Saint Kitts: Basseterre and the Frigate Bay Area

Coinciding around the date of our 13th wedding anniversary Chris & I have just returned from 10 days of fun, relaxation and a little more Caribbean exploring.

St Kitts and Nevis is actually a tiny country in its own right having gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1967.

Lush and volcanic St Kitts was briefly visited by Christopher Columbus in 1492 when it was then the home of native tribes. The islands however were not colonised by Europeans until the British arrived in 1623.

In the following centuries St Kitts & Nevis changed hands several times between the British and the French and with the capital of St Kitts being ‘Basseterre’ and towns called ‘Dieppe’ and ‘New Castle’ both countries have influenced the place names. The name ‘St Kitts’ comes from Christopher, after Christopher Columbus.

With many bars and restaurants St Kitts is livelier than its quiet and more peaceful neighbour Nevis. To experience the highlights of both islands we split our time with 5 days staying on each.

We hired a car for 3 days to explore St Kitts and there are two up and coming St Kitts road trip posts to be followed by highlights from Nevis.

Frigate Beach

We stayed in the touristy Frigate Bay area which is located just to the south of Basseterre. Frigate Beach is lined with beach bars and restaurants with Mr X Shiggidy Shack being one of the most popular.

Rum punch is the drink of the Caribbean and even at 11.00 am Shiggidy was a lively place to be with its blaring calypso music and chilled laid back vibe.

St Kitts is dominated by Mount Liamuiga and as a result of being a volcanic island some of the sand and rocks are black. Frigate beach has black sand particles and if you look closely as the waves gently lap the beach the sand glistens with a million little sparkles in the sand.

Frigate Bay has its own golf course which is one of 4 located across St Kitts & Nevis.

Shipwreck Beach

Further south from Frigate Bay, St Kitts stretches its long thin peninsula towards Nevis and this area has small coves and beaches and with a small coral reef are ideal for snorkelling.

The day before we had the car we took a taxi for $36US return from our hotel in Frigate Bay to the Shipwreck beach bar with the idea of snorkelling over the coral reef.

Snorkelling didn’t happen as we had forgotten to take the one key and essential piece of kit required for this activity 😂🐟

Thankfully we had kit for the other planned activity which was sunset watching and photography from the bar… complete with our ‘Pirate Punches’ the Shipwreck Inn’s version of rum punch made with a ‘special spiced rum’…

We were not disappointed as we watched the golden ball of fire sink into the clouds on the horizon turning the sky to vivid shades of pink and amber.

We were fortunate to be there on a Sunday evening which is live music night.

One small tip if you are on Shipwreck Beach at dusk: use insect repellent! I don’t usually suffer from insect bites and as such I don’t worry too much but on this occasion I came back with about 15 bites 😳🦟 I think they were from mosquitos or possibly sandflies.

From then onwards I used Incognito and Smidge insect repellents and thankfully didn’t get anymore. At least not in St Kitts…

Basseterre

As mentioned Basseterre is the capital of St Kitts and as by then we had a car we had driven there in search of a catamaran boat trip. We parked in a large grassy field-like car park close to the Port Zante where a huge P & O cruise ship was docked. The car park charge was EC$5 for the day and as we had no ECD we handed over a couple of USD to the car park attendant at the entrance.

We walked through the lively Port Zante which was buzzing with cruise passengers, taxi drivers offering island tours, open air bars and many gift shops.

Loud music and a party atmosphere at 11 am 🥳

Having spoken with a rep from Blue Water Safari we sat in one of the lively open air bars and used their website to book ourselves onto a sunset catamaran cruise for later that afternoon.

Carib is the local beer of St Kitts & Nevis and we enjoyed a couple of refreshingly cold bottles which were most welcome in the 30 degree heat of Basseterre.

After the beers we still had 5 hours before the cruise so we drove to the north of the island for lunch at Belle Mont Organic Farm which is covered in the up and coming ‘Circular Road Trip‘ post.

We arrived back in Basseterre, parked in the same car park and were at the marina ready for our 4.30 pm sunset cruise. There was only about 14 passengers and once we had all removed our shoes and dropped them into a crate we were soon on board with several tables and lots of space to move around.

There was an open bar where we could have as many beers, rum punches, rum or soft drinks as we wanted. There was also platters of cheese, fried fish and fried chicken.

We were soon on our way sailing south adjacent to the southeast peninsula of St Kitts.

Unfortunately our sunset cruise was a cloudy affair but luckily the sun did appear for a short time through a gap in the clouds.

Darkness falls rapidly at 6 pm in St Kitts and by 6.30 pm as we arrived back to the marina in Basseterre it was pitch black with the lights twinkling over the sea.

Palm Court Gardens

At the end of the holiday our return flight to London Gatwick was departing at 6 pm from St Kitts meaning we had to return from our 5 nights in Nevis on the same day. Due to the unpredictable ferry times from Nevis we decided to take a morning ferry and have a short stop back in St Kitts at lunchtime.

We had booked lunch in the Palm Court Gardens which was close to the ferry port in Basseterre.

This place had good reviews and with its lovely setting, views and infinity pool is often used as a base for cruise passengers for the day. Different day packages are available to pre-book on the Palm Court Gardens website.

It was very quiet on the day we were there for lunch with just 3 other tables of fellow diners. However the food was tasty and the service friendly. We shared salt fish fritters for a starter, a delicious St Kitts speciality we hadn’t yet tried. We both had fish tacos each for main and one final pina colada.

Frigate Bay restaurants

Within Frigate Bay we were fortunate to be within walking distance of some fabulous eateries including a Lebonese, an Indian and a seafood restaurant.

We went to the Ah’len Lebonese restaurant on our first night and shared the most delicious dishes of falafels, some warm deep fried cheese things and a tasty yoghurty dish with warm aubergines, pine nuts, pecans and other things. This place was so good we went there twice and at around £35 for two was excellent value.

Fresh seafood is always a treat when you are near the sea and the seafood pasta I had in Rock Lobster was melt in your mouth standard and with prawns and fish and topped with melted parmesan. With its amazing flavours this was one of the most gorgeous pastas I’ve tasted in my life. And the most expensive at $35 US just for the pasta!

We enjoyed another amazing meal in Indian Summer. For a Caribbean twist I chose shrimps in medium spiced coconut sauce which was cooked to perfection with a bit of a kick but without being too spicy to be able to enjoy and properly taste.

Accommodation

We spent these first 5 nights of our two island holiday staying in the St Kitts Marriott, a large resort with 3 pools, several bars, evening entertainment and a couple of restaurants.

When booking we could have chosen all inclusive, half board, bed and breakfast or room only.

We had selected a room only basis which was perfect as without being tied to the hotel for standard buffet style meals we were able to sample the amazing restaurants just down the road.

We had the buffet breakfast on the last morning in the Marriott which was excellent.

The beach in front of the Marriott is on the Atlantic side of the island and I had read on Trip Advisor that it is often covered in seaweed. The above picture was taken at 7.30 am one morning with no hint of any seaweed.

The pool areas were immaculate and looked lovely especially first thing in the morning when there were few people around.

We didn’t spend any time sitting by any of the pools although we did have the odd lounge around in one of the hot tubs near our room at the end of the day when the pool was quiet and empty.

The above pool was generally noisy with a pool bar, loud music, kids, and lots of activities throughout the day. (This picture was taken was early in the morning).

At 8 pm one evening wallowing in the empty hot tub was warm and relaxing after the day of driving and the sunset catamaran cruise.

One of the best things in the Marriott was happy hour in the Sky Bar which was actually inside the casino. Well actually a happy 2 hours which meant 50% off all drinks between 6 – 8 pm so perfect timing for pre dinner cocktails. These were excellent and good quality made with ‘proper’ spirits from well known brands.

Currency

The official currency is East Caribbean Dollar (ECD). I wasn’t able to get any ECD to take with us so I took USD in cash. This was just as well as you pay USD cash for many services such as taxi’s and entrance fees.

Some restaurants and supermarkets charge you in ECD however we were always able to pay by card for these expenses. So we didn’t see any ECD in cash while in St Kitts and we withdrew more USD from an ATM situated in the Marriott casino.

Getting to St Kitts

With dark, grey and rainy weather we were tempted back to the sunny climes of the Caribbean and had booked this trip as a British Airways holiday back in January 2023.

Having departed from London Gatwick this flight had a stop in Antigua where about 70% of the passengers disembarked. The rest of us stayed on the plane as the crew bustled around sorting things until after about 1.5 hours we took off for the 19 minute flight to St Kitts.

Now with a relatively empty plane both Chris and I moved to a window seat each and enjoyed lovely views of Antigua, Nevis and St Kitts as the plane flew at low altitude between the islands. In the above photo you can see two ferries going between St Kitts and Nevis.

Summary

My ideal trip is one of full on fast paced activity which involves seeing different sights and doing different things each day. Chris prefers a more relaxed agenda so when we take holidays together we need to have the right mix.

Neither of us enjoy sitting around a pool. We can handle a beach for a short time as long as there is something to keep us occupied such as snorkelling, walking along it or sitting in a bar watching the sunset.

Thankfully we both enjoy hiring a car and exploring places of interest in our own time and we have two up-and-coming posts with more information about the things we did during that time.

As a small island 5 days was the right amount of time for Chris and I to spend in St Kitts.

We were fortunate to have had excellent weather while in St Kitts especially for early November. The only time it rained was during the night on the last night we were there.

A wonderful first half of our lovely holiday ☀️