Saturday on St. Kitts

 The island of St. Kitts was our final stop before returning to San Juan, Puerto Rico on Sunday and flying back to AZ.

We did not see much of St. Kitts from our balcony. Instead we saw another HUGE cruise ship on the other side of the pier. In fact, we were looking into the balcony rooms on the P & O Icon. Pastel painted buildings were also very common in Basseterre just as they were in Aruba, Curacao and Saint Lucia.

some of the flowers we saw as we walked about 

On the pier walking into Basseterre we realized there were three cruise ships docked at the port. That meant the town would be very busy. The Queen Mary 2 is on the left. Icon from P & O Cruises in the middle and the Norwegian Viva is on the right. The Icon had room for 5000+ passengers!

the selfie sign just through the terminal building

As is most ports there is a geocache near the terminal and that was the case on Saturday. The geocache was on the side of terminal building and near the St. Kitts Chocolate Factory. Once the cache was found and signed we checked out the chocolates.

country #29

St. Kitts had the most shops and eating places near the port of any of our island stops. We found the prices to be very reasonable. Even with three cruise ships I did not feel like there were that many people looking for bargains in the shopping area. The space of the shopping easily handled the three cruise ships. There were lots of benches for sitting and resting and waiting in the area, but not a lot of shade.

There was music and dancing on one of the streets. There were also a couple of guys carrying small monkeys. The idea being if you wanted to hold a monkey for a photo, you paid the guy holding the cute monkeys. I did not see them approaching and pestering people. It seemed people had to stop them and ask. 

Basseterre had a small black sand beach not far from the tourist shopping area, but definitely in the town where the locals shopped and hung out. OFD and I walked to the beach and got the information and photos needed to complete the geocache requirements. While OFD checked out a grocery store, I sat on a bench in the shade and had a lovely conversation with a gentleman from Basseterre. He was on the bench to visit and greet folks he knew; a very pleasant way to spend a Saturday morning.

the Viva on the left and the Icon, a British cruise ship, on the right

tourists returning to their ships

I took this photo from our balcony. It shows the forward four (only 3 in the photo) moorings used to secure our ship to the pier. (There were mornings at the aft port side.) Watching the process of tying up and later untethering the ship is always interesting. Our ship was the first of the three to leave St. Kitts.

passing through the channel

another cloudy Caribbean sunset