Mogadishu or Mustique ? St. Kitts is neither and both. We anchored in Basse Terre outside of the marina (Kirstin being midwestern, we needed to avoid the $25 marina fee). Once on shore, we checked in and walked around looking for food. Basse Terre is a Potemkin village entirely dedicated to down and out locals having a fast, transactional relationship with cruise ship people. "I'll take a rum punch, the Bob Marley tee shirt in XXL, and some Tanzanite jewelry to go please". Go too far from the cruise ship area and you get into poor Caribbean village central, complete with homeless, Rastas (who we want to hang with in a safer environment), and folks we'll call dead-enders. After the cruise ships both left, we were the only non-locals in Basse Terre. We double locked our dinghy and made it back to L'ORIENT before sunset.
Not five miles from Basse Terre, we decided to rough it (that means we cooked on the boat) at White House Bay. Drop dead gorgeous lagoon, just below towering green tropical mountains (there are monkeys and mongoose here). We snorkeled around the wreck of a large freighter in about 20 feet of water and had a great dinner. Perfect sunset, surprisingly good internet connection (which we stole- thanks Dave).........a perfect day. Would we come back to St. Kitts ? No and yes. We're starting to get into the real Caribbean (i.e. Rastas burn garbage on the beach). Next stop- Nevis. More to come.
