Tale of Two Islands - St. Kitts & Nevis

Seductive nature and colourful history lead the sweet attractions for explorers on the Leeward Islands of St. Kitts and Nevis.

Dawn. The rising sun paints the cloud that hovers over Mt. Nevis an ever-changing palette of colour: violet, scarlet, pink. It casts its rays over the mountains on St. Kitts, throwing shadows over the bluffs.

This morning, the seas off North Frigate Bay nuzzle the break wall off the beach like a friendly puppy. Yesterday they pounded the shores in frustration, sending up plumes of spray. Different as day and night.

Four sails out to sea are white triangles on indigo waters, backlit in the morning light. Some may have made the six-hour voyage from St. Barth’s, some the overnight run from Antigua. Either way their destination – St. Kitts and Nevis – is double-barreled.

History abounds on one island. The British lusted after St. Kitts, like the French, the Spanish, the Dutch. For she held within her embrace the promise of riches, riches sweet as sugar, riches born from sugar itself. Cane fields still undulate like Carnival dancers; plantation great houses still festoon her slopes like floral bouquets.

Another island lies to windward, a forested high ground decorated by alabaster beaches, surrounded by gentle waters where sailboats swing slowly as dancers in a cotillion. Her shores are sheltered by a sky-reaching mountain forever swathed in a cloud like a blanket of snow – so omnipresent Columbus named the island “Nevis” – as if the quilt really were snow.

This is a tale of two islands, but here are only the best of times. Here are only happy endings.


Land and Sea

In his Cruising Guide to the Leeward Islands, Chris Doyle includes this duet in a choir he calls “The Islands That Brush the Clouds,” a term both explanatory – the archipelago boasts thousand-metre peaks – and evocative.

“The main attraction of these islands,” he writes about St. Kitts and Nevis, “is to explore on land.”

But be forewarned – once you achieve land you may never want to put out to sea.

One day we climb the paving stones that lead to a fortress with views of Statia and Saba, of St. Barth’s and, on a clear day, Sint Maarten. From the ramparts we see, like a herd of camels, the humpbacked ridges of the southern peninsula, splattered with golden and black sand beaches.

History buff that I am, I could spend the day at Brimstone Hill, but there’s so much more to do and see.

We board the St. Kitts Scenic Railway which traces the narrow-gauge path of the old sugar train. We rattle and roll across the island, skirting cliffs that sport sculptures of lava flows. We dine on terraces amid the old stone block of sugar factories, sipping mimosas beside a glittering pool at Ottley’s Plantation, next to a refurbished sugar plantation great house with white trim and lemon facades.

We tour botanical gardens and fly through the air at Sky Safari, the line above us buzzing like bees as we zip over verdant ravines. We learn a traditional Kittitian art form at Caribelle Batik at Romney Plantation. We go back-country in a Land Rover with Greg Pereira, a fifth-generation Kittitian and co-proprietor of Pereira Tours. He knows his ecology and history inside out and offers tours from historical jeep jaunts to full-day nature hikes to dive packages.

We laze on Pinney’s Beach on Nevis, we stroll Charlestown with its collection of Georgian architecture. We climb the heights of Mt. Nevis; we get a history lesson on the Maroons – escaped slaves. We discover a hot spring and one of the Caribbean’s oldest Anglican churches.

And then we prowl the Circus at Basseterre back on St. Kitts, we admire the shops at Port Zanté, we stop and watch the waters lapping the stone seawall.

For here land and sea meld into one.

The sea is aquamarine, placid as a Saskatchewan pond. At St. James Windward Parish on Nevis it is indigo and white foam, turbulent as a summer storm.

Anchorages here could make a sailing instructor cry. Pinney’s Beach off the Four Seasons on Nevis, Tamarind Cove. At St. Kitts you can drop the hook at Majors Bay and Ballast Bay. Watch the sunset from your cockpit at Whitehouse Bay, a light show you share with but a few other cruisers. Gaze at indigo mountains, swathed in white mist, Basseterre’s lights twinkling, a collection of historic French and British colonial structures hunkered down at water’s edge like dinghies in a nor’easter.

Cue music: a melodious duet between land and sea.


War and Peace

Early Sunday morning. A lady in a flowered dress waits for a bus, bible tucked under her arm. Just up the road a harmonized hymn wafts like a heavenly breeze from a 200-year-old church.

We’ve stopped in the shade of baobab trees.

“Welcome to Bloody Point,” says our guide. She points up the hill, at a stream falling away through a green valley to the sea.

“The water ran red with blood. One day in 1626 French and English settlers got together and attacked the Caribs. Way up in the hills up there.”

The history of Brimstone Hill is no less bellicose – Gibraltar of the Caribbean, sprouting bastions and cannon, a fortress with a commanding view of the Leeward Islands. In 1782 the French attacked this English stronghold with 31 ships and 8,000 soldiers. They bombarded the 900 defenders for four weeks. The defenders held on.

I gaze seaward from a parapet, stare down slopes sliced by razor-sharp volcanic outcroppings, then turn and face landward.

Rolling meadows climb toward those omnipresent green mountains, voluptuous and sensual. Amid a setting of blood and war and conflict, peace now reigns supreme.


Nature and Nurture

A tree at Romney Estate reaches skyward. Its trunk is 10 metres across; its breadth is 40 metres. It is 400 years old and locals believe it was brought to St. Kitts by Amerindians.

“The old men used to tell stories beneath its branches,” says tourism representative Dele Adams. “It is called a Saman tree, but we just call it ‘the tree.’”

It is a splendid specimen of nature, but it’s also a symbol of nurture, a place where wisdom and tradition was passed down.

It is a metaphor for these twin islands.

Landforms and history: nature and nurture both.

Fully 25 percent of St. Kitts is part of the Central Forest Reserve National Park. It is home to the African Green Vervet Monkey and encompasses all the land above 300 metres. There are more than 900 plant species in the park alone.

That came as no surprise to the original Arawaks. Their name for St. Kitts – Liamuiga – means “Fertile Island.”

When the first British settlers got here in 1623 (St. Kitts was home to the first established English colony in the Caribbean) they discovered the volcanic soil was perfect for sugar cane.  The French made the same discovery two years later. Though they coexisted long enough to take out the Caribs in that horrible massacre, greed conquered all. The two countries punted the island back and forth like a Euro Cup soccer ball until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 ceded all rights to the English.

Sugar production in Nevis was so successful that it earned the island the nickname “Queen of the Caribbeas.” Sugar and its production are leading characters in the tale of St. Kitts and Nevis.


Sailors Old and New

We spend a couple of nights at Nelson Spring Beach Villas and Spa on Nevis’ west coast. For me it’s the perfect spot to drop my metaphorical hook: the villas are downright elegant (breakfast is served in a lanai), boasting a perfect vista of St. Kitts, past gardens ringing an infinity pool steps from the beach, right beside a bar with the felicitous sobriquet: Yachtsman Bar and Grill.

Nevis is itself a still unspoiled paradise – a new entry on my list of favourite Caribbean islands.

The name of our temporary abode is no coincidence. Furthermore, it increases the appeal a hundredfold.

As a sailor and a historian, I am fascinated by the story of Nelson. I learn when I book a Nelson-themed tour with Anqelique France that his ships were regular visitors here, that the nearby freshwater spring was a crucial provisioning point for the HMS Boreas.

“There’s a Nelson Museum here, too,” she says, grinning at me. “We can go.”

I love this island.

At the museum the plot thickens – Nelson made no friends among the local populace after zealously enforcing Admiralty shipping rules. He confiscated the cargo of four ships, he was subsequently sued, and he was forced to hang around for a bit.

“That’s when he met Frances Nisbet,” says Angelique. “They got married here – up at Montpelier Plantation.” The venue is now an elegant hillside inn. “And they have rum punches to die for.”

Just what every sailor wants to hear. Talk about a nautical tradition.

It’s a tradition that will only grow, if a quick tour on our last night on St. Kitts is any indication.

Thomas Leipman gives us a preview of Cristophe Harbour, dominating a whale-backed ridge on the island’s southeast peninsula, hard by White House Bay and Great Salt Pond, through which a passage has now been drilled, making way for a marina that will give Gustavia or Falmouth a run for their money.

“We can already accommodate boats with Mediterranean mooring,” says Leipman. But his eyes light up when he shows us future plans. “We’ll be able to take boats up to 300’ long. We’ll have crew lounges, shops, full-service chandlery.”

He points to a lagoon now populated by more vervet monkeys than boats.

“There will be homes and villas over there – each with their own dock. There’s going to be a golf course on the hill. We will become a destination marina in the next two to three years.”

Judging by this development, the sheer appeal of these twin islands, the plans for a big marina at Tamarind Cove on Nevis, St. Kitts and Nevis are poised to become a must-do destination for the nautical set.

Yet again an island paradise for sailors: old or new.


Two Islands

Bass grooves from a bar cantilevered over the water at Frigate Bay South, swirling around our table at Mr. X’s Skiggidy Shack like smoke from a barbecue.

Christmas lights shimmer from the rafters of rudimentary beach huts where picnic tables are laden with condensation-beaded bottles of Skol Beer, with a feed of jerk chicken, of grilled shrimp.

The sun begins its curtain call, setting the cumulus clouds hugging the horizon on fire, spotlighting a sheer cliff in the foreground like a Henry Moore sculpture. A woman sits on a dock bemoaning its passage, a young boy bends over, picking up seashells on the sand.

So ends another perfect day on a perfect pair of islands, the final scene in a tale with only happy endings.

A tale of two islands.


St. Kitts-Nevis Float Plan

•    Air Canada recently launched direct flights from Toronto to St. Kitts. Visit www.aircanadavacations.com for a variety of accommodation options on St. Kitts and Nevis – should you not be lucky enough to sail here.

•    Sunsail  (www.sunsail.com) and The Moorings (www.moorings.com) both maintain charter bases at St. Martin, and Sunsail also has a base at Antigua. Your best bet for cruising here is as part of a 10-day or two-week bareboat or skippered charter. Sunsail’s St. Martin base includes waypoints on St. Kitts and Nevis in their suggested two-week itinerary, while the Moorings’ St. Martin link includes them as part of a 10-day voyage.

•    Construction has begun at Tamarind Cove Marina on the northwest coast of Nevis, but you can anchor pretty well anywhere on this side of the island. Anchoring at Charlestown offers access to a charming historical village, while at Pinney’s Beach you can drop the hook off one of the Caribbean’s most beautiful stretches of sand.

•    Whitehouse Bay is a delightful secluded anchorage off St. Kitts and work is proceeding on the marina at nearby Christophe Harbour (www.christopheharbour.com) with temporary moorings and dock already in place. There is also a full-service marina in the main town, Basseterre. It’s called Port Zante Marina (www.portzante.com).


Story & Photos by Mark Stevens