It is a short run from St. Eustatius to St. Christopher (St. Kitts), two volcanic islands whose tops are in the clouds and whose rainfall on the windward side is sizable ........... St. Kitts is the sugar cane kingdom .............. Miles and miles of sugar cane fields and all lying fallow now, for more than four years ........... An agricultural tragedy and the product of globalization ........... Firstly the St. Kitts government had nationalised all the farms, then imported labour from Guyana to work the fields and then it all fell apart when they could not compete with South American production ........... Leaving the Kittitians to depend on tourism for the country's economic future .......... Meantime the fields lie idle .... And the Capital BASSETERRE carries on as best it can .............. Steeped in former colonialism and history ..............
After sailing for miles along the coastline seeing only sugar cane fields, you pass this huge fortress on BRIMSTONE HILL, now a UNESCO heritage site .............. Almost impossible to envisage what it took in labor and materials to build this impregnable bastion ............ Built by the British to defend the sugar lands the first cannons were mounted in 1690 ......... Every single andesite volcanic stone was hand-cut and hand-laid in walls of engineered precision .......... Tragically in days of slavery ............. Every courtyard was self-draining to an underground cistern, including the horse-shoe slope in the photo on the right ............. Finally in 1782, almost a hundred years later 8000 French soldiers attacked and besieged the Fortress where a 1000 Scottish and Yorkshire regimental soldiers, local militia and escaped slaves defended for more than a month before surrendering .............. And then a year later in the 'Treaty of Versailles' the island was returned to Britain ........ So much upheaval and bloodshed for sugar .............
And the whole of BRIMSTONE HILL is itself a volcanic neck having pushed up through the limestone seabed .............. Military turmoil on top of volcanic turmoil ........... See the layers of volcanic tuff, ash and lava that sit upon the basement sediments ............ Check out the "Queen's" muscles as she lifts this baby cannon ball and check out the cast iron cannon cradles fully preserved at this incredible site ..........
It is just too big to get an overview of this Fortress .............. But the stonework and masonry itself, being more than three hundred years old is amazing and tragically sad ............ Every mark in every block is someone's hard labor ............ The cement that binds it altogether is another marvel in colonial engineering, in that further down the hill is the lime kiln, where blocks of raw limestone were dug out of the hillside, then burned to make lime ( You remember all that chemistry stuff, where CaCO3 when heated gives CaO + CO2)........... And raw cement added to the volcanic beack sands created the mortar mix that has withstood the test of those troubled times ............... And behind each wall is back-fill to make the level terraces ...............
Raw limestone and the overgrown lime kiln with the furnace opening below and the stairways on the sides for carrying the limestone up by hand .............. Don't even think about it ................ Think about something else ..............
We have been anchored in Whitehouse Bay, ARITA and ZANSHIN together on the leeward side of St. Kitts where we met Phillip Walwyn, who built this magnificent 1908 Milne design yawl " KATE" alongside his house, on RAWLINGS SUGAR PLANTATION ................ Phillip is a fourteenth generation resident of St. Kitts, an ardent sailor, a gentleman and an 'Adventurer of the First Order' ............ Long may he live............ And long may he inspire others ............ And just as inspiring is Phillip's wife Kate, a reknown artist with many exhibitions to her credit and a gallery/studio on the plantation that takes your breath away ............ As does her garden ...........
All the usable land that is not used for housing and roads is still covered in sugar cane and the landscape all round St Kitts is dotted with former chimneys and sugar mills whose windmill structures are gone, but whose stone bases remain .......... The sugar cane was crushed, the sap poured into cast-iron pots and boiled with fires whose smoke was extracted with the chimneys until the crystals of sugar were removed and the next batch prepared ......... On and on for three hundred years plus ...........
Mangoes and five-corner fruit (carambola), also called star fruit, grow in abundance and on RAWLINGS PLANTATION, now an INN and RESTAURANT, and the old sugar mill has become a cottage ........ The cane crushing rollers formerly driven by that same wind mill or oxen, are on display ...........
Now one of these delicious meals was served at the Plantation Inn and the other made by Captain ARND's skillful hands aboard ARITA ................ You can work it out ........
With three of us touring the island, renting a little car is by far the easiest way of getting around ............. And we did ............ Now we forgot to tell you that a couple of Frenchmen brought over several green 'Vervet' monkeys as pets, all the way from Africa .......... They got away somehow, and now they are in the hills, in the forest, in the gardens and on the roads and they number about 40,000 ............ Who knew? ............. That is to say the outnumber the population ........ Sort of two to one .....
As far as we know you have to drive on the left ........ And that's a historic communal water tank on the left, with a ' Royal Mail' box on the side, just for good measure ...... Do a double click and check it out ............
On one sight-seeing climb we stumbled on a monkey-catching lair, complete with a draw-string blind ................ Not sure if that set-up is legal, but you see what we get up to while being 'bare-foooted cruisers' ............
Spectacular views from the hillside overlooking ZANSHIN and ARITA at anchor ......
Despite the strong winds that keep us here, the sunset over Phillip's yawl "KATE" is beautiful and unique as is the unisex outhouse on shore where someone has sunk an 8 inch PVC tube into the ground .............. Artful and talented as long as the wind isn't much stronger ............
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