2025-01-19 St. Kitts - Rented car and drove the island

Well, we are still in St. Kitts.   Wanted to see the island again, and knew that if we stayed, we might get stuck for a couple of weeks due to weather, but were OK with that.

Took a nice walk to the west side of the island, where there was a small beach.  Walk was OK, but most of it is on the main road - which is never a great walk, especially since there is no shoulder and the cars go whizzing by quickly.

Small bay and beach on east side of St. Kitts (Sand Bank Bay)

Tuesday we went for another hike.  Looking on Google Maps, it looked like some old road we could use to hike to the top of the hill near the anchorage.   - Note to us - don't trust Google Maps.

We made it to the top of the hill, but following goat trails - we did find the road, but it was so overgrown it was hardly worth it.

Dean did find this little nest along the "trail"

Looking north, you can see Charm at anchor, and most of St. Kitts

The further along the "road" we went, the more overgrown.  It wasn't nice bushes, either.

Can you see the "road"?  These bushes are in the middle of it.

Quite prickly.

Dean took a misstep, and got some spines in his hand and foot.  Ouch.  Kris scouted up further ahead, but no good path to higher up found, so we gave up and headed back down.

In the trail back down, we stuck to grassy areas as much as we could.  Following goat trail.

Spotty rain on Wednesday, nothing much going on, but we did get a surprise visit from the St. Kitts coast guard.  Nice guys.  Just checking our paperwork and safety equipment.  Broke up an otherwise boring day.

St. Kitts coast guard

Cool to see both ends of the rainbow at the same time

Thursday, boat projects.  Defrosted the freezer, as it seemed to be running a bit much, shutting off and on too much.  Had a light on the refrigerator compressor warning of low power.  We don't have low power, so Kris dug into it, and found a couple of wires she did not like - so redid those.   Seemed to fix the issue.

Having the table removable easily sure makes it nicer to work

Friday was our big day.  Rented a car and drove around the island, stopping at some tourist spots.  We rented a Honda Grace.  It was a good car, but the Navigation system was all in Japanese, and several times during the trip it would talk to us in Japanese.  And several times a ding would sound.  Never figured out how to turn it off, so just lived with it.

Heading north on St. Kitts from our anchorage, you pass through a tunnel.  It was built due to dangerous rockfall.  Most of the south part of St. Kitts is all tourism based, with expensive homes and resorts.  This is the only road to get south, so the tunnel was built to protect the "rich" south in 2016.

Tunnel

We drove around the island starting on the east side, then around the north end and then the west side.  The East side is the "poorer" side of the island.  Buildings more run down, and roads narrow and twisty.

People park in the road, so often it is only a one lane road

The parked cars are actually in our lane, so had to go around them. 

Our first tourist stop was Brimstone Hill Fort.    This fort was built by the British by slave labor.  St Kitts was one of the first islands to be colonized by Europe.  It is an impressive fort due to location, and sheer size.

Upper part of fort on top of hill

Quite the steps to get up the hill

Looking down on armory

View to North, Sint Eustatius and Saba can be seen

Pretty much 360 protection from cannons on the fort

St. Kitts west coast

The barracks

The stone work is impressive

Parts of the fort still undergoing restoration

It covered a lot of the hillside

Made from a mix of volcanic rock and limestone.  The limestone shows interesting wear patterns from the rain and wind.

Dean is not happy about being enlisted.

You pass through several of these gateways on the way to and from the fort.  They are a bit tight.  We have a couple of feet on each side.  Can't imagine being a tour bus fitting through these.

The next stop was up some narrow roads to Romney Manor.

The chickens did not seem to be bothered by our car.  That is our tire, photo taken out of moving car.

 

 

Pretty sure we stopped here 34 years ago, and took our photos in front of this fan palm.

 

 

34 years ago in front of fan palm on Romney Manor.  Boy, we look young.  With our friends on the right, Kathy and Paul.

 

Same spot now.

 

j

The grounds are quite beautiful

 

Giant Saman tree is 400+ years old

 

We were going to go for a hike from here up into the rain forest a bit, but it was too cloudy, rainy, and we were running short on time.  Settled for a quick side trail.

 

Side trail.  Not sure what all the long stringy vines are from

 

 

Small stream along the trail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next stop was for groceries, as we figure we might be here for a couple of weeks waiting out weather.  We were quite hungry by then, but being as it was 3:00 it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, so settled for some "fast food" at a pizza restaurant.

Surprisingly tasty pizza

Made it back to the boat before 5, which was when the car rental ended, so all was good.

The winds started on Saturday.  Around 18 knots with stronger gusts.  And this will continue for the rest of the week, so mostly boat time for this coming week.  

2025-01-11 Antigua, to Montserrat to St. Kitts

Our plan was to stay in Antigua longer, and go around to the west side and check out some anchorages, as the weather forecast called for light winds, but a strong north swell in the coming week.    

We had some high winds on Monday, so we stayed on board, and glad of it, as 3 boats drug, and all next to us.  People were on two of them, so no worries, they took care of the issue, although one was down below, so we had to yell a bit to get their attention.  The third was a small boat, no on it, but we got in the dink and talked to neighboring boats, and someone knew the owner, who was contacted.  The boat drug about 2000' before they got there, but no issues, so all good.

May not look close in the photo, but the little blue boat came rather close to us.  Mostly worried about it snagging our anchor chain.

Windy days always good for boat projects and baking.  Dean made his two loaves, white bread for sandwiches and poppy seed loaf for breakfast bread.

Deans baking - he is getting rather good at it.

Tuesday the winds died a bit, so Kris headed off in the kayak to explore the shore a bit, and took a walk for some exercise.

This boat must have washed up during a hurricane, as it was at least 500' from shore

Antigua is a "dry" island, very much different from the islands with more rain

We also spent time with Mike and Gloria on Cotinga who were anchored next to us, and had an enjoyable evening with Kelly and Todd on Zing as well.

When cruising, plans need to be flexible, and we try to keep the boat ready to go at a moment's notice.  On Wednesday morning, after a quick weather review, we decided to check out, get groceries, haul anchor, and head to Montserrat instead of hanging out at Antigua.  Weather would not allow another opportunity for at least a couple of weeks or more.

Our friends on Cotinga were also heading to Montserrat, and were going on tour, so we asked to join them, which they graciously agreed to.

Nice sail over to Montserrat, and after checking in, we realized that we did not have the required courtesy flags for Montserrat, or our next anchorage of St. Kitts.  We were going to buy them in Antigua, but last minute change of plans to sail, so we had not done that yet.

Kris got out the fabric and sewing machine, and made up the base for both flags in a matter of minutes, and then got out the fabric paints and slopped together a couple of passable flags.  Not pretty up close, but passable from a distance.

Not pretty, but passable

Thursday we headed off on the tour of Montserrat.  In 1995 the volcano on Montserrat, Soufrière Hills started showing some activity.  It erupted and continued to have eruption activity until 2013.  Mud slides still occur and has basically made half the island uninhabitable, destroying the capital of Plymouth.  It was sad but fascinating to see the devastation that the volcano wrought.  They allow tours in the exclusion zone, but they are controlled, and monitor all persons who go in and out for safety.

Bunch of photos from the trip.

The dingy dock is just tied along the main wharf.  Very surgy and not the best place to leave the dink

View of anchorage 

Natural fresh water spring, notice pipe to left for filling water jugs

Our tour driver, Leslie, showing us a tree that grew up and enclosed the water pipe.  Now water comes out of the knothole of the tree

View of Soufriere Hills volcano from observatory.  Excellent movie in the observatory showing history

19 people died from the volcano.  It was amazing to see the video of the pyroclastic flows.  It looks like a big dust cloud, but using infrared at night you can see that it is really dust and rock superheated and glowing red - scary stuff considering they can move around 100 miles per hour.  The volcano would push up material from under the earth, and builds up "domes".  These are unstable, and eventually collapse, with rock flows, or pyroclastic flows depending on other factors.   When the normal tropical rains come, they wash down this dry loose material in huge mudflows.

The Capital of Plymouth was pretty much buried from mudslides up to 40' deep.  There is a small area near the coast that tourists can go, that wasn't quite as buried, but only with approval from the government and with approved tour operators.  Check in and out, and two-way radios, are required.  Any rain and you are not allowed due to threat of mudslides.  Any seismic activity occurs while you are there, and you leave immediately.

This was a school

The superheated gas killed all living things, but building remained

You can see this building partially buried

View of the volcano, and debris field.

Was a nice place at one time.  Those rocks are from the volcano

You can see it is still active, venting hot gas constantly

Dean and Gloria from Cotinga looking at the volcano and view

We are standing on the old large cruise ship pier.  A lot of shoreline has been added to the island, and the dock is much shorter than it used to be over water, as much of it is now buried 

The soil is dry, and somewhat dusty, but more sandy/pebbly.  Can you imagine coarse sand falling from the sky.

Our tour van.  A Toyota Voxy.  Always interesting seeing the car models that are not common in the USA

The entire south end of the island is no longer habitable.  The population of 12,000 is now down to under 5,000.  

Montserrat is a British territory, so is heavily subsidized by the British Government.  At one point the population was so low, the government considered "closing" the island, but then the local government opened it up to immigration, inviting anyone to come live there.  This got the population up enough that the island was not closed.

After the Volcano tour, we stopped at the botanical gardens for a tour. Small but nice.

Mangoes

Star fruit

The volcano also affected the wildlife, including the Montserrat Oriole, and the Mountain Chicken, which is of course really a giant ditch frog.  Both are endangered.

End of tour we enjoyed a nice late lunch out with Gloria and Mike of Cotinga.  

We did have one more join us for lunch, but they stayed under the table most the time

Yes, Dean shared his burger with the kitty.

We were inundated with bugs on the boat that night, they did not bite, but were attracted to the light.  Around 100 dead inside, and more outside.   Yuck.

Leftover dead bugs on the deck.

We left Montserrat the next day, and headed to St. Kitts.  No wind at all, so motored the entire way.  Worked out OK as we needed to make water, and were low on power.   Was actually a nice motor.

Not often the Caribbean Sea is this glassy and flat.  Island of Redonda in the photo

The last time we had been in St. Kitts was 34 years ago when we were still dating, we did a boat charter and spent two days in St. Kitts.  Boy has it changed.   The anchorage we were at was very remote, with no habitation around, now 34 years later, there is a large marina, resort nearby, and several mega-yachts anchored offshore.

Marina with mega yachts.  

 

Bad weather coming, so we either stay here a couple of weeks, or head out Monday for St. Thomas.  Haven't made up our minds yet.