Videos from St Kitts Dive

Fish galore, bit like diving in a tropical fish tank
Lionfish are a major problem in the Caribbean and it is getting much worse. An invasive species that has no natural predators, The female produces eggs every 4 days! we need to kill them.

Finally a turtle, I shot this for Alan who was keen to see one.

Nevis and St Kitts


We meet Tommy the Turtle on a dive on St Kitts.

Nevis and St Kitts are only a few miles apart and are federated together, we arrive at Nevis first, it is the smaller island but we stay here for 3 or 4 days.
Charlestown is fairly small, we walk around it in half an hour, Ferry terminal welcomes cruise ships but there is not many "Funny Disney like shops" that we had observer in other Cruise islands - we see a good example of this in St Kitts later.  Actually only small ships call at Nevis and they do not dock but have to anchor off. 
Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in drafting the constitution but arguably more importantly he founded the concept of capitalism, borrowing and spending other peoples money, I wonder where we would be without him... he does get his face on the ten dollar american bill.

We visit the museum, along with cruise ship passengers. 
And we also wander around the town, not touristy, just a small working town. There are celebrities here - John Cleese was in the supermarket a few days ago. There are converted sugar plantations in the hills, the beaches are good, we are anchored off Penney's beach a mile North of the town and go ashore on Sunday to a collection of (many) beach bars, Sunday night is when the locals let their hair down and the loud "music" is .... remarkable.
We meet Ruth and a couple of her friends for a drink, we end up going away from the noise, inland to a nice Indian restaurant for something to eat after getting a lift.

The town itself has some nice houses, and a lot of banks (as does St Kitts)




Churches do feature here, but not the vast number of different versions of faith worship we have seen on some islands  - 14 different denominations on Antigua - sometimes 4 churches adjacent to each other, All the same God I guess, such is human foible (or vanity?) Nevis and St Kitts have retained a fair amount of British influence.

There is also a big school and associated sports ground. Cricket anyone? The schools throughout the Caribbean have kids in really smart, well turned out uniforms. Looks good, no rebellious examples of the "modified uniforms" some kids use in Ulster.

Here is the first Hotel, not sure if on the island or perhaps in the Caribbean. I had met a lovely man who had come back to the Island to retire after working in Manchester. He had renovated the outdoor hot water baths pictured below and the hotel above is (was - it's shut) was known as the Bath Hotel.
Given the state of my crew I tell the man I would hope to persuade them to come up and bath here. No soap allowed. I try and make a donation for its upkeep but he says no.  He is happy to work away in his retirement.

We also visit some "posh" bits - this is the Golden Rock Restaurant (boutique hotel I think as well). A converted sugar plantation, it serves the best lunch in the Island, thanks Ruth for the recomendation.


We take a taxi around the Island, it doesn't take long to circumnavigate and call at a beach in the North where there is a dive school at Ouilie bay. The ownere Ellis is a bit laid back and vague about the pricing. We resolve to sail up and anchor in the bay and make tentative plans to dive - he has a wreck dive over on St Kitts.
 A few miles up the coast
Still windy but we manage to anchor in very shallow water. On going ashore Ellis is nowhere to be seen, his staff quote a price of 120 USD dollars for a single dive and we decline. After a good coffee we reluctantly leave Nevis (there was to be a friday night barbecue and singsong on the beach)
And off to St Kitt's 2 miles away and 5 up the coast to the town of Basse Terre and the port area of Port Zante.

Two cruise ships nuzzling. This is cruise ship central - five squeezing in at a time. Port Zante has been built on reclaimed (landfill) land in front of the real town. It is comprised entirely of shops selling handbags, jewellery and watches, T-shirts and hats, knickknacks (knockknicks?) and tourist stuff. With over 4000 tourists coming off the bigger ships I guess they do good business. The island suffered a little bit from the recent Hurricanes but nothing like what we see later in St Martins

 Above - the modern shops, below the real town

We eat in one of the restaurants after the passengers have embarked for their tea on board - best Indian meal I have ever eaten, They also have good deals on buckets of beer, 6 for 20 USD.

We also take a taxi tour around the Island and visit a Batik shop where we get a demonstration of the wax painting and dying techniques that make the fabrics really vibrant.


Now, Shirley likes cushions, me not so much, but I relent and buy her a present! She will see it in Cuba in April.
On the way up to this "Estate" we pass the old sugar and RUM workings.




I reckon my mate John and I could make one of these...

We also pass some small houses

We also passed Bloody River - not the Bloody Bridge of the mournes but a river where the French and English managed to wipe out all 2000 of the indigenous Arawak indians of the Island. Here is a Petroglyph of theirs. The (new) locals whiten it every year.


We move on in the taxi to Brimstone hill - a very large hill at the NorthWestern Extremity that was fortified by the English. Views are good! we pass it on the boat about Midnight the next night on the way to St Martin.
 The dutch island of Eustatia is North of St Kitts, followed by Saba, we go right a bit to head to St Martin - about 40 miles away.



We are on anchor outside the tiny marina at Port Zante - the marina staff  are helpful, let us use leave our dinghy in the marina and we discover and use the showers too.

Our ship is the small one.

We also meet Austin  - owner of Pro-dive  -  a neat dive boat and we negotiate two dives for 100 USD. We ask for a wreck dive and he takes us to "Rivertaw" a wreck that is teeming with vast quanties of fish. They have also dropped a dumper and car nearby and also dropped old quay concrete to make a reef. After the wreck he takes us to a coral reef. Here are the photos - and also a video of a turtle.





 Doros's colour corrected shot of Jacks
 Lesser spotted McCrum, I am waiting for a fish to pose... (Doros's Photo again)
And Doros's photo of a small Moray - saying "Where's me teeth"

Finally I have  three videos to upload but this is breaking the blogger tool. I will try and upload them on their own blog post.

-Alan Doyle to note the Turtle - he wanted to see one. We will keep the whale video for later

We also see Lionfish - these are a recent invader to the Caribbean and are going to be a major problem - the female produces 2 million eggs and have no predators. Divers have been told to eat the little feckers. Not easy as they have poisonous spines. Cleaning them needs industrial gloves and good scissors.

Antigua

We arrive in Antigua and meet Peter's wife the lovely lovely Ruth. We also find a lovely taxi driver Donald - he says he is no relation to President Trump. His son works in the marina we find and Donald takes us on a 5 hour tour of the island, from Falmouth Harbour, where the boat is; to Shirley's heights nearby and onto St John's (main town and where the cruise ships dock) ; to Jolly harbour which is a twee jolly wee place to Darkwood beach (marked Lignum Vitae on my chart (google that!) and some of the other beaches that abound around Antigua - hard to admit the beaches are better than Donegal but they are.

So the photograph above shows Doros Michail, Eamon McManus, me, Ruth Kirby-Smith, Donald and Peter Kirby-Smith. Ruth has flown out for a holiday as she has friends on the island, she is also visiting Nevis and nearly hitches a lift on Shadowmere - weather and timescales mean she ends up flying over for a carnival - the night we are rolling our way across in a big swell.

The view from Shirley's heights (no relation) and the nearby Blockhouse hill are amazing. There is a famous steelband and barbecue hooley on Shirley's heights every Sunday bit we will miss it this time.


 A couple of snaps of the harbours in the South of the island - the background is Falmouth harbour, the foreground is English harbour - you can walk from one to the other in minutes. We arrive to anchor in Falmouth harbour  as dusk falls and next morning I go ashore to clear us in. Returning to the boat Tim has visited - he had a punt for sale recommended by Craig and Cressie (Daal 2) Who we met in Barbados. In the end Tim's punt won't do but a second hand punt is advertised on the noticeboards around the cafes and I do purchase a new old nice big 4 man punt. rigid transom, great. Tim recommends moving over to the quieter West side of Falmouth bay - his anchorage has Wifi. We move and then ask at the small marina for a berth. Catamaran Marina has nothing to do with catamarans - it is full of superyachts (35 docks) but they squeeze us in. Marina staff are really lovely and the nearby open plan restaurant has free wifi and good sofas. We eat some Italian food there too - really good.  Antigua is expensive, though not by UK standards.
The spit of land in English harbour (you can see the green roof above) is Nelson's dockyard - a Unesco Heritage site and containing old buildings etc., Also there are superyachts galore Including some lovely wooden yachts. I had seen weird "navigation lights" on some yachts, I met a 100 foot yacht showing a single red light at the top of its mast. My recollection from my yachtmaster classes that it is acceptable to show both a red and green light light at the masthead ( as well as conventional port and starboard and stern lights) I nearly radioed them to let them know their green lightbulb was blown. Glad I didn't - when we got to Falmouth harbour there were 60 superyachts here - all showing a single red light at the top of very very tall masts, even when at a dock.

Turns out they are flaunting international maritime regulations but embracing aeronautical regulations instead  - these red lights warn off low flying aircraft. Considering lots of the owners have helicopters this is quite sensible. We debate that the actual aeronautical regulations don't consider 100 feet very high, but hey, size matters, let them pretend.

We also watch a motorboat (supermotoryacht) park, entertaining





The other thing in Antigua is that there are loads of yachty things happening - Antigua week is famous of course but there are lots of other events, seems to be fortnightly! in fact while we are there three things of note occur. A rowing challenge event is finishing - we see one of the Irish entries Well done Damian Brown. We shake his hand, his legs are wasted and he has difficulty walking. But Antigua do receptions well - had a garden party feel to it.






If that isn't enough, across the isthmus in Falmouth Harbour the Antigua Yacht club are hosting the finish of  a "Pedalo across the Atlantic", I am expecting a pedalo swan such as what Bangor's picky pool can muster and am slightly disappointed to discover the boat looks like a converted Atlantic Rowing boat. It is dark when the boat comes in - I suppose the pedallers have wasted arms and can hardly do handstands, but have strong legs! I apologise for my glibness -  to cross the Atlantic in anything is a tremendous achievement and these guys and gals deserve everyone's congratulations.

Again the Antigua Yacht club puts on a fantastic event.
At least when pedalling you can see where you are going, or at least one of them can. I am sure the journey was good craic.  The third event is the ROC 600 - a superyacht race where upwards of 80 boars nip around a few islands for 600 miles and come back 2 days later (or so). Each superyacht has professional crew busy polishing and making ready for the owners who will arrive soon. The race starts on Monday so we steal a head start and leave Antigua on Saturday! The place is humming with hundreds and hundreds of yachty people.

After a busy day sightseeing we eat in a hectic restaurant run by an Aberdonian lady - Caribbean Chicken Curry. The sunset over this most busy yachty place is lovely, as is the sky.

Donald takes us around the island - beaches

 Mind you the umbrellas and/or seats cost money... to be expected I suppose

Donald's wife works at the hotel on the far headland - the rooms are 3,000 East Caribbean dollars - about £850 a night. I find most things in Antigua expensive - an espresso coffee can cost a pound a mouthful.

Antigua is a micro-cosm of yachiness - one of the really significant nexus points in the yachting universe. If you are anybody in the yachting world you need to be here (Take note nephew Scott). The rest of the island is a bit more "normal" there are small houses and big houses.




St John has a street of brand shops that you walk along when you get off your cruise shop. Feels like Disney made it.

The other place we visited is Jolly bay - a totally manufactured yachting and property construction place. Ok I suppose but felt a bit unreal.

After buying a new secondhand dinghy, a new set of oars and getting the outboard serviced again we head out and cut inside some coral reefs to anchor (on sand of course) to dive the reefs. In the event we have a pleasant dive, not outstanding but we do see a crawfish and a stingray as well as fish of tropical fishtank quantities.

In my previous post I was told off by Doros - a photographer of note who makes the effort to take good and great shots (whereas I just snap as often as I can...) I had fallen into the beginners trap of showing all my shots - although to be fair the intent was to show the variety of fish types. I will learn restraint so I will only upload a dozen stills and maybe a couple of videos. I will cut down more next time.













Finally a stingray - the videos show it off better but it was a bit shy... That's all  for now. After out dive we headed off to Nevis (after filling bottles, eating and having a snooze - we depart at 10pm and arrive at Nevis at 7 am - to a nice mooring bouy, we had a 25 knot rolly run across but not too bad and 9 hours is not too long to be at sea. More later.