{"id":8150,"date":"2018-01-19T14:04:44","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T19:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=8150"},"modified":"2018-01-19T14:04:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T19:04:44","slug":"how-not-to-visit-st-kitts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=8150","title":{"rendered":"How not to visit St Kitts."},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a while since my last post and since then we visited Nevis and went to Montserrat again, this time aboard Pandora.<\/p>\n

When we were in Antigua we decided, as I reported in an earlier post, that we would visit St Kitts and Nevis which was directly down wind from Antigua.\u00a0 \u00a0The plan, after that, was to head to Guadeloupe, a long but, we thought, doable trip.<\/p>\n

The run from Antigua to Guadeloupe is an easy reach so it seemed to me that the same, if a bit harder on the wind, would be the case from Nevis to Guadeloupe.\u00a0\u00a0 NOT!<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, after spending a week of fun in spite of an annoying wrap-around swell in both Nevis and St Kitts, we struck out for Montserrat for an overnight stop as that was about half the way to Guadeloupe.\u00a0 Unfortunately, with the prevailing easterly, the run was more on the wind than I had realized and it put us hard on the wind motor-sailing in some pretty rough conditions.\u00a0 Brenda was not pleased.<\/p>\n

It was quite a rough day.\u00a0 It’s always frustrating to try and take photos of waves as it never seems to really show what it was like.\u00a0 Perhaps these two shots of our friends on Oasis, who sailed with us make the point.\u00a0 \u00a0Here they are close by us as we made our way to Guadeloupe.\u00a0 Looks pretty normal?\"\"A few moments later as a 10 second swell was between us.\u00a0 \u00a0What boat?\u00a0 Where dey go?\"\"We anchored in the tiny harbor, such as it is, in Montserrat and spent the night pitching back and forth in the swell.\u00a0 After a day of pounding into the wind and anchoring in a rolly harbor, and all on her birthday, Brenda wasn\u2019t too happy.\u00a0\"\"A close up of Pandora anchored.\u00a0 If it was a video, you’d see the long swell rolling through the anchorage and her mast swaying back and forth 20 degrees side to side.\u00a0\"\"However, swell or not, we were able to go ashore and visit a weaving studio which made her very happy.\u00a0\u00a0Brenda had heard about the studio a while back and this was a destination worth fighting for and there we were.\u00a0\u00a0 We hired a taxi and had a terrific visit.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"Two happy weavers and one happy birthday girl.\u00a0\"\"After buying one of just about everything in the studio, we invited the owner and her mother out to Pandora for a glass of wine.\u00a0\u00a0 That was fun too, in spite of more rolling around, with our guests, while clutching our wine glasses.\u00a0 Not a good location for glasses with stems.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we slept, sort of, that night and left early the next morning to head the rest of the way to Deshais Guadeloupe, again motorsailing, hard on the wind.<\/p>\n

A short distance to the southern end of the island we passed the remains of what was once the capitol of Montserrat before the volcano wiped it out.\u00a0 \u00a0Seeing these buildings, once a thriving city, under tons of ash and mud was sobering.\u00a0 \u00a0It was hard to see due to the smoke from the still active volcano.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"You could see the deep ravines that were carved out when a huge lake that had filled with rainwater for several years following the eruption, finally broke through and thundered to the sea.\u00a0 I can only imagine what that day must have been like.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps not as bad as a major volcanic eruption but not fun, even a little bit.\u00a0\"\"It was two long days to Guadeloupe but we made it and that was two rough days more than Brenda needed, especially as one of the days was her birthday.\u00a0 Thank goodness for the weaving studio we visited.\u00a0 I was fearful that she\u2019d jump ship and head for the airport.\u00a0 Fortunately not.<\/p>\n

As we slogged our way to Deshais we were passed by a large sailing ship.\u00a0 It was an impressive sight as she passed us in the distance.\u00a0\"\"We were happy to relax in Deshais for the evening.\u00a0 It’s a beautiful fishing village and we were particularly pleased to be back on a French island.\u00a0 Bring on the food.\u00a0 \u00a0We binged on baguettes and cheese.\u00a0 Yum.\u00a0 \u00a0 Ok, we also bought some produce too, local of course.\u00a0\"\"Unlike Antigua and other islands influenced by the UK, the French islands have very easy customs procedures.\u00a0 \u00a0Instead of going from window to window or office to office, in Deshais all you had to do was to go to this T shirt shop, fill out a form on a PC, French keyboard of course, and pay four Euros.\u00a0 Simple.\u00a0 And you can check in and out at the same time if you know when you are going to depart.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"It was very picturesque.\u00a0 \u00a0Lots of boats, along with Pandora, out in the harbor.
\n\"\"Outside where we had lunch they had a charming bird feeder that was very popular with the locals. \"\"So, now we are here now in Les Saintes, also part of Guadeloupe, where we will stay for a while, perhaps through next week before heading south to Martinique, French again.\u00a0 There are wonderful places to dine and the food is great.
\n\"\"As I write this post I am sitting in a cafe overlooking the main town square.\u00a0 \u00a0 A lovely view.
\n\"\"From downstairs, you can look out and see Pandora on her mooring nearby.\u00a0 \u00a0that’s her, with the dark hull.\u00a0 Not the best shot but you get the point, I hope.\u00a0 Very close.\u00a0\"\"We just love the local architecture, shabby chic.\u00a0\"\"So, here we are for a while and tonight we head to a friend’s boat for cocktails.\u00a0 It’s amazing that everywhere we go there are always boats that we know.\u00a0 \u00a0 Could be worse, we could be in sub-zero temps.<\/p>\n

I prefer this.\u00a0 \u00a0However, all is not always easy as our trip to Nevis showed, there’s a good and bad way to do everything and now we know how NOT to visit St Kitts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a while since my last post and since then we visited Nevis and went to Montserrat again, this time aboard Pandora. When we were in Antigua we decided, as I reported in an earlier post, that we would visit St Kitts and Nevis which was directly down wind from Antigua.\u00a0 \u00a0The plan, after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8175,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8150\/revisions\/8175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}