Well we
finally made it to Sint Maarten after a fantastic overnight sail from Guadeloupe where
we spent New Year. The wind was on the beam for the whole way and shifted with us as we
turned around the top of Nevis. If not for the fluky winds (it varied from 4 knots to 30
knots over the night) and the bumpy seas as we left Deshaies it would have been a
perfect sail!
Now I will be upfront here and say, that since I didn’t write a
blog about Sint Marteen or St Martin last year, when we had spent 2 months there, this
blog will combine some reminiscing from our previous visit.
Also you must know
something about Sint Marteen and my wife to understand why we stay so long. St Marteen
is duty free on the Dutch side and the winter home for a lot of cruisers getting work
done on the boat. It is also easy to shop in the States (say on eBay) and import them at
very low cost. Karen is a shop-aholic. She doesn’t have to buy big or expensive or
anything sometimes, just to be shopping is the need. Barely a day goes buy where she
can’t find a reason to try and buy something. So we have lots of friends here and good
happy hours and you can shop alot...You can see where this is going can’t you.
So let me give you a brief look at our stay last year (on the way south from
Barbuda). We got here with the plan to spend a couple of weeks here before heading west
to BVIs, Cuba and Louisiana and onto the Western Caribbean. We decided to stay in
Simpson Bay outside the bridge for 2 reasons – one it is pretty, clean and you can swim
and make water, two we have an aversion to anything solid (like a bridge) near our
boat.
Well within the first week we found out it was easy to import stuff using
Safe Cargo Services at the airport so we headed out and set up an account. We then spent
our mornings in McDonalds using the internet and eating hash browns ordering anything we
could think of off ebay and Amazon and various other vendors and had them shipped in.
This included:
* An extra solar panel
* A new solar hot water collector
* A
new recirculating pump
* A cruising guide to Gulf of Mexico and one for Belize and
Mexico
* A set of radio headsets so we don’t have to yell at each other (which to
date we don’t use as we must like yelling at each other too much)
* Ink for the new
wireless printer (which we bought locally)
* A new internet booster antenna (the
bullet) and associated bits and pieces
* A new central vacuum for the cleaner
in the family
* Some new downlights
* A chain stopper
* A new fan
And
they’re only the things I can remember 9 months later. We also bought Karen a new
computer and the printer, went shopping in back street and bought shampoo, hair
treatment, conditioner, placenta (don’t ask me what that is about – but it is necessary)
and vitamins to name a few. So all this shopping and waiting for deliveries extended our
2 week stay to two months and we decided to skip heading west and head back down to
Grenada for another season.
Don’t get me wrong, we did do other things than shop
– but I just needed a bit more time to remember them as they weren’t quite as
significant as the shopping or so it seems.
We did to Sunday lunch with Ricky and
Colin at the Sunset bar watching the planes land over the beach. When I saw the internet
pictures of this beach / airport combination, I thought they were photo-shopped – but no
it is true. The planes land just over the beach.
People hang on the fence or stand on the beach to take photos in the jet
wash. I even saw people park their cars on the road between the beach and the runway and
get them sand blasted in the jet wash (rentals obviously). What idiots!
So I had to try it.... I stood just over the road from a smallish jet and
had my camera at the ready. As the plane took off, unfortunately my hat and then my
sunglasses got blown off but I toughed it out and snapped away and this was the
result...
Yes that is my stomach and foot. I did get another
clearly focussed photo of just the sand but I thought this one was more interesting...
Anyway lunch was good and if the girls drink topless at the bars they drink for free.
But alas there were no game birds there this day.
We also hired a car and tripped
round the island, visiting Cost U Less, Back Street, Ace (there’s that shopping again)
and Orient Beach where all the beautiful people go. I found one beautiful person there
(apart from Karen) and unfortunately she was the only one with her clothes on.
We also were lucky enough to be there for Carnival on the French side, and
although it was much smaller than the Grenada Carnival, the fun was still
there.
Karen was also big on Sunday
Dominos with the ladies (where she managed to organise the sale of Libertas to one of
the yacht club members back home) and I went wandering through the streets and up to
Fort Louis.
The Heineken regatta was underway when we arrived so we managed to
watch bits and pieces of that as well.
With all this under the belt on our first
visit, I thought that we should be right for a quick visit, but shopping got in the way
again. Apart from stocking up on rum, wine, cigarettes, which is a must in St Martin, we
managed to need new anchor chain which we got shipped in from Sherri at Wholesale Yacht
Parts in Grenada (cheapest chandlery in the Caribbean and servicing all islands
sherri@wholesaleyachtparts.com ) and
charts for our trip to New York. So the quick visit ended up lasting a month. And with
the sightseeing out of the way there was only one thing to do (apart from shop) – party!
Friday night bridge openings at the yacht club, dinner out every now and then, happy
hours at Barnacles and Lagoonies, lunch at Buccaneers and of course Dominos every Sunday
(or any day Karen could fanangle it) on Princess of Tides with Christine, Guy, Bill and
his girlfriend Princess.
There was of course Australia Day as well. Overseas,
this appears to be a day were everyone excuses Australians from drinking lots of beer
and being boisterous – actually that sounds like every other day since I hit the
Caribbean. But no – this was even bigger! The mega yacht marina held a night at the bar
(probably because so many of the crew are young Australians just like me) which included
pie eating and beer eating contests! I missed the pie eating contest, but my English
mates Steve and Sim entered but I think they missed the point (or did they). Disregarding
the objective of eating two pies and downing a pot of beer as quick as possible – these
two sat back and had a leisurely free dinner.
Meanwhile, I got serious and recruited a fierce team for the beer drinking
competition, Steve, Rosie, Jon, Sam and Captain Matt
Well despite all the team talks, warm up beers, and many more years of
experience than our opposition we lost. Sam(antha) and Rosie put up a good show but of
course us boys let them down....
For some unknown reason (mainly because I instigated
it) I got recruited into another team to challenge the winners, but somehow I got stuck
with this attractive, blonde, well endowed team mate, who said she had never drunk beer,
doesn’t like beer, can’t imagine why she would want to drink beer but was oh so keen to
be in a beer drinking competition. (She’s the one next to me on the right if my
description is bit off)
Well we lost again, although she seemed to have a
lovely time and hugged me forever after we lost – in fact I had to tell her my wife had
a knife before she would let me go – I haven’t lost my charm – drunk girls still like
me!
After 2 dismal showings in the beer drinking competition (4 free beers), we
decided to call it a night (but not before Karen lifted the “Wombat Next 5km” decoration
to be used on our boat next year.
St Martin is a very easy place to stay,
particularly for a shopaholic cruiser and just as difficult place to leave. But we have
many miles to go to get to the Bahamas and eventually to New York this summer so all
good things must come to an end so it is off to the Virgin Islands again. Here is
something to ponder until the next time I write...
If this is my second time in
the Virgins, can they still be Virgins?
