Is it Spring Yet?

Hard to believe but this year even in the Caribbean its been, well cool let's say. We sleep with the portholes closed and no fan on. We cover with  a sheet and absolutely find it hard to go for a swim. Yikes, where are we, Ohio? Would the rest of the US kindly keep their weather closer to home. Down here besides nights in the lower 70s we have screaming high winds, a humongous North swell and wind from who knows where. It's well past the weeks when we understand the idea of Christmas Winds. Chris Parker is saying to look forward to March and we are!!

St Martin is all about boat chores.
One of my favorites was raising the  stanchions and life lines to make it safer on the foredeck. 

Stell and Snugs at Lagoonies

Jamming on Kalunamo 

Driving around St Martin and oh what a view!

Finally Carburetor install

Seven weeks in St Martin and there was time for friends, music and many many boat chores. But once the "traveling" carburetor for the dinghy motor finally arrived (after its two trips to Paris and one to Japan) we started our goodbyes. 

We found a few days of calmer weather and knew it was time to leave St Martin behind, sigh sigh for those crusty warm French baguettes and the mussels, ohhh the mussels, mounds of them nestled in wine and garlic sauce with plenty of aforementioned bread to soak up the juices. 

Hard to get unstuck after so long but it was time. A day of checking out and passing through bridges, then an overnight in Simpson Bay and the next morning saw us on our way to St Bart's. 

This is the Causeway Bridge that crosses the St Martin/Sint Maarten Lagoon connecting the French side to the Dutch side. Later we went through the Simpson Bay Bridge which is the opening on the Dutch side into Simpson Bay and the Caribbean. 

The Island of SXM(St Martin/Sint Maarten showing the lagoon

Anchoring in Simpson Bay with the mega yachts. Wow!

Turtle

Gustavia shops

Now this isn't the St Bart's when Jimmy Buffet partied at Autour du Rocher or even used Le Select bar as his home away from home and walked in to amaze the patrons with stories and songs. No, Gustavia, the capital and main town is now home to shop after shop with little common names you know the easy ones; Dior, Ralph (Lauren) and even difficult ones like Dolce Gabbana. We can't even afford the bags but, hey, it's fun to look. We soon headed over to Anse du Columbier to swim with the turtles (too cold) and walk the beach(too much N swell to get the dinghy ashore). But we thrilled to be out of the St Martin lagoon and truly swinging at anchor with a sunset to enjoy each evening.

Both SXM and St Barts are filled with Mega
Yacthts. But what's a Mega Yactht
without its helicopter. 

Of course, that got old so we choose a "good enough" weather window to make the 30 NM jump South to St Kitts. St Kitts and Nevis, two islands-one country. Now we're in the "real" Caribbean where we can find road side stands of local veggies and the people say things like "you almost reached" when asked for directions. In St Kitts the roll producing swell pushed us further South to South
Frigate's Bay and one of our favorite beach restaurants, Shipwrecks. The monkeys are still around but seemed better behaved. Probably because the cruise ship folks invade on a regular basis to what used to be a local and/or cruiser hangout. Different vibes now-a-days. So we moved South again and this time were rewarded with two catamarans of friendly cruisers to hang with for a day in Basseterre, Capital of St Kitts, and also plan further adventures. 

Shipwreck w/o a cruise ship in the bay

Monkeys NOT stealing your drinks

We left our mark

The quick motor sail over to Nevis, just 12 miles away went well and other than losing the boat hook when I tried to catch a mooring ball, we settled right in. Hard not to fall in love with Nevis, and on our 2nd stop here we found even more to love. Plus brilliant sunset green flashes nearly every day!! We spent a beach day on the long stretch of Pinney Beach with Sunshine's beach bar supplying burgers and drinks, visited the birth place of Alexander Hamilton which now boasts a brand new statue of the man himself, and an island tour that took us to Hot Springs, Montpelier where Admiral Nelson and Fanny Nesbit got hitched, Nevis Botanical Garden and ended with         late lunch at beautiful Golden Rock.

At Montpelier Great House Where Adm Nelson and Fanny Nesbit wed

The Hot Spring Hotel
First hotel in the Caribbean

Roy & Tanya at one of the springs

In the Botanical Gardens

No photo can do justice to how beautiful Golden Rock is - but lunch was wonderful!

Tomorrow, the calmer winds of March are due a few days early so we'll be off to Antigua 45 miles to windward. (pronounced An-Ti-Ga as opposed to Antigua Guatemala which is pronounced An-Ti-Gua) 

For those of you who like a little history, here goes.

The islands of St Kitts and Nevis figure mightily in the early European history of the Caribbean. St Kitts (Saint Christopher when you're being formal) was visited by Columbus in November of 1493 on his 2nd voyage. For the next hundred or so years it was used by Spaniards, pirates and the French as a place to refill their fresh water supply from its hot springs. In 1607 John Smith stopped here on his way to founding Jamestown in what was to be the US. 

By the 17th Century the English established a colony on St Kitts, eventually leading to the slaughter of most of the native Carib Indians. The place of slaughter on St Kitts, after first inviting them to party and getting them drunk, is named Bloody Point. By 1640 the remaining Caribs were moved to Dominica. A "Plantation Economy" grew on both islands and eventually the nearby islands. The first crops were cotton, tobacco, ginger and indigo but eventually sugar reined as queen as more and more Africans were brought in by the slave trade. The vast wealth created by the sugar islands led to their being fought over by the ruling European countries of England, Spain and France during the ensuing centuries. St Kitts and Nevis remained in British hands and became the point of entry for the entire slave trade in the Caribbean and what's left of the original market is just a few steps from Hamilton's birthplace. It's believed that his early life on Nevis and St Croix led him in his hatred of slavery. (Did you know The New York Manumission Society was founded in 1785 the 31 founders included Alexander Hamilton?)

I'll leave you with a little Caribbean Carnival vibe