Impressions of St. Kitts

     Basseterre is a Caribbean city with friendly people and a tangible culture. Many buildings are older in colonial British and French styles, the streets have open sewer drains, and reggae and calypso music play from many store speakers. Throughout the day people sit along the downtown streets just "liming"- a relaxed attitude that involves sitting around, chatting and enjoying life. Walking through the roundabout of the circus, taxi drivers called out to us from all sides asking if we wanted tours of the island. No cruise ships were docked so many unoccupied taxis with unique names painted on the front sat waiting. One driver with a brightly tie-died shirt and matching green, red and yellow beard shouted "ah sailors off the boat! The one's yesterday were delicious!" leaving us laughing as we walked deeper into the city.

     Funny enough, our guidebook talks about this colorful character saying, "Ready to party? Call Christian Rameshwar at Tangerine Tours. Christian is from Trinidad and likes to get his passengers in fine spirits with an open bar of lots of beer and four types of rum. He wears very brightly colored clothes and a beard tinted to match. His tour vehicle is a big open bus, where you sit with the breeze and the view. Christian, who loves having fun, will jolly along anyone with Eeyoreish tendencies. He is knowledgable and eloquent on historical tours."

     As the day progressed vendors filled the streets selling fruit, vegetables, homemade rum, and knockoffs of jewelry. One looked like a typical hotdog stand but instead of street meat they sold packets of candy. Port Zante sits along the waterfront just off the long cruise ship dock. It is filled with duty-free shops selling jewelry and what I like to call 'made-in-China tourist crap.' Tacky tourist stuff that you can find just about anywhere. Happily I stumbled upon a lovely little craft shop beside the National Museum that had a small hand painted sign outside advertising, "Made in St. Kitts and Nevis, not China." I couldn't resist going in and I'm so glad I did. The lady running the shop made us feel so welcome. She told me all about growing up sailing with her Dad around St. Kitts, Nevis and Statia. I ended up buying a few small things, including some hand painted items made from calabash, which she explained is a large hollow fruit grown on trees and made into bowls and other small objects. She also assured me that everything in the shop was made by local artists.

     Outside of the city we anchored in White House Bay along the southern stretch of St. Kitts. Green peaks rise up along the length of the island, covered in bush and grasses of green, yellow and brown. Many of the beaches are a dark grey-brown, fairly rocky, with cliffs dipping down into the sea. Nevis towers in the distance, clouds capping its main peak. So far we've done a lot of swimming, snorkeled a small wreck by the rocky shore, and gone hiking along the road around two large salt ponds and a trail up a peak right by the anchorage. After snorkeling on the first day here, I was eager to explore on shore. As I walked a beach with large pale oval stones I glanced down the curve of the beach and caught sight of a small herd of white goats trotting towards me. On and on they came, led by a white bearded old man of a Billy goat. The first thought in my head was, "I wonder if they're coming to drive me off the beach?" As they rapidly closed the ground between us I retreated into the shallows to let them pass. Quickly as they appeared they were gone, clambering off into the bushes, leaving only scents of goat cheese and curdled milk in their wake.

     On our first hike ashore, Jamie, Dad and I caught sight of our first African green vervet monkey darting off the beach and into the low bushes. Small, shy creatures, they popped out of the bushes along the main road and quickly disappeared from view, like deer dodging cars back home. Jamie and I had fun wandering the main road to view the salt ponds and developing real estate on the many hills. We explored a bay to the north side and Jamie mused about kiting in the large murkey salt pond. Today we took the dinghy into the salt pond where Dad and Jamie intended to try kiting, but it was such a swamp! The water was yellowy-green, rocks and pipes protruded through the murk and when Jamie put his foot on the bottom it stuck about a foot into sticky brown muck.

     White House Bay has been an interesting anchorage in many ways. The water is clear and clean, it is fairly secluded with only a few other cruisers anchored around, and there is a useful dock nearby, courtesy of Christope Harbour Development. They are actually converting the nearby salt ponds into a marina, although it is early along in the process. There have been a few negative factors to this anchorage as well. Every day the wind swirls down the nearby hills, tossing the boat around as it funnels into the bay. As Mom likes to say, "The wind goes from zero to sixty knots in five seconds." A bit of an exaggeration, but we did have a problem after the first night when our anchor chain decided to wrap itself around a large piece of metal wreck on the bottom. Every time the wind tossed us in the night the chain would yank and make a banging sound on the bow. It took a lot of maneuvering and Jamie snorkeling in the water telling us what to do to release it. It ended with the anchor free and the piece of metal broken in two separate pieces. After that we made sure to snorkel the area all along the chain to make sure it was clear.

     So far St. Kitts has been a beautiful welcoming country. I can't wait to rent a car next week and drive the undulating hills. Jamie and Dad hope to kite off the north side of Frigate Bay tomorrow. So far our plan is to wait for the part Dad ordered for the auto pilot to arrive and then move on to explore Nevis. I think renting mountain bikes on Nevis will be a great way to explore, and the guidebook assures me that you can get around the whole island in one morning at a leisurely pace.

     We managed to get a sim card for the iPad so we do have Internet all the time now, but I cannot get pictures onto it, so they will follow soon. Also, Jamie has put together an awesome video of photos and video footage from our time in the BVIs and St. Kitts. So that'll be up when we head back to Basseterre to rent a car next week.

All the best,
Nicole.

Whale Watch!

Today on our sail from Cap a L'Aigle to Tadoussac the air was cold, crisp and clear of mist. Shortly out of the marina I was completely overwhelmed with excitement when I spotted a whale! And not just any kind, but an endangered beluga. White and sleek it skimmed the surface of the water as it passed behind us. So awesome! My first reaction was a loud "Oh my gosh!" and of course Mom and Dad freaked out thinking something bad had happened. Throughout the morning we settled in at a nice sailing pace and kept spotting more belugas just along the edge of the waterway (sometimes mistaking whitecaps for them as the wind picked up).

Unfortunately a relaxed attitude never lasts long on a sailboat. Peace is fleeting. All of a sudden the wind came ripping down the hillsides, buffeting us, causing some intense heeling. At that point we lowered the main and sailed through the gusts under genoa for the rest of the day. To add some excitement to that, Mom yelled "Oh! Oh! Sea Lion!" as she glimpsed a seal right beside the boat as we neared Tadoussac.

Coming in to Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River around two o'clock we encountered some strange waves. The tide coming in and wind blowing out created choppy eddies and ripples along the surface. We also saw the water change from a nice sea green to an intense black as we neared the Saguenay. The water gets as deep as 400 feet just at the entrance to the river! The experience of pulling into the anchorage behind Club Nautique de Tadoussac allowed Dad to come up with the line: "Where should we anchor today? Oh, how about over there behind that whale." Our heads were spinning as we searched for a good spot and a whale surfaced about 30 feet in front of us! We're not sure what kind it was but it had a dark dorsal fin, so wasn't a beluga.

It's pretty cool to encounter these kinds of creatures already when we are only just nearing the ocean itself. So far tonight the wind is still howling and we have had to reset the anchor, so we're all looking forward to a good dinner and wrapping ourselves in lots of blankets for the night (it's cold today!).

Hoping everyone back home is well,
Nicole. xo. (Since we can't find internet to connect to tonight this post is going to my first sent to the blog through our marine SSB radio to a station in Lunenburg, NS, so hope it turns out ok!)
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