Our position is 17:17.507N 62:43.481W

Although the swell had abated somewhat, after a long debate about the viability of going ashore on Friday morning at Nevis, it was decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and we opted to sail straight to St Kitts without revisiting the quaint buildings and lazy charm of Charlestown again. The sail over was fast and surprisingly boisterous, considering the wind was supposed to have dropped. There were some vicious slams funnelling through the gaps in the hills as we skirted The Narrows and sailed along St Kitts South West coast. 2 hours saw us approaching Port Zante marina in Basseterre (easily locatable by the huge cruise ships moored nearby) and a radio call received a positive response so we prepared in accordance with instructions and went in hoping for the best (and some assistance in mooring, bow on with the stern fastened to piles). However the dockmaster, while very good at waving from a rather short pontoon, was less useful when it came to tying up – a manoeuvre further complicated by the dinghy, which had chosen to turn turtle and wedge itself across the transom! With the help of the inhabitants of nearby yachts we eventually managed to get everything secure (and the dinghy righted) and went ashore to register with customs. We didn’t exactly need to clear in, as we had done that at Nevis and it is all one country, but we still needed to check in with them. As I was walking over to the office I passed the customs’ officer walking in the opposite direction but he instructed me to go to his office and wait as he would only be 10 minutes. 40 minutes later the other lady in the office, whose purpose was indiscernible as she couldn’t help me and didn’t have any obvious function – while I was waiting she ate lunch and looked at her Christmas cards –rang him to find out where he was and remind him I was there and he returned, full of apologies, 5 mins. later, only to check on the computer,  inspect my documents and decide he didn’t need to do anything with them!

The rest of the day was spent walking into town and arranging a hire car for the next day.  This latter was harder than expected as most of the companies had no cars left, but we managed to find one from Bullseye Rentals, run by a very friendly and efficient American who had originated on the island and returned on retirement from a high flying job in a telecoms company.  We had hoped to have Christmas Dinner in a local restaurant, but from talking to people it was apparent that the Kittitians eat at home for Christmas and our best bet would be a hotel. With the need to venture outside walking distance for this in mind we agreed to have the car for 2 days.

 When we were back at the boat Ted went out to get chicken and rice from a roadside vendor, which amazingly didn’t seem to poison him. We got talking to Don and Sue from Florida. They had been sailing in the Caribbean for 2 years, but were now heading home on their 1981 Bristol 40, Song, accompanied by their Westie, Max. We invited them to join us for Christmas Dinner – we hadn’t at that point decided where we were going to go – and they recommended the Ocean Terrace Inn, where they had been before. The music played long (and loudly) into the night – Friday night is obviously a happening night.

The next morning we were up early to collect the hire car – a LHD Chrysler convertible - very flash with the wind in our hair, and set off round the island. First stop was the restaurant at Ocean Terrace Inn to inspect the menu for the next day and book for the 4 of us. After that we followed the main road to Romney Manor Botanical Gardens and the Caribelle Batik workshop. It was quite crowded with cruise shippers, who seemed more impressed with the explanations and demonstrations of the process than Ted was. I thought the designs were very attractive, but the prices less so (unsurprisingly) .The gardens were beautiful and the ruins of the sugar processing plant very tidily preserved. I hung about by some of the organised groups to pick up on the information. Ted reckoned one of the guides didn’t know what she was talking about but I heard one of her punters saying she was never going to use white sugar again!

It was time to press on to Brimstone Hill Fort, an international heritage site and an extremely well preserved/restored British fortification on the top of a steep hill overlooking where the French had their fortifications. It was also very well presented with many sources of information, both pictorial and verbal. We spent rather longer there than we probably had time for, partly because we somehow managed to lose each other, but we eventually came back together and headed off in search of lunch. I was keen to go to Rawlins Plantation, a posh hotel in the hills, and when we arrived there it was every bit as beautiful as I expected but there seemed to be no-one else there. Kevin, the British owner/manager, was extremely welcoming and nothing was too much trouble. We chatted with him about the boats he owned back in the UK and we were shortly joined by Gideon and Denise, a cosmopolitan British/Canadian and Anguillan couple living on the island and doing a tour of family and friends for Christmas. Kevin managed to conjure up the wonderful buffet of Caribbean dishes that Rawlins is famous for and we had a fantastic lunch, accompanied in my case by a very acceptable rosé (Ted was driving). The buffet was followed by Christmas pudding and ice cream, to get me in the festive spirit (I knew there wouldn’t be any the next day having viewed the menu) Kevin followed up with a complimentary rum, in honour of Christmas. While we were having lunch it had rained quite hard meaning Ted had to dash out to put the roof up on the car, but it was under a tree so didn’t get too wet inside while he struggled to find the right switch to push.

By this time it was getting late so we had a bit of a dash down the East coast, only stopping to photograph the only train in the Caribbean, which was built to carry sugar round the island and now only carries tourists (although there didn’t seem to be any on it when our paths crossed). I was anxious to get to the big out of town supermarket while it still had some food left as we were running low on staples and all the shops would be closed until after we were planning to leave the island. As it was they had sold out of fresh milk but we managed to buy plenty of other stuff and Ted was seduced by the buy 5 packs  of Carib and get one free. When we got it all back to the boat I couldn’t fit it all in the beer locker! Christmas Eve night was quieter than Friday night so we were able to get to bed reasonably early, in anticipation of the next day.

Approaching St Kitts                                                                                        Looking back at Nevis - grateful we'd left!

Crusie ships identifying Port Zante                                                                 Safely tied up with the dinghy the right way up

Demonstration of batik process                                                                          Lovely gardens at Romney Manor