A few weeks back, the Sweet Sunset home welcomed a few old friends back to the island. Bobby’s wife Whitney and youngest son Hunter made the move once again from the states to Nevis. In addition to Whitney and Hunter, the house had another visitor – not quite as welcomed.A few mornings back, Whitney kicked a “ball of dust” from the living room into the kitchen so she could sweep it up. After the kick, that “ball of dust” scampered away. Spider? Beetle? SCORPION! There was a couple-inch-long Caribbean scorpion crawling around the house.It soon met its fate (an Adidas flip-flop), and we kept it around long enough to snap a few pics
With more rain than sunshine on Nevis these days, it’s important to take advantage of a dry day when it comes your way.That’s exactly what we did a few weeks back, with a little beach volleyball, a beach BBQ, and an evening beach party at a bar called Island Life.Cold Carib on tap, fresh lobsters on the fire, and good company – this is the island life.
Beach volleyball - Island Life Bar and Mt. Nevis in the background
This past weekend, I took Bobby's 4-wheeler into the shop to get the tire fixed. After getting her all tuned up, I decided to traverse the island a bit, and test out the new tire. While cruising around, I ran across this little gem at the base of Mt. Nevis -- Cottle Church. According to one source, "The Cottle Church was opened to the public on May 5, 1824, and it was the first church on the island of Nevis which welcomed anyone to come and worship, including slaves." Now it is apparently preserved as part of the Nevis Heritage Trail, and can be enjoyed by visitors year round.
The weather in Nevis has been a little crazy the last few weeks. We've seen it range from tropical storm weather, to clear skies and 95 degree afternoons. Never the less, we have still been blessed with amazing views of the Nevis sky, and more often than not, a great sunset. Whenever I can afford to take a few minutes to myself, I try to take advantage of some of the incredible views around the island.
Since I began my stay in Nevis back in August, I hadn't yet experienced the true 'tropical storms' that everybody warned me about. This past Saturday, that all changed. I had been studying on campus all day and night, and finally decided to call it quits at 2:30am (which was heavily influenced by the fact that the rain had FINALLY subsided, after hours and hours of torrential down-pour, and crazy gusts of wind). My roommate and I hopped in the island jeep and began our trek. Little did we know, we would soon be headlights-deep in water that was rushing down from the mountain side. Nevis experienced flash-flooding, and we were caught in the worst of it. After barreling through waist-deep water, the island jeep called it quits at the top of the hill by Oualie Beach. We coasted down the hill, parked it there, and called our landlord (Bobby) to come pick us up because we couldn't get the island jeep started. I received a call 10 minutes later from Bobby telling us that there was no way he was going to cross the "gut" -- the "gut" is the part of the road up to our house where water runs across as it drains from the top of the mountain after a big rain. We know Bobby, and we know if he's not crossing the gut in his truck, it's flowing pretty hard.
We managed to get the engine of the jeep dried out enough to get it started, and eventually made it back on the path to our house. We were feeling adventurous, per usual, and thought maybe we could give the gut a try with the island jeep. We pulled up to the river of water flowing across the road, and wisely decided to park the jeep back at the top of the hill and cross it by foot. We wrapped our backpacks up in garbage bags to shield them from the drizzle, and headed for the gut. Thinking it was only going to be a few more inches than normal, I began to cross. Before I knew it, I was thigh deep in running water, wondering if I was going to reach the other side! Thankfully, we both manage to make it across the gut in one piece!
Water flowing from the "gut" - 16 hours AFTER the rain had stopped
Another view of the water from the "gut" the day after the storm
A few weekends back, I was given the opportunity to take a tour of the island of Nevis, guided by Lyndeta, who was born and raised in Nevis. The thing is, my roommate and I thought we were going to go pick some cherries for about an hour or two, NOT get a full island tour, tasting nearly every fruit the island has to offer. Our tour started up near the old Hamilton Estate before continuing on to several small villages in the mountain.We also stopped at a local shop to eat lunch (Goat-Water and garlic bread).After lunch we headed over to one of Lyndeta’s properties where we had locally grown peppers, passion fruit, ginnips, topped off with a quick climb up the tree-house. Before heading home, we headed back up the mountain to take a look at the 250-acres of cleared land that will be the home to the first Mango Factory on the island.
I didn’t think to take pictures of everything we encountered, but the pictures I did think to snap should give you an idea of our day…In addition to the fruit you see below, we also enjoyed sea grapes, ginnips, avocado, mangoes, bananas, and cashew cherries (and I very well may be leaving some out)...
Unripe passion fruit
Raw cocoa beans, inside the fruit
Nevisian Cherries
Papaya trees
Fresh peppers
Soursap fruit
Our cherry-picking help (Melroy) couldn't last the whole tour!
View of Mt. Nevis through some ruins at the site of the future Mango Factory
Hangin' out up-top
Clarke's Quick-Stop: Home of the best Goat-Water on the island!
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
