Next, on to Nevis, which is only about 3 miles across a narrow straights from St Kitts. Nevis is the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton – must go and see the musical one of these days!

Sometimes in an anchorage there is one boat that struggles to moor or anchor, thus providing entertainment to everyone else. You really don’t want to be That Boat, but unfortunately this was our day. There are moorings in the anchorage at Nevis in order to protect the eel grass, which provides important turtle habitats, as well as being a great carbon store. We think both of these are important goals and try to pick up moorings where we can. We tried each of the four available moorings. Two were visibly in poor shape, with rotted lines on them, so we skipped those. On the third, the pick-up line was tangled. It grabbed my boat hook and wouldn’t let go! I was ready to jump in the water after it, but some kind people spotted what had happened and leapt into their dinghy to rescue it for me. The final mooring was a total mess, and again stole my boat hook from me. Same people retrieved it and then helped us get the lines through the mooring pick-up. If we see them again, we seriously owe them a beer! However after I’d dived on the mooring and we’d taken another look at the rather chafed line on it, we decided it was too dodgy to risk, dropped it, and went off to anchor. It was then that we discovered that the encounter earlier with the dock in Basse Terre had bent the pin that holds the anchor secure, and it would no longer come out. Thus we spent 15 minutes driving in circles with me sitting on the bowsprit bashing at the pin with a hammer until I could move it. Finally we anchored and were settled for a couple of nights.

We took a look at Charlestown, the main town in Nevis, which is small but friendly and has some nice old colonial buildings. We also had a beach day. There are some beautiful hikes, which it would be nice to do next time. However, the winds were finally favorable for our last hop back East, and it was time to get moving again. This is a pretty, friendly island, and I’d actually recommend it over its sister island St Kitts.