St Barts and a breakdown.

Karma Daze
Chris and Penny Manley
Fri 25 Apr 2014 20:58

“18:02N 063:05W

 

Monday 21st April – Wednesday 23rd April

 

We left the anchorage in Whtehouse bay, St Kitts at 06.20 to sail the 45 miles or so to St Barts.  We had a glorious sail virtually all the way with just some odd bits of motoring in the lee of St Kitts.

We arrived in Gustavia ahead of two other boats which we had been trying to catch and overtake all the way across from St Kitts, much to the captain’s delight!  Lots of boats moored in Gustavia but we managed to find a slot.  We went in to check in and then returned to the boat, had dinner on board and an early night.  The anchorage is not the best – lots of swell coming in making for a very uncomfortable night.

Next morning we set off the few miles around the top of the island to a mooring within the marina reserve, and picked up a buoy.  Much better anchorage and lots of turtles. We thought we might spend a couple of days here but unfortunately the outboard for our dinghy decided not to work, so the next morning we set off back to Gustavia to check out.  We managed to squeeze ourselves into a gap as close to the harbour as we could as Chris was going to have to row the dinghy into the port office.  This he did splendidly and we were then ready to sail north to St Maarten to get the outboard looked at.

The sail to St Maarten was very slow and we eventually gave up and motored.  St Maarten/Saint Marten is half Dutch and half French. We had decided to go into the Simpson Bay lagoon (Dutch) which is a big inland sea and where all the marinas are.  The entrance is via a lifting bridge.  We thought the next opening was at 17.30 so decided to contact one of the marinas to book us in.  The time was just before 15.00, and we noticed about 3 boats hanging about, and then at 15.00 the bridge opened so we dashed across and just managed to get through before the lights went to red for no entry.

We are now in the marina, the outboard has been fixed and tomorrow we will be off to Anguilla.