Our Grand Adventure

27th December 2025 | Odometer: 630nm | St Kitts & Nevis

We arrived to Saint Kitts & Nevis, after a comfortable 6 hour downwind cruise, and pulled into Charlestown on the western side of Nevis. We easily snagged a mooring ball near town and headed over to check in. 

I had been really excited that we could actually go to St Kitts & Nevis. It has very unprotected anchorages and all the guides basically say you should only go in very calm and settled weather. With similar advice for the neighbouring islands of Saba and Statia we had never really thought we would go there but now that the opportunity had arisen we were keen to check it out.

Alas, we had forgotten that it was boxing day and we were unable to check in. So we headed back to the boat for a swim and chill onboard once again. Unfortunately, the mooring field you have to take before you check in is right next to a wakeboarding place 😂. So essentially we completed a delightfully calm and smooth passage only to be tossed about in the anchorage by the wake from all the wakeboarders. Ridiculous ahahha. Thankfully that all stopped around 5ish and the only real wakes after that were from the large superyacht tenders. 

We woke up to find the four superyachts that had been parked behind us were no longer there, and a whole new set of superyachts had pulled in overnight. One of which was Bezos’s infamous Koru – the world’s biggest sailing yacht, and it’s support vessel, Abeona. That’s right, he got a superyacht for his superyacht. Seeing famous people’s boats is not overly exciting though as they are not normally there. We enjoyed eating our breakfast and looking at the various fancy boats around and were surprised by getting to see two helicopters landing in turn on the Abeona! The first one, with the VIPs, and the second one with all the luggage haha. Definitely some great breakfast entertainment!

I was so excited to get checked in to Nevis, I had a whole plan for hiring bikes and exploring the island, ending with a barbeque on the beach right next to our boat. When we got to the immigration counter though… we were behind the agent dealing with all the documents for the Koru! D’oh! This is always a fail as they have to check in all the crew (30 people) as well as the guests (6 people)… and you wait, as they process every one of those people… sigh. So we waited, and waited and waited. Meanwhile, the entire time we were there another agent was frantically making calls to ensure the “VIP” had an amazing experience in town. It was all sounding a bit too much really! Eventually they finished that boat, and thankfully they let us go through before they started on the next superyacht! 

After finally getting the check in done, we went to drop the documents off at the boat and put up our flag, but dear Pepi had gone under the dock! Nooooooo! Poor Pepi! We had put a stern anchor out but the swells had gotten really big while we were in customs for so long. Unfortunately, Charlestown dinghy dock is not much good in big swells and there was no way we could leave Pepi there for a whole day while we went exploring. All good, I had read that you could pay a small fee to the Four Seasons resort and they would let you tie up there for the day if you called and requested. I phoned in, only to be told that the fee to tie up for the day would be $200USD!!! What on earth!? Then it twigged, ahh when a VIP is in town! haha. Sigh, the whole day was going to be like this!

We were fast realizing that the great day I had planned was not going to work out… so we threw that plan out the window and motored north to White House Bay in St Kitts. This is a gorgeous bay and we anchored in shallow, clear water. With only two other boats in the anchorage it felt delightfully secluded. We spent the afternoon snorkelling along the edge of the rocks surrounding the bay and had a very close encounter with a spotted eagle ray appearing right beneath us. 

Some of the fish we have been seeing are so interesting – in particular the Stoplight Parrotfish! They all start off life as a juveline with the red and white colouring; and can be either male or female. Then as they age they mature into males and then change colouring to the super bright and colourful ones! So weird but very pretty!

I had been a little bummed that we wouldn’t be getting the beach barbecue I had hoped for as part of my original plan. So we decided to eat at the little restaurant right on the water in the bay. All the reviews said the restaurant was closed, and there was no phone number or contact details anywhere! But, we could clearly see people ashore in uniforms and then as the evening started we saw folks appearing at tables – it must be open! We popped over on the dinghy and enjoyed a casual meal, and a nice drink with a pretty sunset view. We were later told by one of the wait staff if was their opening night after being closed for seven years! Talk about perfect timing!

We didn’t want to spend long in St Kitts & Nevis as we really didn’t want to get caught out on weather windows. We had only ever planned to stay two nights and it was time to move on. We had a 9 hour crossing ahead of us to Saint Martins and an early start planned!