Ten days left

Just ten days to go and I will be off to the island of Saba along with Erik for my major internship. For me this will be my first time outside Europe. On this blog I will put updates if I experience anything cools, which I hopefully do. September 17th we will flight from Schiphol to Saint Martin and from there to Saba. The runway on Saba is famous for being the shortest commercial air strip in the world, this is only 400 meters. If I have to believe the tourists website of Saba it is an experience you will never forget. But is not surprising they are excited about this, because there is not much else to do on the island. For tourists there are two major activities, hiking and diving.

Before I will go on about the island I probably need to write what Saba is, because during the last months I experienced only two or three people knew what it is. Saba is the smallest island of the six islands of the Dutch Antilles. The others are Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao (ABC-islands) and St. Eustatius and St. Martin (along with Saba the SSS-islands). Saba is located in the Leeward Islands in the North-Eastern of the Caribbean Sea. Just as St. Eustatius and Bonaire, Saba a special municipality of the country the Netherlands, whereas Aruba, Curaçao and St. Martin are countries within of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Unlike Saba being part of the Netherlands it is not part of the European Union and does not use the Euro, instead they use the U.S. Dollar.
As said before it is a small island, only 13 km2. In comparison Schiermonnikoog has 44 km2 of landmass. But instead of being flat like our countries mainland, Saba is made out of a volcano. The volcano Mount Scenery has a height of 877 meters, which makes it the highest point of our country and the kingdom. On the volcano grows a tropical forest which gives home to several tropical birds and other animals. The shores are rocky (so no bounty beaches), which give breeding grounds for sea birds, including our study subject the Red-billed Tropicbird (Phaethon aethereus) and the Audubon’s Shearwater (Puffinus lherminieri). Both of these have important regional breeding grounds on Saba and both are a symbol of the island, the Shearwater is even placed on the coat of arms of Saba.

I think this is enough about the island for now, next update I will write about the research on the Tropicbirds. At the moment Eric and I are writing the protocols for the fieldwork, so we still have to do some preparation. It is also weird to think I just have two workdays left, today and next Saturday. I also need to cut my hair before the trip, and more of such things. Like saying goodbye to my grandparents and think of what to take with me. For sure I have to take sunblock, summer clothes and flip-flops, because it is going to be a sunny internship!