24 May 2009 Islands that brush the clouds

The next set of islands are known as the islands that brush the clouds. They are all volcanic with high volcanic peaks often surrounded by cloud due to their height. For those who play trivial pursuits they are – Saba, St Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat in order from north to south.

Nevis is even smaller than St Barts with the landscape dominated by an extinct volcano.   It was quiet there, out of the 50 or so mooring buoys put out for yachts we were one of only 3 boats there.  It’s the end of the yachting season, the retired Mom and Pops have gone north to Florida or Canada and the super yachts have crossed to the Med for the summer.   The rest of us are making our way south to Grenada and Trinidad.  In Nevis we did the obligatory round of Custom House to clear in then up the road to the police station to do immigration. We liked the police station because they had a TV showing films for their ‘customers’.  It was difficult to drag David away from the colourful moving images.  Poor chap.  I think he’s missing TV because whenever he sees a remote control unit his fingers start twitching.  He just wants to do that uniquely male syndrome of channel hopping.  Ahhh.
After checking in we hopped on an island tour with one of the local taxi guides.  The island has it’s own identity, some very friendly people and smells just wonderful.  Lots of brightly painted houses and the old plantation homes are now exclusive hotels.   Incredibly we were welcomed to wander around these hotels as you would around an historical site.  Nelson came here as a young naval man and married a local girl – they trade a lot on that connection.  Princess Diana used to holiday here and that was mentioned more than once.  Now they’ll be able to tell future visitors that Jacqui and David Pemberton visited too.  I doubt it.
On the last night in the anchorage we met Jackie and Gary from Canada on their self built Inspiration Lady. A beautiful boat that took 23 years to build. She's a labour of love, dedication and patience. Jackie and Gary are travelling with Jack, a retired airline pilot on his classic boat, Anthem.