It’s 44 miles from St Barts to St Kitts and hopefully, we would at least be able to sail a direct course without tacking as the course was dead south, until we turned the corner off the west coast of St Kitts, to make our way the 10 miles down to the main harbour of Basseterre, where we would be stopping for the night.

We had a pleasant sail in about 18 kts of breeze until we turned the corner when we came into the lee of the island and the wind died away to a whisper. We turned the engine on and motored the rest of the way passing numerous ruined sugar mills left over from the days of slavery.  Another island discovered by Columbus (as most were) but this time he named the island after himself as one book says although another refers to him naming it after the patron saint of travellers - St Christopher.  The island was colonised by both the British and the French who formed an alliance in order to remove the indigenous Carib Indians.  The French ceded the island to Great Britain at the Treaty of Utrecht on 31^st March 1713. The French then re-took the island for a year in 1782 after storming Brimstone Hill Fortress.  They then lost it again after the French Fleet was defeated in the Battle of the Saints.  The island remained in British hands until it was made an associated state of the Commonwealth in 1967. In 1983 the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis became and independent state of the Commonwealth.

We arrived off Basseterre just before sunset.  The anchorage was immediately off the commercial port and was not particularly pleasant.  There is a marina and a cruise line dock about a mile back but we decided against visiting it or the island itself.  We were conscious of the need to keep moving south and there are many other places we want to visit before we get to Grenada so we decided that St Kitts would have to wait ‘til we come this way again.

We didn’t take many photos apart from this one of Mount Liamuiga (aka Mount Misery!)