St Martin
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Thu 8 May 2008 19:58
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According to the pilot books, the Anagada passage
can be a bit testy at times and has claimed many a well found boat. And as we
were heading east to St Martin, right into the teeth of it, we figured we best
look for a weather window.
Well we found one, a perfect one, the very
first glance at the forecast. The gods were clearly on our side....the wind
was due to veer to the south. This meant that instead of a sloppy beat to
windward in lumpy seas, we'd have a reach all the way to St Martin.
Malarkey eats up reaching for breakfast and spits out quite impressive
speeds, so instead of having to accept a crap crossing, we were looking forward
to this one. And it turned out just like it was forecasted and we had a
faster sail going back to St Martin than we did on the downwind leg going the
other way. Splendid. Could this be the sign of our forthcoming luck in St
Martin.
Well I am pleased to say yes it was, even
we have to get some good luck every now and then.
We met up with Ylva & Jhonas, our Swedish
cruising pals (S/Y Lena), which was a real nice surprise. Well maybe not so
much of a surprise as they often seem to turn up unexpectedly in the same place
as us. They were getting prepared for their TransAtlantic return trip back to
Sweden. They were pretty much ready but the St Martin carnival was due to start
soon and Jhonas & Ylva are never ones to shy away from a party. So they
stayed and partied with us for the duration.
   Jhonas gets into the
spirit
Ylva gets arrested for D &
D
Jo does the dutiful thing & collects free beer
   Pink carnie
queen
Blue carnie
queen
And spot the white girl
We love carnival. True it wasn't anywhere as big
and as impressive as Trindad's but hey, it was still carnival and we had great
fun.
And the entertainment didn't finish there. We had
the St Martin Fish Festival to look forward to!. Which, unlike its naff
title, was all rather splendid. It all seemed like a good excuse to party,
eat lots of fishy food and drink loads of fishy booze. Well we obliged in all
departments.
   Fishy calypso
band
A different kind of 'cock
pit'
And even more free heineken
We also even managed to get what we actually went
to St Martin for. We got our anchor chain, plus a ton of other boaty bits and
at pretty good tax free prices too. All in all, this time around, we have a
completely different view of St Martin.......it grows on you.
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