Author: pollyhester

I have to confess that I form a strong opinion of an island pretty much on first sight. You just get a feel for a place, from the smell of the land, the type and level of noise, the customs and immigration clearance, the look of their tomatoes at market…..

St Kitts won me over before we even set foot on land, that first night, anchored off the swanky Salt Plage beach bar , drinking my celebratory birthday bubbles, training the binoculars on the jet set ashore, relieved not to have packed my floaty white sundress (what floaty white sundress, some of you may ask?!) so I could have gone ashore and blended in. Far more enjoyable was the impromptu dance floor the girls and I made on the poop desk, our music being whisked out to sea by the strong trade winds that had got us there so fast.

On St Kitts, we were truly able to relax and unwind for a while. The people are friendly, relaxed and capable and it is safe enough for the children to wander about unaccompanied. There is plenty to do on land and all within easy reach with our small but air conditioned hire car.

We took the boat up to Port Zante marina where she stayed for a week so we could explore this delightful island. Port Zante marina is rarely visited by cruising yachts as it is in the shadow of the enormous cruise ship complex and mainly home to the day tripper sailing cats and dive boats that take the passengers off on their daily excursions.

I’d never seen the cruise ship holiday up close like this before and it was fascinating people watching. As some delightful US neighbours of ours pointed out the passengers are mostly the ‘newly weds and nearly deads’ with a smattering of families as we were there over Easter.

One or two cruise ships docked on 6 out of th 8 days we were there, including he world’s largest, Symphony of the Seas which disgorges over 6000 people. Believe me she was an absolute monster, towering above us like a small city centre cut adrift. Apparently she has two indoor climbing walls (which were the only appealing features we could discover).

The ships tend to dock around 7am and by 8.30am passengers start to flood through the gates to be whisked off to the various excursions: beach trip, Brimstone Fort visit, scenic railway, zip lining, day sail on an overcrowded catamaran etc. The Kittitians are amazingly efficient and charming in entertaining these visors and seemingly retuning them safely at the end of the day to their ships . I never actually saw any search parties sent out for the wayward last passenger, but surely it must happen.

Wingfield Estate. The bridge was part of the old sugar cane plantation and below was a special tank for extracting indigo. We’d seen similar on Martinique.

I absolutely see that, to an island heavily reliant on tourism, it must be a very welcome source of income to have these guaranteed visitors each day. However, it does colour the experience for the minority of visitors staying in hotels or self catering to cope with this enormous influx at a chosen spot. You have to get up very early to beat the crowds or as in the case when we visit the stunning Brimstone Fort, you add social anthropology to the mix. All in all, they didn’t bother us too much, but we did find a dearth of good and imaginative places to eat on the island since restaurants cater to the lowest common denominator.

Dora walking through the rainforest

One place we were guaranteed to escape the hordes was my chosen family treat for Easter Sunday, which was to turn the family out of their bunks at 6am so we could climb to the top of Mount Liamuiga, the dormant volcano that dominates the landscape of St Kitts. I first read about the walk in the Lonely Planet guide which said it was “tough, tough, tough” and shouldn’t be attempted without a guide. I then kept googling (as you do!) until I read a review that said it wasn’t really that bad and you certainly didn’t need a guide. So off we went. I have to say hats off to the children, for lack of bleating. I think it actually stunned them into silence as it was a tough uphill walk followed by a significant climb up boulders, tree roots and scree slopes which required a lot of stretching for the shorter limbed members of the family. To my great delight, we were actually walking inside rainforest, with the canopy intact and providing complete shade, the sounds of monkeys and elusive birds and the smell of rotting vegetation. Heavenly.

At the top we emerged onto a ridge and peered down into the crater, Jurassic Park set out below, the clacking pterodactyls easy to conjure up in our imagination. We took the wise decision not to climb down into the crater but lowered our aching limbs back down the mountain, which in itself was no mean feat.

Tom and Dora with crater behind.

I’m now mapping out our next island visits according to accessible volcanoes, which conveniently leads us to St Kitts’ northern neighbour St Eustatius.

A very satisfyingly impressive looking Mt Liamuiga behind as we sail for St Eustatius.

It’s Polly’s birthday but there is to be no lie in as we roll out at 0500 ready to raise the anchor at first light. Its been blowing hard through the anchorage off Deshaies all night and the forecast suggests we should have 20-25kts from E or ENE for the 80M passage up to St Kitts. Coffee in the cockpit as we watch the boats around us surge about on their cables, from the smaller yachts hard up against the beach to the mega yachts and small ships out in the mouth of the bay, anchor lights shining from the mastheads as the Eastern sky starts to lighten.

I wake up Daisy who stands by to clear the anchor chain as it piles up in the chain locker under her berth. Pols sparks up the donkey and we edge forward, the windlass pulling in chain as our forward motion takes the load off it. In comes the stainless hook of the snubber and the 60m markers. A stronger gust, Cherubino’s bow veers off, Pols puts in the engine into neutral and we fall back, the rode stretching out ahead. Back into gear, creeping ahead and the windlass is back to work. The 30m marker comes aboard, round the gypsy and down the hawsepipe to the locker where Daisy is pulling it back into the locker to stop it castleing. The chain tightens as it reaches down vertically to the anchor which is dug in deep. A grunt or two from the windlass and Old Cold Nose rips free from the bottom. The boat’s head swings to leeward as the anchor, still covered in mud, sand and weed breaks the surface. Pols ups the revs and we head off out of the bay while Daisy switches from anchor to navigation lights as the sun’s still not up. A mile or two to get clear and we round up into the wind to hoist the mizzen, roll out the genoa and kill the engine. Its always a wonderful feeling to bear away and accelerate with sails pulling in the absence of the engine’s noise. We set course, NNW, for a point a couple of miles off Pinnacle rock on the NE corner of Montserrat, about 35M away. Behind us the sun is rising and we can see humpbacks swimming North crossing our wake as we reach away from Guadeloupe at about seven knots.

Daisy says she feels unwell and makes faces until Dora finally surfaces and actually is sick – at which Daisy cheers up. The wind is building now perking up to 25 knots while frigate birds hover to leeward hoping for snacks more tempting than the contents of Dora’s tummy. To leeward Montserrat changes from a grey outline into a solid image, the peak of the volcano that buried the capital Plymouth hidden in cloud but the huge rivers of ash clearly visible. The southern half of the island is still abandoned but as we progress North we can see the village of Old Northwood peached high on the Atlantic side with its church and tiny football stadium. The wind is now nudging 30 knots as we pass the top of Montserrat and bear away to pass just to the leeward of tiny, barren Redonda.

Fortunes were made on Redonda ‘digging the turds of Leeward Island birds’ but now the phosphates have all gone and Redonda is uninhabited except for a few pairs of Blue Footed Boobys who circle the boat hopefully before working out we aren’t fisherfolk and pushing off again. In the short break when we’re behind the island Pols produces delicious wraps for lunch. The children pretend to be too ill to eat them – all the more for the grown ups!

Past Redonda we close on the SW corner of Nevis, the water shoaling rapidly from about 1000m to less than 20m. The seas steepen and I’m glad we’re in a bigger rather than a smaller boat. We roll away half the genoa as we harden up to sail North. The wind’s still F6/7 but I’m hoping we may get a little shelter to the W of Nevis. Nope, nothing doing there but the sea flattens out and we’re close reaching at eight knots with less than ten miles to go. Suddenly, the winds’s gone, the boat’s bolt upright and we’ve hardly got steerage. Looks like Nevis does throw a lee after all… no worries tho’, there’s a darkening on the water ahead and before you can say ‘mine’s a cuppa, milk no sugar’ its blowing 30knots and we’re off again. The narrow strait (imaginatively named… ‘The Narrows’) between Nevis and St Kitts provides the wind with a excuse to oscillate through ninety degrees but soon we’re across the gap and looking at the wreck in the unfortunately named Shitten Bay. Round Green Point and we’re in White House Bay and the anchor chain is rattling out. The hook is well set in 10m and although we’re still being buffeted by the wind there’s no swell in the bay and we feel secure. The boom covers are on, sun’s setting and we can pop the cork on a bottle or two of bubbles to celebrate Polly’s big day. We’ve taken 11 hours to log 80M. It’s been a wonderful little Caribbean passage.

Below, Tom’s write up of Deshaies, Guadeloupe, for the sailor considering a visit…..

A wonderful anchorage off a charming little town with excellent snorkelling

The approach from the West is hazard free except for the inevitable fishing buoys in depths up to 150m. Inside the bay about 30 moorings have been laid at the Eastern (town) end of the bay but, unlike those on Les Saintes, they aren’t maintained by anyone. The upside of this is that they are free, the downside is that they are potentially unreliable and most are now permanent home to various local craft. We anchored in the middle oof the bay in 7m on a soupy mix of sand and mud with patches of weed. The holding for a properly set modern anchor seems good enough but we did see a couple of boats drag when the wind funnelled through at up to 30kts. Encouragingly, the charter firms seem to be equipping their boats with more appropriate ground tackle than was the case in the past. Hopefully the spectacular drag fests that used to be such a feature here are now just a cherished memory. The dinghy dock is well made and large enough for the significant numbers of tenders using it. Why there are no cleats or rings though remains a mystery.

Formalities can be completed at the Police Station or at the Pelican shop. Specialist yachting amenities in Deshaies are pretty much non existent. Fuel can be jerried out from the filling station and Camping Gaz is available at the Spar. The nearest laundry is 15km down the road.

The town is small, picturesque with a laid back atmosphere and boasts several restaurants offering the usual French/Caribbean fare at the usual outlandish prices. One stand-out is ‘Mahina’ on the waterfront which does startlingly good pizzas and is full of locals residents – surely a good sign. There is a well supplied fruit and veg market, an excellent Boulangerie and the small Spar supermarket carries a very creditable line of basics and bagged ice. There is an ATM but no bank. Our children enjoyed retiring to the air conditioned comfort of the library to do their school work while the librarian seemed delighted to have some customers. Mobile internet is hopeless so rely on the WiFi in the cafes for internet access. Tourist highlights include the long established and excellent Jardin Botanique (lots of humming birds!) a mile out of town to the South and the Pointe Batterie on the South side of the bay. Another big draw are the locations used in the long running TV series ‘Death in Paradise’ which is largely filmed in and around Deshaies.

The bay itself is full of marine life including turtles and shoals of small fish being chased around by bigger fish and harassed from above by frigate birds and pelicans. The snorkelling on the North side of the anchorage is first class with lovely vent, fan and brain corals and big schools grunts, angel fish, parrot fish and all the usual suspects plus the loggerhead turtles.

Girls wrestling on a canon. As you do.

It was hard to drag ourselves away from Marie Galante, but a morning’s sail brought us to her far more sophisticated neighbour, Les Saintes. I imagine the south of France might have been like this in the 1960s before the hordes arrived. We picked up a mooring in a large bowl of a bay with the red roofed town spread out in a horseshoe around us. Ashore, there are numerous restaurants and little boutiques selling t shirts and glamorous floaty evening dresses (I resisted on grounds of practicality!). But also, common to all these islands, the Saturday morning fruit and veg market where we can pick up the most intensely flavoured fruit and (my favourite) avocados almost the size of my head. Tom and I swarmed ashore early on Saturday to get our provisions before the heat set in, rewarding ourselves with a cup of coffee and an excellent vantage point for people watching. Plenty of men walking around with baguettes tucked under their arms, stopping off for a coffee and their first cigarette of the day on the way home. Women on their way to work, exchanging kisses with acquaintances every few strides.

There’s some fabulous hills to climb with rewarding views of the Saintes themselves and to Dominica, Marie Galante and Guadeloupe mainland. Best of all is the snorkelling from our current anchorage – Pain a sucre. The children are having their first glimpses of coral and teeming fish. I will let them fill you in on the details.

We are loving Guadeloupe, getting firmly into the swing of Caribbean life, making the most of early mornings and late afternoons, adjusting our pace, and spending plenty of time in the sea.

One morning I walked up to the top of Le Chameau just outside of town. It was quite a challenge even for a seasoned mountain goat like me. The view was astonishing though. Ignore the haze and check out that runway! Who’d like to land there I ask?!

Cherubino was tucked in the top left of the bay as you look in this picture.

Bourg des Saintes waterfront. Beautiful church tower. Not so beautiful half finished building!

This taken from opposite side of the bay. You can see Le Chameau on the right. Cherubino is second line of boats in from the right (between the two catamarans).

Dominica was a tough act to follow, but the omens were excellent as on passage to Marie Galante we saw what we think were sperm whales breaching. I have seen many a dolphin in my time but never a whale breach. And it’s a truly impressive sight as they come properly out of the water and thwack down again in a vast cloud of spray. Just incredible.

Marie Galante came up trumps in providing us with our own little corner of tropical paradise, ticking all the cliches of one’s imagination. It is a relatively small island, belonging to Guadeloupe (so back in the EU), but very much off the tourist radar. We anchored to the North of a little town called St Louis, at the far end of a very wide bay fringed by a white sandy beach and palm trees. The water was the most unnatural shade of turquoise that no filter could recreate. To our amazement all the other boats anchored off the undistinguished town, leaving us to snorkel, walk ashore amongst the mangroves and scrubby bushes, practise rowing and motoring about in the dinghy all undisturbed. Here we introduced the concept of the pre school snorkel, which certainly woke the girls up for their morning lessons. So heavenly it was, we stayed three nights and even rounded it off with an extraordinarily delicious lunch ashore in a beach restaurant run by a couple in their 20s with open walls and a flapping tarpaulin for a roof, but the best lunch we’ve had since arriving.

Cherubino, at the end of the rainbow, with Daisy taking dinghy back to her.

The view from our superb lunch stop!

Girls out on an evening row.

Tom met this little fellow by Milton Falls on Dominica. It’s very short but quite funny.