a huge amount of people compared to the 3,500 people that live there today. Benjamin Franklin had his mail routed through the island on its way to the Americas from Europe. This tiny island also had a major hand in the formation of the United States of America. An American ship sailed into the harbor in 1776 (the year our nation was created) and fired off a 13-gun salute. St. Eustatius fired back, acknowledging the United States of America as a sovereign nation. They were the first nation to recognize the United States as independent from Britain. That was incredibly interesting to me when I found that out, they definitely didn't teach me that in middle school! 

So those are my little facts for the day. Now for some more photos!

This is the fort. It is on a cliff overlooking the bay. 

This is Crook's Castle. This is a place where you can find blue beads. There will be a whole blog entry devoted to this subject later. :]

This is Corre Corre (Corey Corey). It's a beautiful beach on the Atlantic side of the island.

This is my view of the Quill, from the garden. It is an extinct volcano with an intact crater on the island. The hike up there is beautiful and the view of the inside of the crater is awesome.

That's all for now! Hope you enjoyed the post and maybe even learned something :]