St. Kitts and Nevis

11 April 2008 St. Kitts and Nevis

“I dropped your propeller and can’t find it!” called out the diver as he emerged from underneath our boat. Anchored in Simpson Bay, finally almost on our way, we had just one last chore to do – change the propeller. We should have known there was a problem the moment the diver brought out a hammer instead of a propeller puller. However, this is Caribbean and things are done differently, we reasoned. Luckily, after a while the propeller was found, changed, and Blue Moon is a happier boat under power, not to mention Kuno, who likes to tweak all things mechanical!


We left Philipsburg on St. Maarten still in the dark, hoping to put in some miles behind us before Tatiana woke up. But the sea and wind weren’t very kind to us and we spent the next ten hours rather uncomfortably, in big swell, on close reach to the wind, occasionally pelted by rain and large waves spilling into the cockpit. It dawned on me that doing a big ocean crossing really wasn’t something that I was interested in, 10 hours was long enough for me. We passed the islands of St. Barth’s in the distance, Saba and St. Eustacius quite close by and finally landed on St. Kitts. Volcanoes dominate the landscape of all of these islands, making them easily visible and recognizable. But neither Saba nor Statia have a decent anchorage in this weather and so we decided to bypass them. We will visit St. Barth’s, my favourite island, on our way back up.

After the necessary customs and immigration hoopla, we were free to explore the island. And so we hopped on the “Sugar Train”, built in 1926 to transport sugar cane from across the island into the port. The landscape in St. Kitts is dotted with remnants of old windmills and chimneys from the sugar plantations, now mostly in ruins or converted into hotels. An impressive fort, Brimstone Hill, is guarding the entrance to the island, fought over by the British and French. Sugar cane is left to grow wild all over the island to prevent erosion but is no longer a viable economy. What struck us about St. Kitts is how much friendlier people are than on St. Maarten. St. Kitts and Nevis are celebrating 25 years of independence from Britain and it seems that their government is doing a good job. Health care and education are paid for by the state (we admired the colorful creole school uniforms, so much more fun than Tatiana’s plain navy blue), as well as “rent to own” housing; overall the island seems fairly prosperous. This year St. Kitts added a cruise ship terminal and so we woke up in the shadow of a big cruise ship that arrived early in the morning. Observing the frantic cruise ship visitors trying to get as much activity in as possible before the afternoon departure, we were happy just sitting in a street café, sampling local beef patties and playing cards. We are slowly settling down, just hanging out…