2025-01-26 Windy week in St. Kitts - broken toe - up to St. Croix

It was a windy week in St. Kitts, so mostly on the boat.  Sunday we went for a nice walk with new friends Neil and Jenni on Lorikeet.  They are here in St. Kitts with us waiting out the high winds.   We walked over to the ocean side to check out the waves.   On the way over and back we saw lots of monkeys.

The African green monkey (vervets) is not native to St. Kitts, but brought onto the island long ago as pets.  As early as 1700.  They of course have multiplied.  Estimates say there are about 37,000 monkeys on the island.  That is about the same as the population.   About 550 monkeys for each square mile of land.  St. Kitts is working to reduce the population, but they are a tourist draw, so they don't want to eliminate them.   It is becoming quite the issue.

African green monkey

The issue is of course food for the monkeys.  They do a lot of damage to crops.  We saw them on the dry end of the island, where no crops are grown, so assume that they have begun to scavenge trash as well, since they are omnivores.   Some were not particularly afraid of us, but others scampered into the brush more quickly.

Monday we went for another walk with Lorikeet, to get off the boat.  Took a different trail and walked down to a rocky beach.  All was good, then all of a sudden Kris took a fall.   She doesn't know how she fell, or what happened, just was walking on the rocky shore, then on her butt.  Her toe hurt, but thought she could walk it off, so we continued on the walk, then back to Lorikeet for a boat tour and visit.  

The toe still hurt, so that evening Kris spent some time with various frozen foods propped on her foot to ice the toe, which was now swollen.

Dean thinks this is the best use of frozen veggies he has seen in a while.

Pretty sure the toe is broken.   So for Tuesday and Wednesday, Kris pretty much sat on the boat with the foot elevated.  Dean went for daily walks with Lorikeet.  And the wind blew around 20 knots, with higher gusts.

Thursday, Lorikeet rented a car, wanting to go for a hike to a bat cave on the rainforest side of the island, and we joined them.  Had to change plans, as heavy rains the night before made the trail too wet, so decided to do a trail on the dry south end of the island.   

Kris brought a book to hang out and read and relax while Dean, Neil and Jenni hiked the trail.  

Kris had a nice view of the south end.  Island of Nevis in the south

Dean, Neil and Jenni walked the Shitten Bay trail 

The trail, more of a scramble than trail at some areas

Shitten bay at the end of the trail is a popular spot for cruise ship tourists to come for a snorkel, 2 or 3 boats every day bring tourists here.

Jenni and Neil getting ready to hike back.

After the hike, we headed into Basseterre, where Jenni had found a good place for lunch at Palm Court Gardens.    Beautiful gardens and delicious food.   Had a bit of an issue after ordering, it was nearly an hour until food came.  They were very apologetic, and offered free desert, so all worked out.

Palm court garden

View from the restaurant

Cruise ship guests can pay about $20 to hang out for the day at the gardens, enjoy the pool, and sip drinks (drinks extra of course)

Neil and Jenni off Lorikeet with Dean and Kris

Kris's toe still aching, so while others climbed the stairs for a high up view, she stayed down.  That should speak to how the toe feels

We stopped at a hardware store and groceries on the way back.  Also stopped at a scenic overlook. 

View of south end of island, Charm anchored in the far distance.

The overlook is a main island tour destination, so lots of vans parked there as well, with cruise ship tourists wandering about.

Had to take a photo of this van for our son Derek, who was quite the fan when he was young.

View of north side of island, Mount Liamuiga is covered in clouds, as usual.

A fellow selling coconut juice had a couple baby monkeys in diapers.  He lets the monkeys sit on tourists shoulders for a fee.   

Friday, we decided to sail off to St. Croix, but had to check out first.   We went in at 10:00 to do this, and finished around 1:00.  Power outage on the entire south end of the island caused the longest checkout ever.

We upped anchor around 2:00 p.m. for overnight sail.  Kris wearing one shoe to protect her toe.  She is so happy that she actually had a bruise.  Seems every time she hurts herself, she has nothing to show for it, while Dean always gets a nasty bruise and more sympathy due to a visible injury.  Kris quite happy she actually has a bruise this time - not that anyone would ever see it on the underside of the toe.

Kris's bruise on middle toe.  We know, it just looks like a big shadow, but it is the biggest bruise she has had in around 20 plus years.

Decent sail up to St. Croix, averaged over 7 knots for 20 hours on the trip, which is pretty decent.

We will hang out here for a few days, then up to St. Thomas in preparation for our son Derek's visit on the 11th of February.  

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.