St Kitts today, it was a lovely morning approach into Basseterre where we had a 09:45 rendezvous arranged with our tour at the end of the pier. So after breakfast we made our way off the ship and onto the waiting coach then off for a quick tour of St Kitts, heading out to our first stop which was the Amazing Grace experience.
This was in a church out past Sandy Lane, and was the story of the hymn Amazing Grace. The links between John Newton, the hymn’s author and St Kitts was pretty tenuous, but it was a good story and an entertaining presentation. From there we headed to Romney Manor where there were beautiful gardens to view and a Batik factory where they made the distinctive dyed cloth. Jane took a fancy to a sun dress, not cheap, but it was pretty and it was locally made.
The tour dropped us off in the centre of Basseterre at Independence Square and we walked back to the ship from there. The Cruise Terminal was a mix of tat shops and duty free diamond places and U felt it offered nothing for the local economy as all the visitors seemed to stay there, pushing the tat shops out into town would have pushed the cruisers out into the local shops which would have benefited Basseterre better.
We never found a local restaurant to eat in yet again, which has been a disappointment for us on the trip, Jane was looking forward to eating locally caught fish when out, but the only place that looked like coming close to this was in Bridgetown. St Kitts has some very good fish restaurants, but they’re only open in the evening.
We had a late lunch in the buffet, then Jane headed on deck for sunbathing while I snoozed on the steamers and watched the punters on the Carnival Fascination (or maybe Fantasy) which was berthed opposite us.
Jane had steak for dinner and I had roast pork, very nice yet again.