Nevis and a BIG mahi

At last - a post that's not about Barbuda. Kind of sad, but made better by the fact that on our way from Barbuda to Nevis we caught a huge mahi. Gotta start with the fish photo...

Big fish

It's rare that our boat speed read out exceeds our depth read out - we usually don't move this fast! We were flying downwind wing on wing and really couldn't slow the boat enough to make a difference as we tried to reel this guy in. We dragged him along, reeling him in as quickly as we could and were happy to get him on the boat before any sharks spotted him. 

Flying!

Skip armed our new harnesses before we headed offshore

Wing on wing approaching cloud covered Nevis

Nevis anchorage sunset

The next morning a couple from another boat dinghied over to see if we would like some of the mahi they'd caught on their way the day before. We thanked them and declined, and of course, swapped fish stories. Seems the mahi were out and about, because a few days later when we arrived in Statia, still another boat came by to see if we wanted some of the mahi they'd caught on their passage! Everybody's freezer is full of fish lately.

When we visited Nevis last August, it was sleepy and still, but this time we found it bustling. We definitely wanted to go back to the hot pool but we wanted to hike a little, see more of the town and check out the Nevis Botanical Gardens.

Local art in the Charlestown Gallery

We started walking in the general direction of the trailhead that leads to the ruins of the old Mountravers Estate one morning and a tricked out offroad mini jeep/safari driven by a young woman screeched to a halt beside us. As luck would have it, she was a hiking guide on her day off and she was more than happy to drive us to the trail head and give us some tips on places to hike. Nice!

Hiking to Mountravers

Field of old satellite dishes we passed after we left the trail

The woods were full of green vervet monkeys, but as we all know by now, my wildlife photography skills are limited and on top of that, the monkeys are really shy. At least the ones we saw were. Monkeys outnumber people on the island and can be pretty annoying to the locals. My one monkey photo came from the botanical gardens where the fruit trees were too hard for them to resist.

Cute!

I haven't done much with flora/fauna photos, lately but I'm so pleased to have gotten even just one monkey photo so I'll fill in the rest with flora photos from the Nevis Botanical Gardens.

 

 

In the middle of the gardens is the aptly named Oasis Restaurant, and we treated ourselves to lunch making a long lazy day of it.

My hibiscus mojito.... very tasty.

Spring rolls - also really tasty

Beautifully plated and really yummy pad thai

Nevis had a small Jewish population that came from Brazil in the late 1600's to work in the island's sugar industry and the old Jewish cemetery here is well maintained.  We walked through and read what we could of the faded inscriptions. 

Dates noted by the Jewish calendar too

Leaving behind a stone

No trip to Nevis is complete (for us) without a trip (or two) to the hot pool. On our first trip we met a woman who told us the water temp was 109.6 degrees. Pretty specific. So on our second trip we brought along our handy little thermometer. Sure enough...

Clockwise from top L: Skip at the pool, the outdoor pools, boys in hot water, it really is 109.6 F

Adding water to our tanks in Nevis

Saralane sits below Nevis peak

We walked, ate, soaked and wandered on Nevis enough for now and we move on with green vervet monkeys on our mind and mahi in our freezer.