JOLLY HARBOUR, WHERE ARE THE TRAWLERS

1830 hours, March 8, 2015, Jolly Harbour Antigua: We sat down at a Greek restaurant at the end of our dock in the Jolly Harbour Marina complex, for dinner and to watch the sun set.  Their roasted lamb was great. 

Jolly Harbour was designed with a Marina complex to serve recreational boaters less than 100 ft  as the center piece, and with waterfront attached town houses and single family homes as the primary income generator for the developer. In support of both the marina users and the planned residential community the complex includes several restaurants and dock front bars, a large grocery store, two bank branch offices, and two car rental companies. All are located adjacent to the Marina. For boaters there is an adjacent boat yard with a large travel lift, and a Budget Marine Store. In addition the complex included a casino which was in a large building at the edge of the Docks but is now vacant. The town houses were built a number of years ago, and many are in need of refurbishment. Most of the single family home sites have never been built on. From a boater's standpoint, all of the support facilities, including Customs and Immigration, are in the complex and easily accessible. 

When we arrived the Marina was filled with sailboats, many from Canada. With the exception of two fishing type power boats less than 40 ft. we were the only power boat in the marina. In going through Customs we ran into a couple with a Kadey Krogen who had been in the Caribbean for four years traveling between Trindad where they summered just below the hurricane zone, and Puerto Rico. On their first year in the Caribbean they had asked the same question we had, "Where are all the trawlers?".  They had noted as we had, the advertising and the articles in the boating magazines about trawlers traveling the world. The next said "I hope you like sailboat folks, if you don't you won't have any friends."  We had run into a couple with a 47 ft. Defever in St. Martin, who had also been in the Caribbean for four years, and they had the same comments. 

While touring the the Harbor the day after our arrival,we saw Slowdown on a mooring, but Ed and Cheryl were not aboard. Ed and Cheryl stopped by our boat in their dingy latter that day and we had a chance to catch up at dinner, including stories about their 11 hour passage from St. Kitts where we had last seen them. We had a great pizza at an Italian restaurant on the water next door to the Customs building in the Harbor. 

                                         Only power cruiser in Jolly Harbour

                                                  Kadey Krogen one of the less than 10 Trawlers we've seen

THE BEST OF BAD WEATHER DAYS

0600 hours, March 8, 2015, Nevis: We headed through The Narrows for a windward passage to Antigua 50 nm to the east. During the 12 days we had been at St. Kitts and Nevis, I had talked with Chris Parker at least 5 times looking for a window. Before moving to Nevis two days earlier Chris had said this day, March 8th, would be the best of the bad weather days that had been with us for the last 12 days and would be better than any of the days for the next week.

As Chris predicted we experienced seven foot plus seas with an 8 second interval. Winds were blowing at 17 when we left and were a constant 22 nmph as we approached Antigua. During the passage we had two rain squalls with gusts of 30 nmph. The swell was due east and our course was slightly south of due east giving us a little edge in these short seas. With the deep entry of Catalina Sunshine with her steep "V" extending to the bottom of the keel just aft of the bow, she does not pound. Although the spray rails make noise as they enter the water they don't pound. Notwithstanding, straight into these waves there was a significant upward thrust as we entered each wave. There were two twelve pound exercise weights in the pilot house that were adrift and went airborne on the first wave we entered straight on. As our auto pilot veered from time to time and our course was just south of due east, we took a number of waves straight on. Fortunately we were able to take the majority of waves at enough of an angle that upward motion was less severe and we averaged 8.3 nmph, only a little less than the 9 nmph we normally average. 

                                          Riding up the wave

                                          The bottom of the trough

                                          Arriving Jolly Harbour

                                          Looking out to sea from Jolly Harbour

NEVIS

1000 hours, March 6, 2015, White House Bay, St. Kitts: After 10 windy days we lifted our anchor 
and headed south on a short passage to Nevis. 

The combined nation of St. Kitts and Nevis is a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth, with Queen Elizabeth as Head of State and represented by a Governor General. 
The two Islands are separated by The Narrows, a two mile wide channel. The Island is approximately 8 miles long and 6 miles wide with Mt. Nevis in nearly the center. Mt. Nevis which is 3232 feet high, loomed over the hills at the south end of St. Kitts which we had been looking at for the last ten days. On most of these days their was a cloud hiding the top of the mountain. Today there were no clouds and we could see the beautiful green island with all of its mountain. The main anchorage is between the Island's principle town, Charlestown on the south, and the Four Seasons Hotel on Pinney's Beach on the north. Between these two points there is a beautiful nearly three mile long beach.

As we anchored along the beach in relatively calm water we wished we had left White House Bay earlier. Given that winds were still in the 25 nmph range from the east I was surprised how well this relative small Island and it's Mountain protected the lee side of this Island. Even with the calm lee we needed our rocker stoppers to dampen the waves from the ferry boats that ran between St. Kitts and Charlestown every hour or so. We had not needed them in White House Bay even with the 45 nmph wind gusts we had experienced. 

The Four Season is a beautiful Hotel on a great beach.  

                                          Pinney's Beach

                                          Beach at Four Seasons Resort

                                          One of the pools at Four Seasons Resort

                                                  Beach at Four Seasons Resort

CHRISTMAS WINDS STILL BLOWING

0430 hours, March 2, 2015, White House Bay, St. Kitts: We were awoke by 45 nmph wind gusts. I could see the strength of the wind from the B&G wind monitor in our cabin, but scrambled to the pilot house to see our anchor position. I set the anchor position on my Simrad chart plotter when I drop the anchor. The trail feature provides a pattern of where we have swung, shows the boats current position, and provides a measurement from where the anchor was dropped to where we currently sitting. Although we were at the far edge of the anchor pattern we had not drug. I use the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate what the distance should be, knowing the amount of chain I have let out and the death of the water and the height of my bow above the water. As I almost always use a 5 to 1 scope or greater (in this case 6.45 to 1), the horizontal distance is not much less than the length of deployed chain. In this case the deployed chain was 200 ft. and the calculated horizontal distance is 197 ft.

I next checked the bridle and it's snubbers. Both snubbers had sheared and nylon bridle had stretched significantly almost depleting the the 3 ft. of chain I had looped over the chain grabber at the end of the bridle.

We have a 132 lb Ultra anchor and before the trip I upgraded from 3/8" to 1/2" high test chain. We have never drug and the only times we have had to reset the anchor is when I misjudged the swing with respect to other boats or obstacles. The chain grabber and the bridle/ snubber system were also purchased from Quickline who I had purchased the Ultra anchor from. After a couple of rounds of e-mails with Quickline we decided to upgrade the bridle from 3/4" to 1" line and use a correspondingly larger snubber. Fortunately I had the material on board to make up the bridle.

We continued to get gusts as high as 45 nmph during the day. The gusts were directly offshore and as we were no more than 1000 ft. from the shore, there was very little rolling. We would be  in White House Bay for a total of 10 days, and two more in Nevis, waiting for the winds to drop below 20 nmph and the seas to get down to 6 ft.

While we waited out the wind many large boats came and left. I tracked the departure of a 138 ft. sloop on AIS as they went around St. Kitts on a track to St. Barth. I called them on VHF once they were away from the Island and asked them about the condition if the seas. They simply reported "awful". Buoy Weather had forecasted the seas that day to be from the east (the course to St. Barth is NNE) at 10' with an 9 second interval.  This confirmed what I had thought, the folks leaving in bigger boats didn't know something I was unaware, but had schedules to keep and were forced to take on "awful" conditions. Other boats that came and went included Rising Sun, and Rosehearty. Rising Sun, which is 453 ft. and has 48,000 hp, was built for Larry Ellison CEO of Oracle and owner of the franchise that just won the America's Cup. A couple of years ago Ellison sold Rising Sun to David Geffen, the third partners and founder of DreamWorks, along with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. We had also seen Rising Sun in North Sound between Christmas and New Years. Rosehearty is a 170 Perini Navi ketch owned, or previously owned (understand it was for sale a year ago), by Ruper Murdoch. Murdoch is CEO and Chairman of the worlds second largest media conglomerate, News Corp. 

                                          White House & Ballast Bay Nevis  behind

                                          Rising Sun

                                             Rosehearty

CHRISTOPHE HARBOUR

0930, February 27, 2015, Christophe Harbour, St. Kitts: Meet with David Nelson of Christophe Harbour for a tour of the project's 2500 acres. As a boater, architect and developer, everything about the project was of interest. David graciously drove us around for four hours explaining the Project and answering my insatiable questions. 

The project includes almost the entire south eastern portion of the island, from just north of White House Bay, south. The development will feature a 300 acre harbor and mega-yacht marina with support marine related businesses, 2000 home sites most on or with views of the ocean, beaches, or harbor, six secluded beaches, a Tom Fazio championship golf course, several five star hotels, and a collection restaurants and boutiques. 

They celebrated the opening of the mega-yacht docks the week before we arrived. There are a total of 23 slips for boats from 100 to 220 ft. Sale prices range from $1,875,000 to $3,000,000. They claim to have contracts on 14. The Pavilion and the Salt Plage where we had great dinners are both fully operational. The Park Hyatt, a 135-room resort in Banana Bay, is under construction and scheduled to open the end of the year. All of the lots except one have been sold along the magnificent Sandy Bank Bay with several already built and occupied, and another is under construction. The first waterfront house in the Harbor is under construction and all the lots in phase one sold. Phase two is scheduled for release this summer with the least expensive lot expected to be priced at $1,750,000. The are a number of hillside lots and non view lots behind Sandy Bank Beach which have been sold with houses built and occupied on several of them. The quality of the architecture, (which must go through an approval process by an architectural review board under control of the developer), the quality of the landscape architecture, and the quality of the completed construction were all excellent. 

The only comparable to what they are creating at Christophe Harbour is St. Barth. However the differences are significant. There is only one public road that runs through the development which is the southern portion of St. Kitts. This road will run to a relocated ferry terminal which connects St. Kitts to the other part of this Island nation, Nevis, and Cockleshall Bay with its beach, which will remain public. Christophe Harbour will have a series gate graded communities, interconnecting with a private golf cart/bicycble path. The community will have its own new town which will be built behind the mega-yacht marina. The only development opportunities that exist on St. Barth are individual properties.  You can't get to St. Barth with a private jet on a passenger jet airlines. The small short runway will only accommodate prop planes. St. Kitts has a international airport with  VIP terminal to accommodate private jets. There are no golf courses on St. Barth. In addition to the already constructed mega-yacht marinas they are planning a second marina for larger boats under 100 ft. In addition to White House Bay where we stayed there is Ballast Bay immediately south. Both bays in combination create a large anchorage area with significantly calmer conditions then St. Barth. 

According to David Nelson the country of St. Kitts/Nevis sought out a developer for this project, and is a partner in the development. The developer they choose were the principles of  Kiawah Partners who have developed and managed Kiawah Island since they purchased the Island from a Kuwaiti led development company in 1988. The sea island is 12 miles south of City of Charleston. Under the development of Kiawah Partners, and it's CEO Buddy Darby, the 10,000 acre largely private gate guarded Kiawah Island currently has 7 championship golf courses, a private club, a 5-star hotel, 10 miles of beach front, 30 miles of river front, several world-class restaurants, sporting, shopping and culture activities, and 4600 property-owner families. The Island hosted the 1991 Ryder's Cup and the 2012 PGA Championship. 

They estimate it will take 20 years to build out Christophe Harbour. My guest it will probably take longer. The sales strategy they are following is to sell some of the most expensive property first, which helps with cash flow and builds value for the less expensive home sites and slips to follow. They have done very little advertising to date concentrating on getting the word out at wealth management seminars and the like, to the height end buyers they are looking for. The build out has started a few houses at a time allowing them to slowly build a skilled workforce on the Island which will provide better costs then the imported labor needed to achieve the quality of the buildout to date. 

This is a one of a kind site, and the developers appear to be doing everything right. The risk for all involved is how long it will take to build-out, and what future economic downturns will do to the world economy and how this will effect the project's development. 

                                          Mega Yacht Marina

                                          Pavilion Pool

                                          Sand Bank Bay

                                          Project Surrounds Christophe Harbour

                                          White House Bay with Ballast Bay behind

ST. KITTS

0830 hours, February 26, 2015, White House Bay, St Kitts: Picked up a rental car Christophe Harbour had arranged for us. Approaching White House Bay two days earlier I saw the large salt pond behind the Bay on the chart. Having just left Simpson Lagoon the obvious came to mind, what a great spot for a sheltered harbor. While having dinner at the Salt Plage on the night of our arrival they had told us a little about Christopher Harbour of which Salt Plage was a part. The next morning I found the entrance to the salt pond they had dredged, found super yacht slips they had already built and saw the dredge still at work in another part of the pond. In the temporary marina office in a trailer at the head of the super yacht dock, the Marina personal  offered to arrange for a rental car to be dropped of for us the next morning and made reservations for us to have dinner at their newly constructed Pavilion at Sandy Bank Bay the following night. 

Our first planned stop on our clockwise path around the Island after driving through Basseterre, was Brimstone Hill Fortress which we had seen two days earlier from the water. Unfortunately they would not let us in with Jackie who we had with us, not wanting to leave her on the boat by herself all day. We had then planned to have lunch at a restaurant on the north west coast which our cruising guide had recommended. It was no longer their. We then decided to keep heading clockwise, now in a south east direction to the St. Kitts Marriott Resort at Half Moon Bay on the windward side. It was gusting over 25 nmph that day. The Marriott was stretched about a half of a mile along the windy beach with a casino in the center and the outside was  not appealing. We decided to head further south to Frigate Bay. Here we found what we had been looking for, a nice open bay front restaurant looking over the sand, and calm water as we were now back on the leeward side. After lunch we drove south back toward our boat and found Carambola Beach Club, a first class restaurant and beach, and further south the Ship Reck Beach Bar and Grill with monkeys chewing on sugar cane. Monkeys have been on St. Kitts for over 400 years. Monkeys were brought by French settlers from east Africa, as pets. Today they outnumber humans by 3:1.

We ended the day with a great dinner at the Pavilion. We had local lobster over french fries. With the French influence in the caribbean the "french fry" has a much higher status then it does in the US.  Christophe Harbour's Pavilion and Sandy Bank Bay are magnificent. 

                                          Frigate Bay

                                          Carambola Beach Club

                                          Shipwreck Beach Bar

                                          St.Kitt's monkey

                                          Pavilion pool

                                                  Lobster over french fries               

APPRECIATED HELP

0830 hours February 24, Simpson Lagoon, St. Martin: Passed under the bridge on the first out going opening, and set a course for St. Kitts 53 nm slightly to the west of south. As predicted seas were ENE 4 to 6 ft and the wind was east 15 to 20 nmph, creating a 2 ft wind wave on top of swell from a slightly different direction.  

It was exactly 6 hours when we reached the lea of St. Kitts. We had planned to check in at the Island's Capitol, Basseterre about two thirds of the way down the Island going south. On the way we passed the Brimstone Hill Fortress, 800 feet up from the sea. The Fortress was constructed by the British over nearly a century to repel the French. However 8000 French overran 1000 Scottish troops that were defending it in 1782. The battle lasted 30 days and bought the British time they needed to prepare for the battle of the Saints which they won ending the French domination of the Caribbean.  

We arrived at Basseterre around 1500 hours. In the anchorage just outside the harbor where you must anchor to check in customs, there was a two foot plus swell at about 90 degrees to the wind. Just before entering the anchorage we passed Slowdown, a 40 ft Caliber sloop, who ended up anchoring in front of us. As we started to launch our 1200 pound dingy from the fly bridge level, which was going to be a real challenge with the 2 ft beam swell, Slowdown hailed us on 16 offering us a ride into customs. We instantly accepted. Even though our davit crane is powered in each function, which Beth operates, it leaves just me to handle 1200 lbs of swinging dingy which is scary. Slowdown's lighter dingy is carried by two aft davits which hang over the stern with two lifting harness' and a shorter distance to drop. 

Ed Carter and his wife Cheryl picked me up on our stern and we headed into the small marina toward what we thought was customs, there were no signs. There was also no dingy dock. We had to tie up in one of the few available slips and hope no one was going to try and use it while we were in customs. We had guessed right and a security guard pointed us to a building next to where we had tied up. Customs required a fee of $10 and I all I had was a $50 bill and customs had no change. Again Ed came to the rescue and lent me $10, which I was able to repay when we went to immigration in the cruise ship terminal to the south of the marina. Although we were planning to stay in St. Kitts for a few days, Ed and Cheryl needed to get to Antigua to meet friends flying in, and the seas for the next day were predicted to be the least painful of the seas for at least another week. We were planning to spend the next few days at White House Bay which was reported to be a calm anchorage at the south end of St. Kitts, and asked Ed and Cheryl if they could join us there for a drink to at least partially repay them for their kindness. They accepted. 

Before joining us for a drink at White House Bay they checked the beach bar and restaurant out that was directly in front of where we had both anchored. They said the facility looked new and was open for dinner. After sharing adventures we all decided to have dinner ashore. The Salt Plage at White House Bay is without question the most exquisitely designed beach Bar any of us had seen. It's 82 ft long dock included not only a place to tie up tenders but day beds, lounge seating and an overwater hammock. The "White House" had been part of a salt processing facility and the Salt Plage artfully incorporated parts of the processing facility into its open air restaurant and bar. What a great place to enjoy lobster tacos with our new friends. 

By the time we woke in the morning Slowdown had already left for what we later found out was an 11 hour upwind trip, tacking back and forth, as the seas were too tall and the period too short for them to motor directly into them. 

                                          Approaching St.Kitt's from the North

                                          Brimstone Hill Fortress

                                          Dingy dock Salt Plage

                                          Salt Plage

                                                  Dingy dock at night