Kitts

We anchored in Ballast Bay near the south end of St. Kitts for a few days after clearing into the capital Basseterre. Kitts is a little more tourist than Nevis as they get a pretty continuous stream of massive cruise ships. Ballast Bay is the future home of Christophe Harbour. With the emphasis on future. The important thing about this harbour development is that they put in the most cherished feature first – a strong WiFi tower.  Chris was setup to do some pre-trip work and planning for a work trip to Tanzania. After about 4 days of work with the Washington, DC office, the job got postponed till ‘later’. But the WiFi was really good during our stay.
We took a taxi ride around the island with the main plan to visit the Brimstone Hill Fort. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site that was called the ‘Gibraltar of the Caribbean’' when the British and French were jockeying for position in the West Indies. The view in the pic above is from the fort with the island country of St. Eustatius in the background (aka Statia).
The main fort drains through the red grate in the center of the picture into a hundreds of thousands of gallon cistern. Something helpful if you are in a fort with the main attack scheme against it being a siege. The French and the English worked together on the island over the years to jointly defend it against the Spanish, Dutch, and Caribs. If they weren’t feeling an eminent outside threat, then the English and French fought each other.

Tim and Patty of s/vTevai preparing to load the cannons.

Brimstone Hill fort from seaward

Adolphus was our Kitts taxi driver, historian and story teller.

Another highlight of Kitts is the Bottle Tree.

A Kittian lady near the Bottle Tree

A stop at the Kitts’ Batik factory was colorful. We all got a good whiff of the Batik wax.

Batik drying in the wind

 

Before the Brits and the French took the island it was populated by Caribs from South America and probably, before that, the Arawaks. The stone carved glyph above is a fertility symbol. Looks like they had some really long lasting white paint back then.

This is the skinny end of the island  in the south with the Atlantic side on the left and the Caribbean on the right. We are anchored in the upper right of the pic, on the Caribbean side.

The other work being done on the new Christophe Harbour is the dredging of the old Salt Pond in which the marina will be built.

The team dragging their way back to the dinghy after a hard day being a tourist.

Leaving St Kitts

We’ve made our way back up to St Martin. Got a few boat projects to get done before we head south to go permanently ‘down island’.

Paul

The Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis

Otherwise known as Kitts and Nevis. Two small, volcanic islands named by Columbus on his way around the Caribbean. This pic is the volcano in Nevis in the clouds, much like Columbus saw it and referred to it as snow covered.
We spent about 10 days in the two islands. While they are one nation, there’s clearly competition between the two islands. Nevis is the smaller, but has delivered far more top-tier cricket players to the West Indies team. Along with our friends on Tevai we took a taxi tour around the island.
Ford, our taxi driver and historian, gave us a great counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the Nevis road systems.
Nevis is divided up in parishes all based on the old Anglican churches that the Brits initially installed. The islands first indentured servants were the Irish. Then when the sugar-cane business started to blossom in the 16th century, African slaves were brought in. There’s a lot of connection between Nevis history and US history. Alexander Hamilton was born on the island. The original Jamestown, Virginia, settlers stopped here on their journey from England and started a town not so creatively called Jamestown.
In the 17th and 18th century there was a thriving Sephardic Jewish community who brought with them from Spain the secret to creating crystallized sugar from cane. This is the old Jewish cemetery, in the middle of Charlestown, with rocks placed on the graves, al la Shindler’s List.
The public hot baths fed by volcanic sulphur springs.
A stop in the botanical gardens so Chris and Patty could get a calming flower and plant fix. This plant has a pool of backup water in its black center.

A green heron hunting among the lily pads.

Delicate orchids

Nevis has a number of old sugar plantations that have been turned into high-end boutique hotels. This is the old windmill tower at Montpelier estate. 
These are old, wood gears from the sugar mill hanging in the outside patio and breakfast area. There’s pictures of Princess Di and her boys on the walls here. They told us it is fine to take pictures of the plantation, but that we couldn’t include any hotel guests in them.
For lunch we stopped at Hermitage Plantation, another old sugar mill. It has the oldest building on the island, about 300 years old. The room is above and was built from the Lignum Vitae tree – a wood renowned for its hardness.

    Lunch was the Caribbean favorite, a roti. Basically an Indian curry burrito with chicken or pork and potatoes.

A secluded room at the Golden Rock Inn, another refurbished sugar plantation.

Christmas colored elephant ears

Fortunately not all  the old mills are boutique hotels. This one had some great old, rusty stuff. This is the last functioning commercial sugar press on the island. Ran by a single cylinder steam engine, it last pressed cane in the late 1950’s.

The island is inundated with vervet monkeys. Lots of stories about how they came here 300-400 years ago, probably as pets. They are heavy consumers of the islands mangoes and óther fruits. Great for the tourists, a pest for the locals.

Nevis pelicans congregating on the Jesus is Lord skiff in the anchorage.

Paul