St. Kitts or San Cristobal
14 January 2008 | By the Harbor
From the "Renaissance Islands" (Anguila, St. Martin & St. Barth) we now sailed to Saint Kitts, one of the 6 islands that "Touch the Clouds" (Saba, Statia, St. Kitts, Nevis, Redonda, Montserrat). St. Kitts is a very green island with a dramatically steep mountain range that peaks at Mount Liamuiga at 3750 feet. The Caribs inhabited this island first and called it "Liamuiga" which means fertile island.
St. Kitts is an English speaking island which England was finally granted via the treaty of Versailles in 1783 after they and the French fought it off for 150 years. Both nations had first teamed up to massacre the 2000 Caribs that live in the island in an ambush. After they had finished off their common enemy they then fought each other to obtain sovereignty of St. Kitts and its sister island Nevis. Today what remains of the Caribs are two signs on a Rock -one of which appears to be a pregnant woman and the other a man (warrior).
St. Kitts' main port of entry is in its capital of Basseterre, a fairly large and well developed city with many 18th century buildings. Port Zante is still been rebuilt after hurricane Lenny in 1999 devastated many of its buildings. The port has been designed to attract cruise ships which come into the city 3-4 times per week. It is surrounded by many stores, services, restaurants and amenities for cruisers.
The following link has pictures of the various places we visited in St. Kitts, some of which are described in the other write ups about St. Kitts. Copy the following link to a web browser to view pictures of
http://picasaweb.google.com/sailingourway/StKitts?authkey=zTYskfLQKic