After the rolly nights in Gustavia, St. Barths we were ready to move on, so we set sail for St. Kitts on February 24th. The weather models were all showing light winds in the 8 knot range, but we had great wind of 18 to 20 knots most of the way. Finally the wind was on our beam instead of our nose! The sea state was just a little lumpy too, so it was a perfect day!
We dropped anchor in Basseterre by mid-afternoon, and Douglas went to shore to get us checked in. It seemed pretty calm, but as the night fell, the rolling started again. We had a pretty terrible night sleep being woken up by creaking noises. Every time you stop one noise, another one replaces it. So the next morning we reserved a slip at the marina.
The marina was set up with a very short dock and two poles out further. We had to back in and get bow lines around the poles before the stern got to the dock. Our buddy boat, Blue Mist, helped us in and then we helped them in because it was so tricky. We made it without damage and it felt good to be tied up for a change at a flat marina with no worries of anchor drama. From the marina we took a tour of St. Kitts with a local taxi driver, and saw all the major sights including the huge fort, an old church and an old plantation where they still made rum and batik dyed fabrics.
After a few days at the marina we decided to move to the anchorage at Friars Bay. We left the marina at 7 AM just before the wind picked up. By 7:30 the wind was at 35 knots, which would have made leaving that tricky dock a nightmare. We found a spot with a little more protection and we dropped the hook there. Blue MIst soon came to join us, since the anchorage they were in was getting huge gusts, and Ross with other sailors had to keep an unattended dragging boat off the rocks while waiting for the owners to return for half of the morning.
Once the wind died down at Friars it became one of our favorite anchorages to date. The beach was beautiful with a coral reef that extended almost the whole way, and it had several good beach bars. We relaxed there for the next 3 days before heading out to Nevis on March 5th, which was only a 2 hour motor sail away.
Once in Nevis we went into shore to pay for the mooring and went to an excellent local restaurant for an authentic Nevis style meal of whole fish. It was like being in someone’s home. Very welcoming and very low key. A real treat! The next day we took a tour of Nevis and ended at an amazing resort/restaurant called the Hermitage. It was so peaceful and beautiful! We could have stayed there for a week, but dragged ourselves back to the boat after a few hours.
In Nevis we did a lot of provisioning in the supermarket and also the excellent farmers market for the next leg of our journey. We also went to an authentic Rastafarian Ital beach restaurant and had excellent vegan curry served in calabash bowls with coconut shell forks.
Sadly, Nevis is where we had to say goodbye once again to our good friends on Blue Mist as they continued on to Antigua and we went to Montserrat. Like the last time the band split up, it was a see you later, not a goodbye!
