Antigua
Last Friday we managed to get a quick tour of St Kitts. As with most of the other Caribbean islands, Christopher Columbus was the first European that we know of who "discovered" St Christopher. Guess he likedit well enough to name it after his saint's name. The local Caribs pretty much had the place to themselves for the next 100 years or so, until 1623 when they allowed both the British and the French to colonize the island. The locals were rewarded 3 years later at Bloody Point when the Europeans massacred 2000 of them, which pretty much marked the end of the indigenous population. It was said the creek at Bloody Point ran red with blood for 3 days. Way to go, ancestors!
The British eventually took complete control of St Kitts, developing it into one of the most successful and prosperous sugar-growing islands amongst its colonies. They built a formidable fort on top of Brimstone Hill that guarded the sugar plantations from the French and Spanish. Of course the sugar plantations were only economically viable using slave labor, so when the slaves were emancipated by the British in 1833, the sugar plantation life pretty much died. Sugar continued to be the primary export in St Kitts, but absentee British landlords were no longer running things. But the sugar beet has pretty much made sugar cane uneconomical and the government of St Kitts closed the state-run sugar cane processing facility a couple of years ago. St Kitts is now dependent on tourism for foreign exchange.
Our taxi tour took in Bloody Point, the Caribelle batik factory on the grounds of a beautifully landscaped old British sugar plantation manor house, some pre-Columbian rock carvings, and the rather impressive old British fort on Brimstone Hill.
We stayed at the Port Zante marina for 3 days. The marina is relatively small, as St Kitts doesn't attract a lot of cruisers and charterers. Rather Port Zante is yet another mega-cruise ship terminal, with 3 or 4 of the behemoths putting in on any given day. That is, in season. During hurricane season, the cruise ships pretty much avoid the area and the next cruise ship visit to St Kitts won't be until October. Three major hurricanes since 1995 have required the Kittitians to rebuild Port Zante, so no cruise ship wants to be caught here in a big blow. It was pretty eerie walking around this 25-acre port with all its duty-free shops, and no customers. We paid our marina fees and took a tour, but we didn't buy anything from the shops.
Sunday we left bright and early for Antigua, a 48-mile trip directly into the wind. Once again we eschewed sailing, as gentlemen do not sail to weather, and motorsailed the entire way. It took us 10 very uncomfortable hours bashing our way through 6-8ft seas. Even though we left at 6AM we didn't arrive until 4PM, just as customs was closing. We chose to arrive at Jolly Harbour, a large fairly recent marina and real-estate development on the west coast of Antigua since the main harbor of St John is primarily given over to cruise ships. We could have headed to the more pleasant harbors on the southern coast of Antigua, we didn't want to extend the day any more than we had to after the long trip from St Kitts, so Jolly Harbour it was.
Monday morning we cleared customs and immigration and called a recommended dentist. A couple of days previously I'd gotten over-zealous with flossing and managed to pop a small filling out of one of my teeth. Our cruising guide had a recommendation for a dentist, so we called around 9AM Monday morning. They had a slot at 11AM, so we grabbed a taxi to St Johns, the main town on Antigua. Dr. SenGupta had a very modern office in a small strip mall just outside St Johns. The dental equipment was all swoopie-doopie modern, much newer than that of my regular dentist back home. Dr. SenGupta was a U Mich grad, and was much younger than I would have expected, maybe in his mid-30's. He was fast, painless, and efficient and had the filling replaced in about 10 minutes. Total cost was just a bit over $100. All in all a very positive experience.
One of the major reasons we were in Antigua was to get the local Fischer Panda dealer to service our generator. It's no longer putting out the correct voltage, and we figured the official service location would do a better job than someone who's not as familiar with the brand. But when we called the local dealer (based on Fischer Panda's web site list of international service centers) we find they are not at all associated with Fischer Panda and have no idea how they ended up being listed so on their web site.
So, since Jolly Harbour wasn't too terribly interesting from a touristy point of view, we decided to head to English Harbour on the south coast yesterday. We managed to sail for about 2 miles down the west coast of Antigua, in very fluky winds, then motored the remaining 8 miles, you guessed it, directly into the wind.
English Harbour was Britain's main naval shipyard in the Caribbean back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nelson was stationed here for a few years, and the dockyard is, in fact, called Nelson's Dockyard. It's a charming reconstruction of an 18th century naval outpost and is the center of yachting on Antigua, one of the main yachting centers in the Caribbean. But the season has passed and the place is quiet and getting to be nearly deserted. Just a couple of weeks ago they had the Antigua Race Week headquartered here, with hundreds of yachts participating. Now most of the boats have either left, or have pulled out of the water for hurricane season. Apparently English Harbour, and the adjacent Falmouth Harbour are pretty good "hurricane holes", locations where a boat has a good chance of riding through a major hurricane. But given the imminent approach of hurricane season, most of the yachties have gone.
We'd rather get completely out of the hurricane belt, so tomorrow we'll probably continue our voyage south, heading across the 40 miles or so that separates us from Guadeloupe. Then Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, the Grenadines, Grenada, and finally Trinidad. We want to be in Trinidad by the first week of July, as hurricanes, though uncommon in June and July, are not unheard of.
The British eventually took complete control of St Kitts, developing it into one of the most successful and prosperous sugar-growing islands amongst its colonies. They built a formidable fort on top of Brimstone Hill that guarded the sugar plantations from the French and Spanish. Of course the sugar plantations were only economically viable using slave labor, so when the slaves were emancipated by the British in 1833, the sugar plantation life pretty much died. Sugar continued to be the primary export in St Kitts, but absentee British landlords were no longer running things. But the sugar beet has pretty much made sugar cane uneconomical and the government of St Kitts closed the state-run sugar cane processing facility a couple of years ago. St Kitts is now dependent on tourism for foreign exchange.
Our taxi tour took in Bloody Point, the Caribelle batik factory on the grounds of a beautifully landscaped old British sugar plantation manor house, some pre-Columbian rock carvings, and the rather impressive old British fort on Brimstone Hill.
We stayed at the Port Zante marina for 3 days. The marina is relatively small, as St Kitts doesn't attract a lot of cruisers and charterers. Rather Port Zante is yet another mega-cruise ship terminal, with 3 or 4 of the behemoths putting in on any given day. That is, in season. During hurricane season, the cruise ships pretty much avoid the area and the next cruise ship visit to St Kitts won't be until October. Three major hurricanes since 1995 have required the Kittitians to rebuild Port Zante, so no cruise ship wants to be caught here in a big blow. It was pretty eerie walking around this 25-acre port with all its duty-free shops, and no customers. We paid our marina fees and took a tour, but we didn't buy anything from the shops.
Sunday we left bright and early for Antigua, a 48-mile trip directly into the wind. Once again we eschewed sailing, as gentlemen do not sail to weather, and motorsailed the entire way. It took us 10 very uncomfortable hours bashing our way through 6-8ft seas. Even though we left at 6AM we didn't arrive until 4PM, just as customs was closing. We chose to arrive at Jolly Harbour, a large fairly recent marina and real-estate development on the west coast of Antigua since the main harbor of St John is primarily given over to cruise ships. We could have headed to the more pleasant harbors on the southern coast of Antigua, we didn't want to extend the day any more than we had to after the long trip from St Kitts, so Jolly Harbour it was.
Monday morning we cleared customs and immigration and called a recommended dentist. A couple of days previously I'd gotten over-zealous with flossing and managed to pop a small filling out of one of my teeth. Our cruising guide had a recommendation for a dentist, so we called around 9AM Monday morning. They had a slot at 11AM, so we grabbed a taxi to St Johns, the main town on Antigua. Dr. SenGupta had a very modern office in a small strip mall just outside St Johns. The dental equipment was all swoopie-doopie modern, much newer than that of my regular dentist back home. Dr. SenGupta was a U Mich grad, and was much younger than I would have expected, maybe in his mid-30's. He was fast, painless, and efficient and had the filling replaced in about 10 minutes. Total cost was just a bit over $100. All in all a very positive experience.
One of the major reasons we were in Antigua was to get the local Fischer Panda dealer to service our generator. It's no longer putting out the correct voltage, and we figured the official service location would do a better job than someone who's not as familiar with the brand. But when we called the local dealer (based on Fischer Panda's web site list of international service centers) we find they are not at all associated with Fischer Panda and have no idea how they ended up being listed so on their web site.
So, since Jolly Harbour wasn't too terribly interesting from a touristy point of view, we decided to head to English Harbour on the south coast yesterday. We managed to sail for about 2 miles down the west coast of Antigua, in very fluky winds, then motored the remaining 8 miles, you guessed it, directly into the wind.
English Harbour was Britain's main naval shipyard in the Caribbean back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nelson was stationed here for a few years, and the dockyard is, in fact, called Nelson's Dockyard. It's a charming reconstruction of an 18th century naval outpost and is the center of yachting on Antigua, one of the main yachting centers in the Caribbean. But the season has passed and the place is quiet and getting to be nearly deserted. Just a couple of weeks ago they had the Antigua Race Week headquartered here, with hundreds of yachts participating. Now most of the boats have either left, or have pulled out of the water for hurricane season. Apparently English Harbour, and the adjacent Falmouth Harbour are pretty good "hurricane holes", locations where a boat has a good chance of riding through a major hurricane. But given the imminent approach of hurricane season, most of the yachties have gone.
We'd rather get completely out of the hurricane belt, so tomorrow we'll probably continue our voyage south, heading across the 40 miles or so that separates us from Guadeloupe. Then Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, the Grenadines, Grenada, and finally Trinidad. We want to be in Trinidad by the first week of July, as hurricanes, though uncommon in June and July, are not unheard of.
posted by Ken at
9:37 AM |
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home