Sunday Contrast

So after a night of fiery skies

SKN Times

and torrential rains (video if you email subscribers can't see it or go to blog),



St. Kitts (not Key West) has just come out the other side of a deluge of rain. There was another great video on Facebook taken by someone living in the mountains, but you may not have access to it - it was pretty intense. St. Kitts & Nevis residents (my friends) woke up to tons of mud in the main thoroughfares (typical in these situations). That first photo is the bus station; and the second is the main road downtown (thanks to our pal Mark Pavluvcik for these):




Two sailboats washed up and power is out in many places.

Here's something else that washed up on the beach - although how long ago, no one knows yet (thanks to Sue for that photo). Very Halloween. It's going to be tough to identify this person and will definitely have to be an outside job.

Keeth France, as usual, took lots of great (albeit depressing photos). Gonna be lots of digging out today. Bulldozers are already out doing their thing, despite the fact that winds are still gusting and it's still raining.

By the end of the week, it'll be as if it never happened. Life in the islands. BTW, my old blog with its new blogger has info too if some of you St Kitts hangers-on can't get enough.

In contrast, we finally took a look at Fort Zachary and its beach on a pleasantly sunny day. As far as I know there are 3 "major" beaches here, all with imported sand. I think Higgs is probably the best for sand, and Smather's which is long (2 miles) and narrow (and is having problems with seaweed), but both those beaches have rather stagnated water off them. We were told the Fort Zachary beach would have better water (and facilities), but then the trade off was having to pay $5 to get in (it varies, but that's what it costs for 2 people on a moped) and a rockier beach. Hmmm. Sandy Bank it's not. It was worth checking out though, and it was the first time I put my feet in the water since we got here. And that's all I was going to put in the water - brrr!  Buoys report the temp at 84°, but they have to be sitting in shallow water or something. Even Michael thought the water was nippy.

This park has a nice shady spot amidst some pine trees,

a place to fish,

a long-ish beach,

and calm water




hemmed in on both sides by naval installations and no trespassing signs.

Cayo Hueso was certainly in a nice spot and they did rent chairs, but for $10 per chair, we'll bring our own (after we buy them).

The contrast of sand, palm trees, and pine trees was rather strange.

There were plenty of rocks/pebbles/ground coral on the beach, so we will be bringing (buying) water shoes next time too.





We also saw lots of people with snorkel gear, so will have to replace ours. Reviews on TripAdvisor said the snorkeling was good there, so we'll just have to see for ourselves. After I get a wet suit. ((add it to the never-ending list of things to buy). There were trails around, which of course, beckoned. We're like Pavlov's dogs when it comes to hiking. One led us to another small beach and was a short, pretty walk.



The other was to the Fort itself. We've seen a lot of forts in our Caribbean travels, but I think this was the first one with water in its moat.

We didn't see any alligators, but we did run into this iguana. We've seen surprisingly few of them, so we appreciated him letting us get up close and personal.



The Fort itself was used over several wars, from the Civil War (1861 - just before Florida seceded from the Union) to as recent as the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962 - for training), but actually never saw battle. It started out at 3 stories, but since it had to keep being refitted for the latest artillery and fighting methods (from civil-war-era cannons to anti-aircraft guns), it ended up as we see it now. It didn't used to be landlocked either, but several channel dredgings have changed that.

At one point, I was trying to figure out why they'd allow graffiti on its walls, but then we realized part of the fort was being transformed into a haunted house. That's pretty cool. I'm still disappointed we never got to do the annual sleep-over in the Brimstone Hills Fortress in St. Kitts. Spooooky.

It was a nice way to spend some time and we were told we could use our receipt to come back later and watch the sunset. For me, sunset is a time to unwind, so a nice quiet send-off from the beach (or rocks) beats the insanity of Mallory Square. I promise not to give you a million sunset shots, I know the sun sets in your neck of the woods too, but since we were seeing if it was "different" at Fort Zachary, here are a few pics. It was definitely a quieter atmosphere.



And the clouds were neat.



What's that cloud on the right look like to you?

And then we were told to go home. Hmrph.