St Martin - Anguilla 18:12.0 63:05.7W

Serenity of Swanwick
Phil and Sarah Tadd
Thu 31 Mar 2016 20:04
Having cleared customs and immigration in Simpson Bay we were about to leave when a catamaran anchoring nearby suddenly motored fast forward with its anchor down giving the crew on board a bit of a shock. Apparently the washing which was being hung out around the cockpit engaged the throttle lever and took control of the boat! They then called us on the radio to apologise for their antics and it turned out that the family on board were from Torquay! Hadn't actually bothered us at all.

We had a good reach along the coast to the NW tip of the island then hard on the wind to Marigot. Marigot on St Martin was a useful stop although we found the some of the marina staff a bit unhelpful. We had used their booking system on line to reserve a space but received no reply, so having called on VHF and also received no reply we went in and were about to tie up to a vacant berth only to be told we couldn't stop there. Having also been told that the marina was full we were a bit insistent regarding the booking and eventually they found us a space.

The town is better than Philipsburg, it's a normal town not a cruise ship terminal with normal shops etc. Having been trying to book tickets to fly back to UK in June and having my credit card stopped by a security check we had to find a way of phoning UK. This was solved with time on the mobile at reasonable rates. Every island seems to have its own call rates and you need a number of SIM cards. Luckily the French islands all accept the same sim.

Yesterday we moved onto Anguilla, again with a good fast run to across the Anguilla Channel and then a hard beat along the North coast to Road Bay with winds up to 30 Knots. We seem to have had strong winds now for ages with just a few slacker days and we are waiting out these winds here before making the crossing to Virgin Gorda.
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