St Eustaces,St Kitts, Nevis and Monserrat

We set out at first light heading south towards our first destination Saint Eustace

 Entry to the old  downtown of Basseterre

 Old Basseterre

 more old town

 Anchored off of Basseterre

 Whitehouse bay with Salt page in the foreground

 Resort at Christophe

 St Kitts monkeys

 Hiking thru the development

 Christophe harbor resort beach in background, that's Nevis in the distance

 Sign just outside of port at Montserrat

 Mountain approachin St Kitts

 Ashore at Nevis

 Pool full of ash at resort abandoned in Montserrat

 Black beach

 Sign just outside port complex

 Mountain Stream we drunk from

 Volcano shrouded in clouds always

 Photo of a photo of the eruption

Helicopter at pad at the volcano observatory

. Although we were now heading more south it still had some east to it and the trip was tolerable because it was so short, we had to motor sail again but happy to be making our way south for a change! St Eustace's is a convenient stop on the way south, not much to see and the anchorage is what's called a roadside anchorage because it affords no real protection form any direction except east. This means its rolly, and rolly has become a term we have grown to hate as we cruised south. Swell from the west or other directions can make a nights sleep impossible as the boat rocks sometime violently side to side. Avoiding swell became one of our prime concerns as we spent more and more time in the Caribbean.
    After a less than pleasant night we were off to St Kitts! this island offered us our first glimpse of the tall mountains and rain forests they promote in the Caribbean islands. The deep green foliage and striking cloud enshrouded mountain peaks were a sight to behold as we approached the island and sailed south in its lee! Of course the wind is blocked by these tall peaks but the flat water and easy travel make s up for it!
    We headed for Basseteree the capital and only clearance port on the island. Unfortunately it also is a roadside anchorage so as we arrived at dusk we had to spend  another unpleasant evening before we went ashore to clear in to the island! The town is quaint once you get past the made for cruise ship fleecing area full of all the stores that are designed to relive the passenger's of as much money as possible. We headed south that afternoon and dropped anchor at Whitehouse bay, its on the southern end of the island which is arid since it has no mountain! It has more protection and we finally got a good nights sleep. Whitehouse is home to a neat beach bar called the salt page, it has a cool ambiance and its fairly new as its a part of the Christophe marina project that is just around the corner at ballast bay, ballast bay is another the second decent anchorage on St Kitts! We went ashore at the marina and hiked around the real estate development that is in progress, very big deal here n the island, beautiful homes, a great beach resort and restaurants! Best part of the trip was sighting some of the monkeys that inhabit the island, there are more monkeys than people here on St Kitts!
     After a couple of days we on our way south again, we sailed the 5 miles to the next island named Nevis, its part of St Kitts so we would clear out here and head to our next spot Monserrat! Again its another roadside anchorage and one night was all we could handle in Nevis!
     Another short trip and we were at Monserrat, this is the island with the active volcano, it erupted several times in the last 30 years the most recent 2005, the eruptions in the 90s killed many people, buried the capital in ash, and forced half the islands 10000 inhabitants to flee to other islands! The island is coming back, it has a new capital and the tour we took of the devastated area was amazing! it was like being in one of those apocalyptic movies!  We toured a five star resort that was destroyed by the first eruption then rebuilt and destroyed again and abandoned, it is the exclusion zone where there is no one but tours allowed! The island has many mountains and is a rain Forrest for the most part, very lush and full of mangos, breadfruit, papaya and bananas! The beaches are black because of the volcanic material and that takes some getting used to! We stayed for a couple of days and then prepared for another passage south this time to a much larger island, the largest island in the Caribbean Guadeloupe!