St Martin

Alia Vita
Rob & Frances Lythgoe
Fri 18 Dec 2015 01:50
18:02.45N  63:05.58W

We returned to the BVI to wait for a weather window to sail the short hop (90 miles) to St Martin. Needless to say the wind direction didn't change as promised so the 90 mile hop became a much, much longer trip as we tacked into the wind overnight to get to St Martin.

Our principal reason for coming here was to take delivery of some new solar panels that had been carelessly broken by me, and tenaciously tracked down and sourced by Emma. We now have the panels on the boat, which only took 16 months, but our radar is also playing up and here seemed like a good place to find some expertise. Ha! Good one!  We will leave here after Christmas sometime, together with our broken radar and sort it down the line somewhere. Columbus didn't have a radar I keep reminding myself. 

We need to leave because we pick up internet in the bar at happy hour when beers are a dollar a piece (65 pence) and rum punches are two and that can only carry on for so long!

St Martin is the principal base for the super yacht fleet in the Caribbean, and by super yacht I mean SUPER yacht. We are anchored in the lagoon looking collectively  at several BILLION $s worth of floating exuberance. Presumably their owners will come and claim them at Christmas, but they are leaving it late to get best value out of their multi-millon dollar investments.