Saint Christopher
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Sat 31 Mar 2007 17:39
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Dear Friends
"17:16.36N 62:40.65W"
Saint Christopher, usually known as St
Kitts, has been another enjoyable week for us. It's a civilised island, where
you would be quite happy to walk the streets at night with no safety concerns at
all. There is a fair amount of development
(but nothing like as dreadful as anywhere in Europe) and the new houses are
mainly Winter holiday homes for Americans.
As in Nevis, there is a scheme for the taxis
to take you on island tours, visiting points of interest, which includes
"Brimstone Hill" a very impressive hill fort built by the Brits on top of a
small volcano. The whole thing has been very well restored and preserved and
must have been a great posting when there were no active hostilities. They still
have a huge number of cannon in good order, of which here are just
three....
 Since we've had a fairly lazy time, with
quite a lot of reading then we thought maybe a book review would be
appropriate.
Our Book of the Week is "This Thing of
Darkness" by Harry Thompson; pub Headline Review. A great historical novel on
the voyage of the Beagle and on FitzRoy's and Darwin's work. Only 744 pages, so
you need to read the Acknowledgements and Bibliography as well, which also
contain some amazing facts.
It is a riveting read, even if you are not
of a nautical bent: full of humour and amazing adventures. Also a great deal of
disappointment and failure to recognise achievement, coupled with tales of the
truly dreadful actions of the colonists and the government of the day. We assume
everyone has heard of Darwin, but for those who wonder who FitzRoy was, he
invented the shipping forecasts and his contribution was really only finally
acknowledged recently when sea area Finisterre was renamed FitzRoy five years
ago.
Thoroughly recommended and one of the best
we've read so far. Diana at Booksbooksbooks 01584 819587 will be pleased to
procure a copy for you if you have trouble.
Next stop Saint Bartholomew or just plain St
Barths.
Best Wishes
George & Michael
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