Profligate's
Progress
February 9 - St. Barth, FWI
Even though we've been sending in reports
about three times a week, there's been so much going on that
we're way behind. Why it was last week sometime that we sailed
the two miles from St. Kitts to Nevis to continue our mini-cruise
within our 25th anniversary cruise. Although it always threatens
to secede from the country of St. Kitts & Nevis, Nevis still
hasn't pulled away. Many of the locals think the 36 square-mile
island with just 10,000 people is big enough to make it on its
own. They're probably right. In fact, its biggest source of income
is the wildly expensive Four Seasons Resort that opened up a
number of years ago, was destroyed by a hurricane, and was almost
immediately rebuilt. We didn't check the hotel out because it's
not something we're interested in. But we did watch a guy tap
in a putt on a green of the golf course, which couldn't have
been more than 20 feet from the ocean.
Two really cool yachts, Bolero and
Nirvana, were anchored off the Four Seasons. We're going
to have to find out more details about both of them, but they
are both yawls about 70 feet long, and one was built in '48 and
the other in '50. Both are in such superb shape that they are
like floating museums of the zenith of yachting from the middle
of the last century. It's really great seeing such spectacular
classics.
The classic yawl Bolero, restored by a fellow from Annapolis,
lays at anchor near the Four Seasons and off the dormant volcano
at Nevis.
Speaking of classic yawls, lots of folks
around St. Barth are wondering what in the world happened to
the 70-ft (or so) yawl Escapade, that was a famous pot-smuggler
in this region in the '70s. They all seem to know that she went
to the West Coast, but haven't heard anything of her since. We
told them she had been purchased by a couple of lawyers from
San Francisco, and on the way back from a race to Mexico had,
if we remember correctly, plowed into an unlit Coast Guard buoy
just before Pt. Conception. She was then - this was about four
years ago - taken to KKMI for repairs. A bunch of work was done
to her bow, but then stopped a couple of years ago. And there
she sits. When we get home, we'll have to look into it.
When guests tire of the opulence and expense
of the Four Seasons on Nevis, they wander next door to Sunshines,
a kind of rasta beachfront place, where there's a honor system
bar, you can smoke dope, and the atmosphere is decidedly un-Four
Seasons-ish. Apparently it's a big hit with the hip-hoppers and
other young celebs. They had lots of photos of Britney and Beyoncé
and various hip-hop stars we don't know because we don't care
for that noise.
While at Sunshine, our buddy Tim, the skipper
of the 135-ft ketch Seyriah - on the market for just under
10 mil - introduced us to two of his guests, Ernie and Virginia
Van Aspiren, formerly of 21 Windward in Belvedere. Ernie tells
us that the two of them developed The Dock in Tiburon, which
later became Guaymas. They also owned the well-respected Round
Hill Winery in the Napa Valley. They are now retired and living
in the Napa Valley. They were the guests of another fellow on
Seyriah, who told us he owns homes in the Napa Valley,
Fort Lauderdale, and Key West. You bump into a lot of people
vacationing down here with multiple homes. About two weeks ago
we took a bunch of people sailing, including a couple who live
in Aspen and New York City, and having visited St. Barth, plan
on buying a place there next year.
Ernie and Virginia Van Aspiren of the Napa Valley, at Sunshines
on Nevis
Waiting to buy a place in St. Barth can
be very expensive. Four years ago, a sailing friend of ours from
New York City paid $1.1 million for a house on ritzy Pt. Milou.
He's put it up for sale at $4.5 million, and there's lots of
interest. Yeech. St. Barth has a lot of people who are land rich
and cash poor. That includes lots of people from the '70s, which
was the golden age of pot smuggling on the island. People in
Le Select would be approached by guys offering $15,000 for them
to go four miles over to Ile Fourche to unload pot from a freighter
onto scores of little sailboats that would take the stuff to
South Carolina. After a couple of nights of that, a guy could
have enough money to buy a relatively big chunk of land, which
is now worth $1 million or more. As for us, we're content that
the Gustavia anchorage is very cheap, and that other anchorages
on the island are free.
Back at Nevis we took the normal tour.
One of the first stops was at a memorial for the victims of the
St. Kitts to Nevis ferry that sank in 1970, killing about 150
people. The cause of the disaster was an overloaded ferry, which
seems so preventable. Nonetheless, the same thing still happens
in the Philippines, Indonesia, and all over Africa.
The grim list of those who died in 1970 when the overloaded St.
Kitts to Nevis ferry rolled over.
The worst stop on the tour was a botanical
garden created by some doctor from Philadelphia. The price of
admission was $9 each, but it was a total disappointment. The
place needed the work of a lot of gardeners, plus a lot of water.
The owner should be embarrassed.
Little Redonda and big Montserrat as seen from the dining area
at the Golden Rock Plantation.
We were more pleased with our lunch at
the Golden Rock Plantation in the Gingerland district. From the
lovely dining area, you could look south to Redonda and Montserrat,
and to the southeast you could see Antigua. Like a lot of plantations
that have become resorts, this one had made a two-story honeymoon
suite out of the stone tower for the mill. Weird, but apparently
popular.
If a honeymooning couple wants privacy, there's nothing like
a two-story mill tower.
Later in the day we took a five-mile dinghy
ride up to Oualie Beach to get Internet access. While walking
the pier ashore, we came across two local guys who'd gone out
25 miles and caught about a dozen 35-lb wahoo, which sell for
$10/lb, plus some mahi and a nurse shark. It seemed like a hell
of a day's catch, but they said it was normal. Here's the odd
thing. They cleaned the fish right on the dock, throwing all
the bloody guts and stuff into the water not 25 feet from where
all the little children at the resort were playing in the water.
It seems like another Nevian tragedy waiting to happen.
Cleaning the catch of the day - wahoo - at Nevis. It almost seemed
as if they were chumming for sharks while cleaning their catch.
Photos Latitude/Richard
We sailed back to St. Barth the next day,
covering something like 52 miles in four hours and small change,
flying just the main and a tiny jib. Before moderating in the
last 10 miles, it blew 20 to 25 knots, with six to 10-ft sloppy
seas. It was one bouncing reach, but thanks to Profligate's
extra bridgedeck clearance, we didn't endure a single 'bomb'.
Once back on St. Barth, we started learning
more about the island. For instance, did you know that Swedes
used to have slaves, too, and that some of them were whites from
France? When a woman reporter from Sweden was told this, she
didn't want to hear it and got very upset. Anyway, we're not
upset, we're heading to Anguilla this morning on another mini-cruise.
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