Wrapping up in St. Kitt’s

St. Kitt’s is our final stop this cruising season. We arrived on Monday, June 5^th after a long, slow, bumpy ride from St. Bart’s. We wanted to stop at St. Kitt’s Marine Works to arrange a haul out date for Indigo Lady and clear into the country. Fortunately, Customs & Immigration are right there. We’d arrived too late to clear in that night, which was fine by us. All we had energy for was slinging the hammocks and we had no need to go ashore; we could wait until morning. 

Here’s a little information about St. Kitt’s Marine Works. Most importantly, they certainly seem to know what they’re doing with respect to long term storage and, from Dave’s perusal of the yard, with respect to repair work. That’s good. Indigo Lady is probably in good hands here for the next 6 months. Their approximately 200’ x 400’ “harbor” is human made with two retaining walls of large boulders separating it from the open ocean. It contains a cement slip from which their travel lift hauls boats weighing up to 150 tons. There is also a smaller, wooden dock with several small, local fishing boats tied up to it, and a handful of mooring balls near the smaller retaining wall, near the harbor entrance. They are not a marina and there are no real amenities, although the boat yard does have a toilet and a shower. Boat owners can do their own work without any fee charged, which is kind of rare, and they can live aboard their boat while on the hard. One can also hire the Marine Works to do work to one’s boat and their fees are very reasonable. 

The Marine Works allowed us to tie up to the outside of their travel lift dock the night we arrived at St. Kitt’s, and the following one as well. The prevailing sea conditions would have made it incredibly uncomfortable to anchor in any of the nearby, open roadstead anchorages. (For those unfamiliar with the term, it’s merely a spot off land that is shallow enough to drop an anchor, but there is nothing between you and the open ocean, except more ocean.) We would have had to travel another 3+ bumpy hours to get to a protected anchorage, which would have had us anchoring after sunset. Then we would have had to backtrack the next day to clear in and talk to the Marine Works folks. So we stayed on the Marine Works dock. We spent most of our time in the hammocks reading and napping. Long, bumpy cruises are exhausting. We cleared in the next morning. Dave talked to the boat yard manager to arrange the haul out and some work we wanted done to the boat. We arranged to be hauled out on Monday, June 12^th. So what to do with the interceding five days?

At the end of the past two cruising seasons, we’ve done as much cleanup and hurricane storage prep as possible while at anchor. This ensures we’re always nose into the wind to keep us cool while we work, and we can also swim and cool off. So, on Wednesday morning we cruised about 12 nm down to the southeast peninsula of St. Kitt’s to the White House anchorage. It’s a quiet, lovely spot and we’d read there was decent snorkeling along the rocky shore. Each day we were there we would work from mid-morning until about 3pm, then we’d go for a snorkel, then swing in the hammocks reading and napping until dinner, followed by a movie before going to bed. We gave the boat a deep clean- airing out the mattress toppers and mattresses, vacuuming every nook and cranny, washing the walls with a vinegar solution, cleaning out every food storage location and inventorying what we have left for non-perishables. Dave has his own separate list of boat stuff that needs doing and started on that as well. I prepped our final meals so that when we were working on Lady in the boat yard, all we’d have to do was microwave lunch and dinner. It was tiring but rewarding. Then on Sunday afternoon, we hauled anchor and went back to the Marine Works to tie up to their cement dock again in preparation for being hauled out the next morning.

The travel lift came for us at 11am Monday morning. We stayed onboard while they lifted us out of the water, which is a strange feeling, being suspended in the air. They paused near the diesel pump so we could top off our tank. Then they drove us up into the yard where they power washed our hulls of the accumulated sea life that had grown there. They did a marvelous job! Then they brought us over to our storage spot in the field, lined us up, brought over the backhoe to finalize the dug trenches in which Lady’s keels would sit atop old tires, then they finally set us down. All told, we were suspended in Lady about four hours. I got a lot of organizing and packing done during that time. We were finally able to check into the guest house we had rented for our final few days buttoning up Lady while on the hard. Thankfully it’s only 0.1 mile from our boat’s location, because it took us two trips to bring everything we needed to have up there. We were beat! We hadn’t done much work that day, but the prior five days of work, plus the underlying stress of knowing the boat was going to be hauled onto land got to us. We were a waste of space after we settled in at the guest house. We were in bed by 8:00pm and sound asleep by 8:05!  

Over the next two days we spent long hours finishing our boat closeup tasks. For Dave, that was a lot of time working in the blazing heat and sun on, in, and under Indigo Lady. I spent a lot of time doing laundry up at the guest house, interspersed with stowing our clothes, bedding, etc., onboard. A big downside of St. Kitt’s is that they burn trash on the island. St. Kitt’s Marine Works is downwind of this. It also hasn’t rained much here, so everything is dry and brown, and the persistent trade winds blow dirt and dust around. This complicated the cleaning and closing process. It would have been impossible to do the necessary work without having the hatches and portholes open. Sadly, it didn’t take long for the dirt and dust to find its way inside, despite all our screens, and onto every surface. So much for all that deep cleaning we’d done earlier. We did what we could to rectify it. It was hot, sweaty work, but we made good time. By Thursday, we had only about an hour’s worth of stuff to do, mostly stowing final items, and retrieving others we needed to bring home with us. Friday morning required only a quick trip to Lady to return stuff we had used while at the guesthouse. Then we locked her up and bid her farewell until January.

Although we had almost all of Thursday to ourselves with no work to do, we lacked the energy to explore the island. It is horrendously hot and humid down here and it is horribly uncomfortable to be out of the breeze for more than 5 minutes. It takes less time than that to start sweating. I would sweat standing at the sink in front of the open window while washing dishes! Rather than exhaust ourselves tramping around the area in the heat, we holed up in the guest house with a fan pointing at each of us. I won’t lie, I was a bit bored, but that was preferable to being outside. Hopefully January will be a bit cooler, and we can take a few days to explore on land. 

I’m writing this on Thursday from the guest house. Friday we should have flown from St. Kitt’s to San Juan, then from San Juan to Boston. From there taken the bus to the C&J Trailways station where we picked up our car, which my folks had delivered there for us, and driven home. We should have been in our own bed by 2:00am. That was the plan, at least. Next time, I’ll let you know how it went. Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!