Sunday, the 9th of November 1997
Saint Kitts, West Indies
It’s early morning and another magnificent sunrise greets the day. Green palms, grass, and prolific sea grape bushes in the immediate foreground. Golden sand, and blue skies, with shades of turquoise ranging to dark blue gracing the watery horizon. Less than a 100 feet away white water spills up the beach. Maureen sleeps, I write.
My mind drifts back to Friday evening’s dinner setting. It was the close of a week of contrasts. Contrasts of a beautiful setting and excellent weather verses CNN’s informing us of rainstorms, and snow across America. In addition, there is a huge contrast in my endeavor to continue business consulting activities from St Kitts and the nearby island of Nevis, (where I maintain an office), verses operating from within the States.
The new-age common argument for a growing number of people whose business activities allow them some working flexibility is that they can literally live anywhere they have good telecommunications, for phone, fax, and access to the Internet. I am one of those people. Growing tired of the gray overcast and rainy winters that are a hallmark of Portland, Oregon, Maureen and I commenced a search some years back for an offshore winter location. We explored a good deal of the world before deciding on a lifestyle that included the eastern Caribbean.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Portland, Oregon. It has so much going for it, not to mention the fact that all of our children, both married and unmarried, still live there. Maureen and I, and apparently all our children, are deeply tied to Portland. From my perspective it’s one of the best places on earth ---- about six months of the year.
The island federation of St Kitts & Nevis is fortunate to have under-water fiber optics phone lines that are capable of providing clean clear audio and good data transmission service. Crime is low, literacy high, British common law prevails, English-English is spoken here as opposed to American English. The weather is excellent here almost year round, of course one sometimes must deal with pesky Hurricanes, but during hurricane season we’re off island enjoying Portland’s incredibly good summers. All in all, it’s quite the life, or at least that’s what it appears to be. There are, of course, things that take getting used to.
Fast reverse a few weeks ago to my departure from Oregon and my arrival in St Kitts mid October. Maureen would follow me two weeks later on after Halloween. This time the trip was easy. An absolute first. In fact, it was the first time, regardless of airline claims, that I’ve ever made it to St Kitts from Oregon in a single day. I’ve flown all the standard carriers, connected through Dallas, Atlanta, or Chicago then on to Puerto Rico and then supposedly a simple one-hour flight to St Kitts aboard American Eagle. Trouble is that for whatever reason I have always ended up spending an unplanned night in Puerto Rico because of a late connection. This time was different; I made it in one day, a cause for some celebration. Yippee!
In Portland, American airlines let me board significantly overweight. Well, I’m not exactly overweight, not that I’d admit anyway, but my luggage needed a well muscled athletic, (or a lithe female ticket agent as it turned out), to lift each of three large bags in my possession which each considerably exceeded the permissible weight limit.
Now pride forces me to interject that having traveled widely during much of my adult life I’m skilled at being able to go virtually anywhere in the world with a simple carry-on bag. However, this trip I was carrying another full-sized computer, books, printed materials, and various office items of all sorts of description. The oversized computer monitor in its original box was especially awkward, made worse by our removing the lightweight packing material and replacing it with additional file documents and office supplies. Anyway, all my fears to the contrary, I did not have to deal with these items in Puerto Rico for a stay over.
On arrival late evening in St Kitts the customs agents, as is their pesky inclination, wanted to examine everything I’d brought. I tried to explain that I had received a government waiver granting me authority to bring business materials into the country without duty, which is a whopping 60% charged on top of the retail value of the merchandise plus costs associated with shipping.
You should have seen their faces when they tried to help me lift my bags on to a knee-high examination counter. They seemed convinced they’d caught a smuggler of some sort. No one should have luggage this heavy. Everyone else passed through customs and I was left to three agents picking through the contents of a huge box and three large bags. I actually got embarrassed as they held up what they considered my funny underwear, turning it in all directions barely able to smother a laugh. Actually, I suppose this was a good thing, because once they found humor in something they became a lot easier to talk too.
In my experience, communication is a problem when first you arrive in the islands, or at least until you’ve tuned your ear to the heavily accented English patter that reminds me more of Reggae music than the language I’ve spoken all my life. Add this to the West Indian’s tendency to speak ever so quietly to strangers, (women are particularly soft spoken), and establishing an understandable connection is difficult at best.
There was continuing debate betwixt myself and my three government inquisitors, but little seemed to be really understood on either side. The customs agents sent out for reinforcements and eventually an official looking uniformed supervisor of some sort marched in with all the pomp and authority he could muster. He addressed me in his rich local accent such that I could not quite understand what he was saying.
I did my best to name drop, the island being a small place where everyone either knows, or has heard of, virtually everyone else or at least their family. Finally, with an officious wave of his hand he dismissed the woman who was declaring I owed fortunes to the government. He spoke down to her, both literally and figuratively, as he was a tall man and she rather on the small side. He seemed to say things to the effect that she should know better than to tie up a person of my obvious consequence. For this I was glad, but I could not help feeling uncomfortable for the woman simply trying to do her job.
According to my American Eagle’s Destination Guide to St Kitts & Nevis, these:
“… two fantasy islands are renowned for their natural beauty and unspoiled charm. Considered by travel cognoscenti as the ultimate getaway in the eastern Caribbean, the twin islands of St Kitts and Nevis lie in the northern part of the Leeward Islands, separated by a mere two-mile wide channel.”
It goes on to say,
“Just south of the city, the Frigate Bay area is the scene of major developments featuring luxury hotels, a championship golf course, casino, restaurants, shops and a yacht club. The surrounding beaches and hills of the Southeast Peninsula also shelter a variety of wildlife such as monkeys, sea turtles, and deer.”
Frigate Bay is my destination, and I am quite fond of the place, but the tourist brochures get a little carried away. For example, it is an extremely quiet place, and contrary to the quotation above, there are no “luxury” hotels, yet. There are hotels, of course, but they certainly don’t qualify as “luxury” in my book. Well, perhaps that’s simply an issue of perspective. There are virtually no shops other than a couple of small general tourist merchandise closets sufficient to buy T-shirts, suntan lotion and an extra pair of sunglasses. If there’s a Yacht Club I’ve never found it and it certainly doesn’t have any yachts. (It’s kind of hard to hide large boats on little islands.) There are seven small open air restaurants, including a small deli and an equally small pizza parlor, but four of them are only open during tourist season which doesn’t start until after American Thanksgiving. So, they’re not open now, but only for a few months. On the entire island there is not a single air-conditioned restaurant which speaks loudly of both the traditionally balmy weather and the lack of concern for uncomfortable tourists. It makes you wonder if the people who write this stuff have ever been here.
A couple of muscular young men struggled with my luggage and got it all into a touring van, what they call a combe in Mexico, and soon we were headed off to Frigate Bay. Frigate Bay isn’t really a single bay. It is an area of perhaps two square miles that is bordered on the east by the Atlantic and the west by the Caribbean Sea. Depending on weather and sea conditions safe anchorage may be had on one side or the other of this narrow point of land. You might think of the island as shaped like an hourglass with Frigate Bay as the narrow center. The land at this point serving as buffer for ocean surges, winds and waves. Most of the year it is the Caribbean side that is calm but occasionally a westerly swell will force local vessels to round the south end of the island and track back up the Atlantic side to the Frigate Bay area. One can easily walk from the Atlantic to the Caribbean in just a few minutes at this point, although to boat from one side to another is about a sixteen mile run.
Leaving the airport, one climbs a moderate hill before dropping down into Frigate Bay. From the top of the hill, even at night, the view can stir one’s soul. It is impressive to behold. There are generally a couple of transient boats at anchorage on the Caribbean side of Frigate Bay, close into the sandy shore. A golf course cluttered with palm trees fills the space between the two bodies of water and the bluer Atlantic side has a constant series of white capped waves washing the beach.
You can easily spot Leeward Cove, our home away from home, as you crest the hill and head down into this remarkable setting. It is not a glitzy area, like similar settings in the Caribbean, nor is it simply local fare. I suppose it’s the upscale neighborhood of St Kitts, although wealth is certainly not its hallmark. The area is remarkably free of snobbishness and even more curious it’s virtually colorblind. People of all shades live side by side without a hint of elitism. Mixed marriages are prevalent and generally the rule rather than the exception. No one seems to notice. It is a good place, made better by open-minded people and an interesting feeling of community amongst its year-round residents.
Everything arrived in one piece and all equipment subsequently turned out to be working, a blessing you cannot fully appreciate if you’re living in a first world country. On the other hand, my documents, letterhead, and envelopes had been damaged from the various agent’s insistence that they examine my bags thoroughly, after which they’d been shoved back into my luggage in such a way that many of the new materials were now unusable. But I was here. Safe, sound, with all equipment working. And, the next morning was sunny and warm with clear skies. Not the cold and rain with battleship-gray overcast I had left in Oregon.
Maureen is up now. She’s made some breakfast and getting her morning fix of CNN Headline News. We talk about children, home, and plan our travels for the coming week. Because it’s Sunday, I’m not allowed to discuss business. Well, for that matter my “significant other” considers it Goshe to discuss business on Saturdays or Sundays and any other time it’s not traditional working hours. We decide to visit the nearby islands of Antigua and St Martens this week. Maureen is depressed; she craves children.
It’s our normal practice to attend Sunday Services at 10AM in a small chapel on a slight rise above the town of Basseterre. Looking at the clock, we are shocked to realize we’ve missed church. It’s the first time since we’ve been coming to St Kitts. I feel guilty. Some television and more talk about children. Maureen calls our oldest daughter Natalie who calls her back a few minutes later. It costs more that ten times as much for us to call off island as it does for our children to call us. Yes, we miss the benefits of multiple phone companies competing for our business. And yes, we’d even be willing to endure those obnoxious telemarketers in the States who constantly call trying to get folks to switch their long-distance carriers, if it meant substantially cheaper rates. Here a company called Skantel is the government granted monopoly and therefore the only source of outbound long distance.
Maureen is much improved. Natalie has buoyed her spirits and now she’s ready to do something. We decide to drive the seven miles south on the deserted narrow strip of island that reminds me of a Polly Wog’s tail. We’re headed down to a place known as Turtle Beach. Passing through the guarded gate of Leeward Cove we turn left and head round the British style turn-about and immediately begin the climb up Timothy Hill. The cars here are under powered, and I find it necessary to manually shift the automatic transmission to get up this steep hill. My complaining about the lack of power elicits Maureen’s observation that I shouldn’t expect rental cars in St Kitts to perform like my Cadillac STS in Oregon. True enough, she’s right again. It’s a common experience… her being right. UGH
Once we’ve reached the top of this very steep hill the view is impressive, and that’s really an understatement. In fact, my guess is that no one can really do this scene justice with simple imagination, or for that matter even with photographs. It must seen to be believed. Looking back the way we’ve come we immediately spot our carefully landscaped, whitewashed Leeward Cove and its stunning seashore. In the near distance we can see Half Moon Bay. Directly behind Leeward Cove and running from the Atlantic to the Caribbean is the Royal St Kitts golf course with a freshwater lake and ponds scattered in between. The island is narrow here, perhaps only a mile or so across. The Jack Tar Resort and Casino and its collection of buildings border the golf course on the north.
Looking south the way we’re headed is another startling view of unparalleled beauty. No sooner do we reach the top of Timothy Hill than we’re headed back down, this time via a series of switchbacks. At the bottom of the hill an extremely narrow ribbon of ground separates the dark blue Atlantic Ocean and it’s crashing waves from the quiet calm of the turquoise green Caribbean Sea. Here the distance between these very different bodies of water is less than a quarter of a mile. Both sides are given to sandy beaches, the Atlantic is golden brown, the Caribbean white. A couple more steep climbs provide magnificent new vistas after which we round the top of a final hill and see two blue-water cruising sail boats quietly at anchor in the Caribbean, ahead of us near the salt flats, an open area within two miles of the extreme southern end of the island.
At the bottom of this last hill, we slow for several monkeys. Although I’ve been told that monkey’s are not indigenous to the Caribbean Basin, there are whole communities of them in St Kitts. In fact, a tourist publication about the area includes this:
“The combined population of St Kitts & Nevis is 46,000. Estimates put the simian (‘monkey”) population at 125,000, approximately two and one-half times the human population.”
One old male was busy doing the mating thing in the middle of the road as we slowed to a stop before proceeding. The much smaller female monkey was on all fours, the male stood on his hind legs at her rear one hand in the middle of her back, the other raised in the air. He paused and looked up almost bored with our approach. I half expected him to wave as we crept by. Turning east off the paved road onto little more than a dirt track we weave around untended cows. They seemed to be wandering aimlessly around searching the scrub brush and cactus for something to eat. This end of St Kitts is more like a desert island, very different from farther north.
Turtle Beach consists of an outdoor restaurant and bar along with a small dive shop and a few cottages on a quiet cove around the southernmost point, free from the steady breezes of the Atlantic. The view is southerly. Nevis island is only two miles distant. Mount Nevis, a dormant volcano, is almost the direct center of the tropical island across from us. Although we can’t see it from here, we know the island of Montserrat is directly behind Nevis only ten miles distant. Montserrat made international news this year by having the entire country evacuated after its volcano blew multiple times over a period of months. No one can easily live there any longer, and England evacuated 2/3rds of the population. It’s a very scary place these days. A few months back during my last stay here, I boarded a small plane to fly to Antigua when the largest explosion of the Montserrat volcano went off. We were flying at 8,000 feet and watched the entire event with a completely unobstructed view for the twenty-five minutes it took us to make the trip. Incredible.
From the outdoor restaurant at Turtle beach, we can see the Nevis airstrip and The Four Seasons Resort and its Robert Trent Jones II award-winning golf course. The Four Nevis Seasons resort at Nevis has been named the top resort in the world for the last three years in a row. It’s a lovely place where I enjoy lunch about twice a week when in Nevis on business.
During lunch we run into some folks we met at Fisherman’s Wharf on Friday night, the day before yesterday. At the outdoor bar I recognize the attractive young mother whose two charming children had kept us entertained throughout dinner at the Wharf. This time the children were nowhere to be seen. Their mom was engaged in an animated conversation with what turned out to be her sister-in-law, along with her other grown siblings and their parents. The children showed up as they charged up the the beach chasing a young Rasti, (short for Rastafarian which is the name given the local blacks on many Caribbean islands who have a profusion of ratted hair called dread locks, and who pseudo-worship the late Bob Marley.) The Rasti man was clearly enjoying himself. So were the kids.
The striking mother of the two confident and full-of-life children had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. On Friday it was loose and full. She had the look of high intelligence and carried herself as one who had an intimate familiarity with the finer things in life. (Or, perhaps I’ve just got carried away assuming all kinds of things simply because she’s so attractive. Frankly, Turtle Beach was not exactly where you might expect to find someone of her mannerism. She recognized me just a moment after I did her. She gave me one of those clever little finger waves women of her apparent ilk all seem to know. Another woman, somewhat older, with her back to us, turned to see who was being acknowledged and looked quite surprised. She spoke up as if we knew one another saying: “When did you get here? We were just talking about you.” It was my turn to be surprised.
The family was from New Jersey and New York. The Patriarch-grandfather was holding court under the awning of the bar surrounded by his family. We discovered that he owns part of the Frigate Bay hotel, so his grown children come to meet he and his wife in the Caribbean frequently, particularly during the late fall and winter. At first blush they seemed to be a talkative and fun family. The oldest daughter Claire told me she was forty as she chattered on about how it still unnerved her when her parents left New Jersey each year and headed down to Frigate Bay for the season. She claimed her parents were her closest and dearest friends and that she got instantly lonely whenever they weren’t close by. I immediately thought of our family. When we’re gone Maureen is missed a good deal more than me. This is as it should be, I suppose. Maureen is a very special lady with a lot of heart who believes it’s still her duty to be constantly in the service of her children.
After lunch we backtrack to the pavement and turn south again to a cove one over and west of Turtle Beach. At Land’s End we see the remains of two hotels. One started and never finished, the other which operated as the Cockleshell Resort for many years before a road was built down this narrow stretch of island to the extreme southern peninsula. A hurricane destroyed most of the Cockleshell in 1989, it was not rebuilt and eventually deserted. We walk around the vacant buildings at water’s edge and switch back from a blunt finger of land surrounded by rock, white sand, and clear water to find another even more secluded bay. This turns out to be the once famous resort known as Banana Bay. It was originally built by the Fleishman’s family of New York and later sold to a rather bold and wealthy woman named Margo whom we once met on the water taxi between Charlestown, Nevis and Basseterre, St Kitts about a year prior. Banana Bay was ravaged by hurricane Hugo, the same one that downed the Cockleshell. Some years back Margo, now in her seventies, sold Banana Bay to Sandals, the internationally known, all-inclusive resorts throughout the Caribbean, based in Jamaica. Thus far they’ve left it alone, evidently preferring to develop other more accessible places.