CITIZENS OF ST. KITTS are called Kittians. The island is 68 square miles. About 13 square miles bigger than our homeport Friday Harbor, WA., aka San Juan Island. The primary money used is EC (Eastern Caribbean) but US dollars work too. $22 USD would be $57 EC. Above is a typical street scene in Basseterre the capital of St. Kitts. Notice they drive on the left hand side of the road.

THE beer of the Caribbean Carib declears although there are many others.

This woman’s fruits and veggies were very fresh. That’s her spot.

Co-cathedral Immaculate Conception.

Same Church, pretty impressive.                   Interior of the church.

Vendors are everywhere.

Everywhere.

Everywhere!                                                        Got curls? 

Rastamon.                                                             “These shoes are made for walkin’.”

Another drive round de drive around.              Clock Tower located at The Circus. 

Lots of One Way streets for the traffic really piles up. Especially when the cruise ships are in.

Bird of Paradise.                                                Traveller’s Palm.

Van Goah & Absente! (No wonder . . .)          Stop. Alto. Arret.

Dried tobaco leaves for sale.

Peeled coconuts for sale.

Veggies for sale. (Notice the scale: what you buy is weighed and quoted to you in EC prices. Three carrots could be $2.70 EC, which would be $1.00 USD (US dollars). 

Whatnots for sale.

Chef. Not for sale.

Water fountain in Independence Square. Cute lion, huh!

 

(This post is dedicated to the real estate broker Kent Meeker (KMI) in Friday Harbor, WA. Hey Kent, they say St. Kitts is a good place to invest!)

St. KITTS IS also called Sugar City. We decided to get off Moody Blues and go on a round the island tour with Pat and Rich of s/v SoCal SoGood and Isajah, our tour guide. It’s growing leaps and bounds. Perhaps that is the Time For Change, that the citizens retain property. So Land Giveaway sounds promising.

 

Power to the people!                                   A couple of people.

To your right is the Caribbean Sea and to the left is the Atlantic Ocean. St. Kitts is shaped like a drumstick. The above photo is of the “handle” of St. Kitts (SE Peninsula) with Nevis Island in the way, way background.

Old village house. 

St. Thomas’ Church, the first Anglican Church in the West Indies. Built in 1625 & rebuilt in 1860.

A sad memorial of the St. Kitts’ history.

Caribelle Batik at Romney Manor.

Batiking.

Salesgirl watching the wedding taking place outside.

 

Wedding.

A wedding party hair-do.                              Garden Path at the Caribelle Batik.

St. Paul’s Point in Convent Bay on the NNW side of the island. 

Belle Vue and Black Rocks. When Mt. Liamuiga originally blew ages ago the lava flowed to the sea here. 

Mt. Liamuiga (Mt. Misery) has blown since ages ago and can again. Get ready now!!!

Out of focus mural, but I really like it. Hope is doesn’t make you dizzy.

The Sugar Train used to transport harvested sugar cane on it’s track that goes all around the island.

    

Yep! This sign means Sugar Train Crossing.          Petroglyph created by Amerindians.

Old sugar cane plantation.

Private sugar cane field.

This was the last Sugar Cane processing plant. It closed in 2005, our driver who worked there told us.

Painted rocks garden.

North Frigate Bay. This is the Atlantic Ocean side where a grand Marriott is.

Street jammers.

Shopping ends the tour!

(This post is dedicated our Aunt Glooorrria as Gene calls her, Go-Go the rest of the family calls her or Van Go-Go, which is what I call her being the artist she is and the mover-grover she is ready for any tour!) 

WHITE HOUSE BAY, down on the SE Peninsula of St. Kitts is where we anchored just right of the above photo. It was a beautiful anchorage and not rolly at all. We loved it and feel grateful to be here before the 2,500 acre development takes off (the lots are surveyed) and a marina is built . . .

There’s Moody Blues anchored on the bottom right of the photo.  

The Green or Vervet Monkeys have lived on St. Kitts for over 400 years and run free along this peninsula. The monkeys were originally brought here by French settlers with their slaves from East Africa between 1560 and 1650 writes Stephen J. Pavlidis in his A Crusing Guide to The Leeward Islands. He says the monkeys outnumber the humans on the island by over 3:1, and the population of St. Kitts is over 36,000 people. That makes 100,000 monkeys!

Above is Max. Isn’t he cute? And look at his fingernails, just like ours. (Did you notice the greenish belly in the right hand photo two up?) 

Max is a year old, and I loved holding him as Pat, s/v SoCal SoGood looks on.  Note the big ear!  

This monkey first nibbled on Gene’s fingers. “Just a pinch,” the monkey’s owner said.

Rich, s/v SoCal SoGood, got a kick out of the monkey too. Apparently they don’t have tails that allow them to swing around in tall trees. But as you can see in the photo below, their tails are long.

Taking a walk on the peninsula we spotted wild monkeys.

(This post is dedicated to our nephew, Trey Gearhart, who when young said to Gene, “ Your a  monkey’s  uncle!” And Gene replied, “Yep, I sure am!” It’s been a family joke ever since. )