Photo shows Vervet monkey on Nevis

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Nevis; A short lull in the strong trade winds allowed us a decent 50 mile sail over to Nevis, (of St Kitts and Nevis). Nevis is the smaller island of this two-island country, and almost spherical with a single volcanic mountain at its centre. At over 3000 ft high its peak is often shrouded in clouds, in fact this string of high islands (Montserrat, St Kitts & Nevis, Statia and Saba) are known as 'the islands that brush the clouds' - and it's easy to see why!

We picked up a mooring off beautiful Pinney's Beach close to the capital Charlestown . It's remarkably sheltered from the prevailing E/ENE winds, but regular gusts down Mount Nevis create a chop and meant that we often ended up with wet bums on the long Dinghy ride into town. Checking in here was a slow process even tho' the 3 offices we had to visit - Customs, Immigration and Port Authority - are housed in the same building. Everything has to be done on paper in duplicate in every office before it's all entered onto computers and the various charges are paid. We can't help feeling that it could be better organised!
Charlestown is very small but the High Street is lined with banks; a tax haven for superyacht owners no doubt! Again food prices were expensive; we took a bus out of town to a large supermarket in the hope of better deals but our shopping bill was still pretty high. .... Still, at least the prices in Charlestown vegetable market were a little more realistic and we didn't feel that the market traders viewed us as 'rich yachties' to be ripped off! In fact the locals are very welcoming and helpful.

The houses here are generally brick built with fewer clapboard ones, and most are smarter than on many of the Caribbean islands. Despite this Nevis is quite undeveloped; all low rise and like several of the 'off the beaten track' islands is not excessively lit up at night. In contrast we could see from the moorings the bright lights of St Kitts 11 miles away and the lights of the numerous cruise ships that call in there.

While St Kitts aims for smart new holiday developments to attract tourists, Nevis is keen to show its natural beauty credentials and its history and is setting up a Heritage Trail. We beached the dinghy on Pinney's Beach and headed up a track into lush vegetation on the lower reaches of the mountain to find the Boabab tree and the ruins of Montravers Estate. The Boabab tree is the largest tree on the island and is around 200 years old. It has an enormous girth (see Picasa pics) and it marks the entrance to Montravers Estate, an old sugar plantation. The plantation was unusual in that John Pinney, the English plantation owner, not only built himself a 3-story house but also a camel barn to house his six camels (not sure exactly why he wanted camels!). Although quite overgrown it's easy to imagine the estate in its heyday with grand buildings (for the owners) and all the workers/slaves who spent their lives here. The site is obviously being slowly cleared and the buildings stabilised as part of the Heritage Trail. We nosed around the ruins and spotted many pieces of rusting cast iron equipment made in Glasgow by Mirrlees &Tait; a fine example of British Victorian engineering.

As we poked around we disturbed a troop of vervet monkeys; yes monkeys! They were brought to St Kitts & Nevis in the distant past by French settlers from Africa and have thrived here so well that they outnumber the resident humans two to one. We found them to be quite shy; this troop of 30 or so disappeared into the trees very quickly, but locals say they're a pest as they raid fruit and vegetable crops.

After our hot and sticky excursion we stopped at 'Sunshine's' beach bar for a welcome beer on our way home - although we weren't brave (or foolish) enough to try their famous 'Killer Bee' rum punch! (see Picasa pics).
Golden Rock is another old sugar plantation but here the ruins have been renovated and turned into a beautiful 'Boutique' Hotel. We took a local bus across the island - or rather around the mountain - and walked up a long lane to the Golden Rock. Our Lonely Planet guide book recommends the wonderful lobster sandwiches for lunch so I felt obliged to try them out ...and yes, they were truly scrummy! Kit opted for a roti, he's a sucker for spicy food! We decided to walk off our lovely lunch and follow the Golden Rock Nature Trail. To be honest it wasn't so much a nature trail as a hot sticky scramble up the lower reaches of the mountain and we'd soon had enough. We did see more monkeys tho', and by keeping very still and quiet I managed to get some good pics of them as we headed back to the road (...Picasa pics).

Caribbean weather has been quite a disappointment so far; yes, there is a lot of sunshine but recently the winds have been a constant 25/27 knots, gusting 30+ in squalls, and all from the E/ENE - not quite the pleasant sailing weather we'd expected! Our schedule for heading north and west is getting further behind, so when a possible short weather window of lighter winds was forecast we decided to grab the opportunity and head up to St Kitts then on to St Martins.

St Kitts, or officially St Christopher's; like Kit its nickname is better known. A short hop took us to Basse Terre, the capital, where we anchored in the deep water bay near a commercial dock. As we had to check out, in went the dinghy and we were off to shore and a bus ride to town. Customs clearance was quick and easy ...then we had to go to the Cruise ship dock to find Immigration. The woman in the Immigration office clearly did not want to be bothered with us; she was singing along to her radio and didn't even acknowledge us, just put her hand out for the papers! We could hardly believe it! ..and then she checked us in instead of out and complained that we hadn't told her we were leaving! Wow, which charm school did she go to!!!

Once that was sorted out we had a quick look around Basse Terre; most of the area around the Cruise ship dock is geared to relieving the ships' passengers of their money and has numerous tourist tat shops and expensive jewellers. Sadly there were men here with captured monkeys dressed up in silly clothes for tourists' photo opportunities - how much nicer to see them in the wild.

Further into town the shops are more local and we found a nice coffee shop serving real cappuccino - what a treat! A Circus (traffic roundabout) marks the centre of town and is supposed to be modelled on Piccadilly Circus although we couldn't see the resemblance!

Unfortunately we couldn't spend any more time on St Kitts as the weather window was getting shorter every time we checked the forecast! What we'd seen wasn't very impressive but I guess it would've improved away from Basse Terre.

Back on Quilcene we spent a rolly night listening to the wind howling and wondering if we should set off next day for the 50 mille passage to St Martins......