St Kitts
Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Wed 1 Jan 2014 21:22
After our comprehensive tour of Nevis with Dave Yeah Man, we decided we had experienced enough of the island and so motored the short distance to St Kitts via Booby Island for Adam to have a good look for any boobies. (For those who do not know Adam, he is a keen ornithologist and was looking for the Red Footed variety of Booby in case you were wondering). We did not need to clear customs as our clearance from Nevis covered both Islands (how sensible!) We gave Mosquito Bay a miss, although in the tourist books it is known as Turtle Bay, it is very exposed and not a good anchorage, unlike Cockleshell Bay which was excellent and we spent a very pleasant couple of nights here. The beach bar, Reggae Beach, was very busy during the day with trippers being brought in from their cruise liners for the day and then almost deserted in the evening, a much more pleasant place! We snorkelled and had a good walk ashore and along the beach into the adjoining bay, Banana Bay and generally "chilled". Others were more active though and we were entertained by people trying to master "jet boarding" where you are tethered to a jet ski by a flexible pipe and water is forced through the pipe from the jet ski into "boots" you are wearing from which the water comes out in powerful jets. The idea being to gracefully rise out of the water and move over it "suspended" on these two columns of water issuing from beneath your feet. You can imagine it takes a bit of time to master and the learning curve is entertaining to watch from the comfort of the shaded cockpit with a cool drink in hand.
The south end of St Kitts is remote and unspoilt, so it came as no surprise to us that there are huge plans to build over 300 houses along the coast (I suspect not low cost housing for the locals!) and a marina for super-yachts has already been started by dredging the salt ponds and opening them to the sea. The marina will have its own associated housing, retail and hotels, so we are pleased to have been there before this happens. Since the last sugar cane was produced in the late 1990s the island has been developing its tourism industry and it seems this development is just a natural part of that process. Sad.
On Saturday 28th we moved on to the capital of the island, Basseterre and anchored just outside the small marina. Our first trip ashore coincided with the contents of the Queen Mary 2 coming ashore into the most horrible Port Zante "shopping complex". Imagine Royal Quays on the Tyne or any other of these huge retail outlets, set next to a very pretty town of architecture ranging from solid British to fancy French and described as one of the Caribbean's more attractive capitals. The contrast is extreme. The outlets offered "free" gifts to all cruise ship customers, and, as our sailing guide says " genuine bargains in duty free Port Zante are as likely as tulips in Tonga"! We were interested to discover that many of the outlets were run by Asians, not Caribbeans.
We did however manage to get a "round the island tour" with Junie and his cruise ship customers in his open sided bus with an excellent view from the seats on the back of this gold coloured converted wagon. All started well, with a gentle ride around the town past the war memorial, 27 Kittians died serving in the British forces in world war 2. We then went North along the main road, occasionally managing to hear what Junie was telling us through the crackling speakers. We saw churches of all denominations in every small village. The plantation owned by the father of Thomas Jefferson, third president of America. The remains of the sugar cane plantations are either overgrown or developed for tourism. We stopped at one with monkeys in the rain forest area and the remains of the sugar cane mill and rum distillery being preserved at Romney. It also had a 350 year old Saman tree. Then on with the tour to the Batik makers, a demonstration was underway on how the vivid coloured and patterned cloth is created. These short stops, never longer than 10 minutes gave respite from the air conditioned bus, by that I mean the extreme wind that caused Sarah's hair to form a strange new style, not that Adam or Darrell had concerns in that area. We motored on round the north end of the island to see where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic and on to Black Rock Bay. Where huge projections of lava stand up proud of the Atlantic waves as they crash onto the cliffs. Adam manage to scramble down and get a piece of lava for his collection. The on with the tour. Junie had given up the pretence of telling us information unless he could stop the bus and walk along the side where we could hear. The East side was less developed and a lot windier. As we reached the south end we could see the manicured lawns and golfs courses of the posh resorts. But time was getting on and the Queen Mary passengers were keen to get back. So we returned to Basseterre and some disgruntled passengers got off, mainly upset because we had been promised a stop at Brimstone Hill Fortress, which had not happened due to apparent time restrictions. But we returned windswept to Stream to plan our own tour of the fortress for Sunday.
On board Stream, drinks in hand, we settled to the very rolly conditions and watched the lights of the town, listened to the live music from Basseterre's version of Piccadilly Circus and had another fine meal. Finally, at about 10pm we watched the silent departure of the Queen Mary, all lights a blazing, off on their tour next stop, Tortola and then New York, before returning to Southampton, it is amazing what information Adam can get from people in very short amounts of time. They are having a very different experience of the Caribbean than the members of Stream Tours Ltd.