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St. Kitts (St. Christopher)
June 2010

We have Blue Runner set up to sail herself.  We rarely have to touch the wheel unless the weather gets really scary.  With a rudder mounted autopilot and a gyroscope, she slices through the water all by herself, almost like she knows where she's going.  The wind was strong 20 to 25 knots with higher gusts all day.  The seas weren't too bad - 3 to 6 feet with an occasional set of larger swells which put our toe rail in the water several times.... hang on!  In the first photo you can see Statia off the port side.  We held a double reefed main and a 1/4 of a reefed jib - still made between 6 - 7 knots, great for us!

A series of tropical waves are still passing through the area - dark and squally all day.  We rented a little car and took a drive around the island.  Lots of history and plenty of things to climb. The dockmaster at the Port Zante Marina brings us fresh mangos from his tree everyday - they are YUMMY!  Tiny and sweet, not like the variety found in the grocery stores in the states.

A lot of people asked what type of flower is pictured above.  It's part of that tree that I'm climbing and it's called a Flame Tree or a Royal Poinciana (Thanks Scott!)  Then there is Anne in a sugar cane field getting bitten by fire ants - good job rockstar.  Chris is posing by an old kiln and by a black sand beach.  Most of the beaches here have black volcanic sand. 

I have an irrational fear of livestock, especially cows and goats... I can't really explain it.  The third photo is a vervet monkey.  They're hard to photograph because they're quick and sporadic.  A long time ago the French brought them to the island from Africa as pets, and now population exploded. 

And now we sit, waiting for some good weather to move onto Montserrat.  Tonight the band "Third World" plays - I think we'll go see them and hang out in Basseterre for awhile. 

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