Dalton W. Williams
Nevis
When sailing from St. Kits to Nevis, you should follow the advice of John and Melody on Second Millennium II. "Follow the coast line south and bear east around the cost St. Kits before turning south across the narrow straits across to Nevis". I of course had forgotten this advice so the wind pushed us well west resulting in a long tack back to Nevis. If we had followed their suggestion it would have been an easy quick sail. As it was, it was still easy, but the four miles turned into 12 and a long up wind tack back to Nevis.
Nevis
is beautiful. I spent the day making lots of really beautiful pictures around
the island. We anchored between the Four
Seasons and Charlestown off Piney's Beach at Nevis and dinged into Charlestown
Harbor to clear in. Clearing in at the harbor office was quick and easy
and from there I walked a few blocks to the police station to clear immigration.
However arriving at Nevis in the afternoon complicated things as the customs
office moves to the deep harbor on the south end of the island at Long Point.
The taxi ride there was $20 US so I decided to walk as it was "only a mile down
the road"... That is the longest mile I have ever set off to walk! I
walked two hours and never got there. Hot and tired I gave up and walked
back into Charlestown which is quite a nice Caribbean town. There are
beautiful gardens at the port and a charming flower garden in the central
square.
The
next morning I met a family of chickens at the Port Authority office when I was
asking directions to the customs office near the harbor office. Arriving
at the Customs Office, they laughed politely
when I told them my story of trying to walk to the other office at Long Point. If you arrive in the
afternoon, the customs officials are perfectly happy for you to wait until the
next morning provided you clear the harbor office and immigration the afternoon
when you arrive.
The
folks from Gallant and I took the bus up to Golden Rock at 11:00 this morning.
Golden Rock is a hotel made from the ruins of an old sugar plantation with
beautiful grounds and flower gardens. There is
a nature trail that leads from the hotel up the side of the volcano where if you
are lucky you can see small green monkeys. We were planning on enjoying
lunch there and were pleasantly surprised when the restaurant offered to take
our lunch order and have it ready when we returned from the nature trail.
It was very pretty walking
through the rain forest and learning about the various trees and plants, but
look as hard as we could, we could not find any of the green monkeys.
While having lunch the young girl who was waiting on us explained that the past
two years have been very dry and the monkeys have moved further up the side of
the volcano to the lush vegetation further up.
After lunch, Andrea, Tom, and
Alex decided that they wanted to catch the bus back. Don and I wanted to
walk part way back along one of the trails. The trail turned out to be an on
again off again road around the volcano, but it certainly gave us a feel for
where and how the people of Nevis live. Most have some sort of fruit trees,
Mango, Bread-Fruit, Coco Nut or Banana trees in their yards. Goats and chickens are every
where you look and often under foot! The goats all run free along with the
chickens and evidently as one man told us, they all know their own goats and
chickens... Far be it for me to tell one from another!
We met up with the other three back in town around 4:00. They had been relaxing in the Air Conditioned Internet Café. As Don and I had been on the long walk, we allow ourselves two double dip ice cream cones. Mine was Peach and Pineapple and really hit the spot.
Over night the wind shifted from the south east and in the morning Quietly is covered in Volcanic Ash blowing directly from Montserrat's active volcano 26 miles away. The ash is so fine you really can't see it, but everything feels gritty and as more collects it is slowly during the day, everything starts turning grayish. This is a hint we think of what is coming tomorrow when we sail to Montserrat.