St Martin
CuriousOyster
Steve & Trish Brown
Sun 15 Feb 2009 19:56
The anchorage on the French side of St Martin was busy very rolly but also
the large swells gave us an uncomfortable night of broken sleep as the boat
tried to saw through anchor snubber. The following morning we moved up to
the head of the bay close to the commercial port and had a much better
nights sleep.
St Martin/Sint Martenn is a small island split into two unequal halves. The
French "own" the northern part where the euro and French prevail and the
Dutch the other where the dollar and English predominate. Boats must check
into one or the other and cannot and must check out before moving across the
island but people and dinghies can move about freely without any checks.
Illogical!
Trish and I finally admitted our mistake regarding our dinghy. Not wanting
to fit davits we opted for a decent sized inflatable with a blow up deck
that we could stow in the lazarette. It was just about OK with only the two
of us in but more than two and any weight and it made for a very slow, wet
ride. With friends aboard for the month of February we gave up and bought a
Rib with a larger engine and have put our not so old dinghy and engine up
for sale. For now we can get by lifting the deflated Rib on board but will
also fit davits to make life much easier as soon as we can get some shipped
over to meet us.