Statia Trip report....

[Jonathan Bird]

Hi All,
I'm in St. Maarten on my way to Statia (St. Eustatius) in the Caribbean on a magazine assignment right now. Once I get there I will post a little trip report....

So far, I am killing some time in the airport in St. Maarten and sampling the local rum. It is good and I am feeling no pain. I also picked up some fine Cuban cigars for later this week...

Stand by for more....:D

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

Man, I didn't know you were going so soon! Of course, we all want to know all about it. -Clay

[tarczy]

Please be sure to get lots of beach shots while you are on your trip . . . especially while you are in St. Maarten. I understand that the flora and fauna at the beach is just lovely this time of year . . . lots of topless birds, etc. :cool:

P.S. I hope you brought a loooong lens. :D

[Jonathan Bird]

Hey Mark,
I was only in the airport on St. Maarten....not much going on there except sitting around and drinking beer!

I haven't had time to do a trip report as I go because I don't have internet in my room. I have to come out to the lobby for wireless and I haven't had the energy or the blood supply to feed the mosquitos sitting out here all night. Anyway, I'll post pics and a report when I get back. The summary is: this island is awesome. Details to come.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived and found another uwphotochatter here already! Yes, "Seabreeze" is here. He came up to Eastport a year or two ago to dive with me and we bumped into each other at breakfast. Hey, where are the rest of yas?? :D

Jonathan

[sorvju-f]

Hey Mark,
I was only in the airport on St. Maarten....not much going on there except sitting around and drinking beer!

I haven't had time to do a trip report as I go because I don't have internet in my room. I have to come out to the lobby for wireless and I haven't had the energy or the blood supply to feed the mosquitos sitting out here all night. Anyway, I'll post pics and a report when I get back. The summary is: this island is awesome. Details to come.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived and found another uwphotochatter here already! Yes, "Seabreeze" is here. He came up to Eastport a year or two ago to dive with me and we bumped into each other at breakfast. Hey, where are the rest of yas?? :D

Jonathan

Thats great Jonathan and Seabreeze...the diving world is actually rather small.

What more we have members...the more we will meet together round the world:D

Lets push couple of our nonmember friends to join our team inside UWPC!

[Jonathan Bird]

That's for sure Jukka. I was just checking out scubaboard....they have like 8 zillion members. I guess they haven't found us yet!

I am in the airport in Statia right now waiting for my puddle-jumper to Saba and then on to St. Maarten to pick up the US Air flight to Charlotte and then Boston. I don't get home until the middle of the night. I will hopefully have a little time for a trip report.

This island is really wonderful. I love it. (And they even have free internet in the airport, which is only 2 rooms). More details to come.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Bird]

Statia is only 5 miles long and 2 miles wide. It is just 6 miles from St. Kitts but since it is Dutch, it is allied with St. Maarten and most of the flights come in from there. If you have been to Bonaire, you are familiar with the Dutch Caribbean. The island is accessed by WinAir, a small airline that operates small planes. My experience with them so far is actually quite positive. (i.e. my luggage made it...what can I say....I have low expectations!)

Because this island is so small, it is quiet and not built up. Land is still cheap by Caribbean standards. There are only a few hotels, a couple dive shops and a dozen or so restaurants. The food is fantastic. (There are SIX Chinese places on the island and they are quite authentic, home-cooked and better than most Chinese food available in my town at home!) The people are friendly, there is almost no crime and its a quiet place to relax. Don't look for shopping or night life here...there isn't any.

The island has a volcano (they call it the Quill, which is a modification of a Dutch word meaning "crater") but it's only around 2,000 feet tall, so it doesn't have a lot of clouds and therefore rainfall. So this is a "pointy" island like Dominica but it doesn't have all the rainforests and rivers of an island like that...it's just a little too small. So it is more hilly than a sandy island like Bonaire but not quite like Dominica or St. Lucia.

The diving is nice and fairly typical by Caribbean standards. There are no extreme walls like Cayman or Dominica but there is a very wide range of different sites from a huge shipwreck (the "Charlie Brown" a retired AT&T cable-laying vessel sunk as an artificial reef a few years ago) to nice macro sites and good reefs. One thing I found here that makes it particularly special underwater:

1. Turtles. They have a lot of Hawksbills. You see them on almost every dive. But more importantly than that, for some reason they are amazingly tolerant of divers. I shot over a hundred images of a hawksbill feeding on the reef and it didn't seem bothered by me at all. I noticed all week that the turtles were generally quite tolerant of divers...more than most places. Maybe they have not had enough divers here to harass the turtles yet.

2. Stingrays. There is a dive site called Double Wreck (which is just old ballast stones remaining of the wrecks) that has a sandy area and tons of stingrays. Like the turtles, they allow close approaches.

More to come....my plane is here.....

Jonathan

[solisti]

I think you got us on our toes now. Waiting to see the pics. Have a safe flight home!

[Jonathan Bird]

OK I'm back. I'm in St. Maarten now waiting for my next flight.

Statia has a marine park system which doesn't mean they have no fishing, but they control the fishing so the fish life is a little more prolific than neighboring St. Kitts, although I must say that it is not as prolific as I expected based on the reading I have done.

The Charlie Brown wreck is absolutely cool if you are into wrecks. It is not old enough to have too much growth on it, so if you like wrecks for marine growth and critters, it's not that good....yet. (It will be....give it a couple years). But the advantage is that the wreck still looks very much like a ship. You can read the text all over the place on the engines and side of the hull, etc. still. It's lots of fun to explore and very photogenic.

We had very unseasonable weather during my trip (quite windy for this time of the year) but the viz was still good to excellent at all the sites I visited. Viz on the wreck consistently exceeded 100 feet and made for some great shots.

I found a seahorse (all by myself, which rarely happens!) at one of the macro sites and I was very excited to get some great shots of stingrays (including close-ups of the spine) as well as turtle feeding shots for my library. I was able to get so close to the resting stingrays that I shot macro of the eyes and stinger using the 24mm end of my 12-24 zoom.

Statia has an interesting and important history as a free port, going back to pre-revolutionary times. Read this:

http://www.secar.org/History_1.html

It was the first nation to recognize the independence of the United States and also supplied many of the arms for the revolutionary war. The United States depended on this tiny island!

Today it derives most of its income from an oil terminal where they have a massive storage facility. Instead of cruise ships bringing tourists, they have a bay full of big oil tankers loading and unloading oil. Basically, they distribute oil throughout the Americas. I am told that one of the advantages of this "free port" terminal is that they can essentially "launder" oil. So for example, if one country doesn't want to buy oil from the middle east, they can buy it from Statia and it is "Dutch" oil...even though Statia may have bought it from 7 different countries (including the middle east) and stored it.

I really enjoyed my trip to this sleepy little island and I would even consider buying land there at some point. I will probably take my family back there on vacation when the kids are a little older.

I will post some pictures soon.

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

Ok, Birdman, you've got my attention! Are there specific places you can recommend for the hawksbills? What was your flight itinerary? Can you make it from the US in a single day? I'm always on the lookout for good Chinese, but every Chinese place I've been to in the Dutch Caribbean (all on Bonaire or Curacao) featured shark fin soup on the menu. -Clay

[Ken Hawk]

Got my attention too ;)
Ken

[Jonathan Bird]

Hi Clay,
No shark fin soup on any menu I saw. Believe me, I would have given them some crap about that.

I flew US Air from Boston to Charlotte to St. Maarten, then took WinAir from St. Maarten to Statia (18 minute flight). I booked the whole package at Orbitz and it was $550.00. They didn't even lose my luggage either way! It was one day (a long day because of connection time). Any number of airlines fly into St. Maarten and from there it's just a short hop. And like I said, WinAir is actually a great little airline. I'll take it over Liat. Hey, they didn't even whack me extra for two check in bags (both were a tad under 50 lbs).

The turtles are everywhere on this place. Small ones, and friendly. I can get you the actual site where I had the best encounter, but honestly, you will see them on every dive.

They have one beach on the Atlantic side where they have half a dozen Leatherbacks nest every year. Since they have so few Leatherbacks, they keep a close watch on them (volunteers patrol the beachs at night in season). I was lucky enough to get invited out on the beach one night when a leatherback came up and they reluctantly let me take a few pictures (with flash) after the turtle was done laying eggs and making its way back to the water. I'll post pics this evening!

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

They have one beach on the Atlantic side where they have half a dozen Leatherbacks nest every year. Since they have so few Leatherbacks, they keep a close watch on them (volunteers patrol the beachs at night in season). I was lucky enough to get invited out on the beach one night when a leatherback came up and they reluctantly let me take a few pictures (with flash) after the turtle was done laying eggs and making its way back to the water.

Jonathan

COOL! Man, it must be great to be a big shot! Maybe I'll get over there this summer. Sharon and I are looking for new places to go. I'm looking for a place to stay with 24/7 shore diving. Does Statia have decent shore diving? -Clay

[Jonathan Bird]

COOL! Man, it must be great to be a big shot! Maybe I'll get over there this summer. Sharon and I are looking for new places to go. I'm looking for a place to stay with 24/7 shore diving. Does Statia have decent shore diving? -Clay

Hey Clay, I wasn't a big shot....just asked if I could tag along. I have no idea if Statia has shore diving. I'm sure there is some, but the resort I was at certainly did not offer it.

Here are some underwater shots:

[Jonathan Bird]

Some more...

[Jonathan Bird]

A couple more...

[Jonathan Bird]

Here are some topside shots from the Fort (Fort Oranje) and the Hotel (The Old Gin House).

[Jonathan Bird]

Here is the leatherback I photographed on its way back to the sea after nesting...

[Jonathan Bird]

This is the extremely busy downtown. Seriously.

[sorvju-f]

Jonathan, your wreck pics are impressive. Somehow B&W gives the feeling of real wreck.

Most I liked this ray eye! From the mid of sand cover jumping really clear eye have a great contrast

Jukka

[tarczy]

Hmmmmmm . . .

The dive model seems to be holding an old Ikelite 105 strobe.

What did you do to get those shots . . . set the strobe on "slave" and then shoot? Somehow I don't think a normal torch would ever provide the kind of secondary illumination you achieved in the images you posted.

Dude . . . very clever! :cool:

Mark

[solisti]

Huge wreck shots, the visibility must have been awesome.

[Jonathan Bird]

Hey Guys,
Yes, the viz was good and Jukka I agree that the B&W works because it makes the wreck look "old" somehow. On the very widest B&W shot, the model is not deep enough to show just how big the wreck is. We were on the way up when I shot that.

Mark, it's an Ikelite 200 (older non-digital version) at half power for fast recycling. I am using the old remote TTL sensor (pre-Digital) to fire it as a slave as you surmised. You shoot manual (have to...the pre-flash will set it off at the wrong time otherwise) and send a lot of hand signals back and forth with the model on which way to point it and which way to point the sensor to get it to fire. The old Nikon 105 strobes could fire as slaves but were extremely unreliable because the sensor was built into the front of the strobe and would only fire when the strobe sensor was pointed the right way (and therefore you had little control over which way you could point the strobe itself.) With the ikelite set-up, I mount both the strobe and sensor on an arm (with a small weight so I can plant it) and then you can point the strobe in one direction, and the sensor in another.

I use it as backlight in (for example) the picture of the model looking out through the window of the wheelhouse (you can see it illuminates the wheelhouse inside behind her) and I use it like a "flashlight" in other shots. Sometimes, as in the image below, I stash it behind something for creative backlight. (You will see this in some of my wreck images from St. Vincent and St. Kitts in those threads). I stole this technique from Doubilet. :D At least I admit it. (He uses a really bright HID).

As for the flashlight technique, the average person will not realize it's a strobe--it looks like a bright flashlight in the shot. Some photogs use really bright HID lights for this, but I find the strobe more effective in exterior shots because it is SO powerful. On the flip side, it is finicky about firing in bright light, so the sensor must be aimed very well and the downside is that I must use my on-camera strobes to fire it. If I want a shot with ambient light only I am screwed. What I do in that case is just turn my on-camera strobe power way down and point them away from the shot but try to still get enough light on the sensor to fire the slave.

As a "flashlight" this is a pretty straighforward technique. When I'm using it as a backlight a la David Doubilet, it's a little harder to get it to fire. It's a lot of work. You need to dedicate an entire dive to maybe two or three shot setups (depending on depth), you need a model who is cooperative and will spend the whole dive working it with you and has taken the time to learn your hand signals, and you have to ignore the temptation to shoot other things that distract. But the results are wreck images that have a lot of pop and more interest to the viewer. Wrecks are hard to photograph well, especially if you don't want yet another plain ol' wreck shot.

Jonathan

[McCloud]

Hi

Extremely nice wreck photos. It is really great to see creative lighting and it works. Especially the one with the model using the strobe as a torch on the side of the wreck. The flash really illuminates the wreck.

Best regards

Allan "McCloud" Jensen

[Clay Coleman]

Great wreck shots, Jonathan. I happen to have an Ike 200 and a slave sensor, and I'm making immediate plans to steal that look! To what ISO was your camera set to get that nice effect at 1/2 power on the slave strobe? Very relaxed and nice-looking model, too. Does she work at the resort? -Clay

[Salty]

Great Images Jonathan.... Congrats. Just wondering if you single the model to take a breath or just controlling the shutter at the peak of inhale. Not many bubbles and was just checking.

[Jonathan Bird]

I try to watch her breathing through the viewfinder and just shoot when she pauses naturally. Too many additional hand signals otherwise!

Clay, the camera was set to the default 200 ASA. You have to play with the strobe power. When I'm using it as a flashlight, I use 1/4-1/2 power because the 200 is just so powerful, it can really be overkill when it is pointed towards the camera. When backlighting, you usually need all the power you can get so I shoot it at full. It's trial and error. You have a hand signal to turn the power down or up and have your model do it after you take a test shot an look at the histograms. Ain't digital great?

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

the camera was set to the default 200 ASA
Jonathan

Man, you are getting old with that ASA talk! Thanks for the info. -Clay

[Jonathan Bird]

Man, you are getting old with that ASA talk! Thanks for the info. -Clay

Back in the film days, "ISO" meant DIN, which was logarithmic. On my Old Minolta X700 from the '80s, the ISO scale was marked 31, 32, 33, etc. And the ASA scale was linear (50, 100, 200, etc.)

Somewhere along the line they started calling ASA by the name ISO, which is technically not correct! The terms 50, 100, 200, 400, etc. are all technically ASA (linear) and true ISO would be represented as DIN numbers (log).

http://www.minoxlab.com/Don_Krehbiel/mpl/dkasa.htm

I know everyone calls it ISO now, but I'm old school.

Jonathan

[seabreeze]

Hi all,

We're just back from two weeks in Statia - where, remarkably, we happened to meet our illustrious webmaster and dive guru. I see Jonathan covered a lot of the introductions - and I concur with everything he's written to date.

The turtles are ubiquitous and, yes, extremely patient. We did 18 dives and saw turtles on virtually every dive - and they were always docile, even friendly. At one point, three of us were in the water column above the Charlie Brown and had a hawksbill hovering between us at mask level for a minute or more. He made eye contact with each of in turns and even lolled upside-down so we could look at his belly. He made no move to evade us. Quite remarkable.

We didn't see sea horses (we'd have loved to find one), but heard several reports of others finding them with locations on where to look. Neither did we see any octopus, but two of the other guests at the hotel were snorkeling near the hotel and saw one on two different days in different locations - in the middle of the afternoon!

The diving is not a "sexy" as, say, Bonaire - but, we never were diasppointed in any of our dives and we always saw interesting stuff. I'm finding I particularly enjoy diving on wrecks and really enjoyed The Charlie Brown (a *really* bad name for a ship, but then AT&T named it....) and also the Chien Tong - a 160 ft Twainese fishing boat. I took advantage of the opportunity and got my Wreck Diving merit badge while there.

I put stars next to a couple dive sites as being particularly worth another visit - including "Humps" and "Ledges". "Humps" is a bizarre landscape of volcanic mounds scattered in sandy bottom. Each round hump projects perhaps 5-8 ft off the bottom and is covered with corals and sponges, and sports their own resident critters. Head's-up - it's easy to get disoriented in this strange garden.

We booked our hotel (The Old Gin House - as in *cotton* gin) through our dive operator - Dive Statia. We were able to get a significant discount over published rack rates. I'm going to post an extensive report on the hotel, probably on Trip Advisor, as soon as I can (hey - it's back to work. Got to pay for the vacation!). It's a good/lovely place to stay, but with caveats, which I'll detail in the report.

We were very happy with Dive Statia - one of three dive operators on the island. We heard good reports about all three operations. When we began investigating a trip to Statia on the web we sent numerous emails and heard back from Rinda and Ruby, who own and run Dive Statia - with a "what can we do for you to make this happen" sort of response. They are very eager to please. They were the first dive operator on the island and did much of the work to identify the dive sites and to help procure the two ships as well.

Mike and Marieke are the dive masters (just arrived to replace the previous couple who'd been there three years) and they are just *excellent*. They took extremely good care of us!! Pre-dive briefings are very thorough: they have an illustrated rendering of every dive site complete with anchor point, compass bearings and all the major physical features noted. All the sites are within view of the dive shop and harbor, so surface intervals are done on shore at the dive shop. BTW - We don't like trying to cover an acre of bottom on our dives. We perfer to hang in one location and take a long, leisurely look around - especially for taking pictures. We were allowed to do that without problem, either rejoining the others (never more than two or three), or surfacing alone at the boat when we were ready. Very accomodating!

OK. I want to post more - and maybe some pictures as well. But, I just downloaded the pic's last night and haven't enen really looked at them myself yet - so stay tuned!

[Jonathan Bird]

Hi John,
Thanks for the follow up. It was great to see you and Jane again on Statia. Where will we meet up next?

Jonathan

[Jonathan Bird]

I received some very sad news recently. Lisa Hanson, the diver who modeled for me on Statia, has unexpectedly passed away (not a dive accident). I am very sad to hear this news. Lisa was a wonderful person, and absolutely one of the best underwater models I ever worked with. We became friends and had been in e-mail contact since the trip. She was very excited to see her pictures in Sport Diver but unfortunately did not. My thoughts and prayers are with her family. :(

Life is short. Enjoy it while you can.

Jonathan

[Neptune7]

I received some very sad news recently. Lisa Hanson, the diver who modeled for me on Statia, has unexpectedly passed away (not a dive accident). I am very sad to hear this news. Lisa was a wonderful person, and absolutely one of the best underwater models I ever worked with. We became friends and had been in e-mail contact since the trip. She was very excited to see her pictures in Sport Diver but unfortunately did not. My thoughts and prayers are with her family. :(

Life is short. Enjoy it while you can.

Jonathan

Terrible news indeed. What happened?
You are right: enjoy life now!

Pierre

[sorvju-f]

I received some very sad news recently. Lisa Hanson, the diver who modeled for me on Statia, has unexpectedly passed away (not a dive accident). I am very sad to hear this news. Lisa was a wonderful person, and absolutely one of the best underwater models I ever worked with. We became friends and had been in e-mail contact since the trip. She was very excited to see her pictures in Sport Diver but unfortunately did not. My thoughts and prayers are with her family. :(

Life is short. Enjoy it while you can.

Jonathan

Terrible news!

Pictures and videos are great...they can live for ever...Jonathan, I think Lisa's family would appreciate some pics during the dives you made together.

Jukka

[Jonathan Bird]

I'm giving a talk tomorrow at the New England Aquarium Dive Club about Statia so I just read this thread to bone up on the basics since the trip was 2 years ago. I have to say, these threads are pretty handy sometimes!

Jonathan