18:02.7N 63:05.6W

April arrived. Time to leave Antigua. Barrie had just returned from the UK and we had to start getting the boat ready for the return trip across the Atlantic. The best place to do that is St Maarten so that’s where we headed for.

The last night in Antigua had a spectacular sunset.

But the following morning there was lots of rain and poor visibility as we set off. I blame Barrie for bringing the British weather with him.

But the rain brought lots of wind and we had a fast 90 mile passage averaging over 6 knots. I had just spent a week scraping the bottom of Peejay to remove weed and barnacles and she was noticeably faster through the water. Life felt good and it felt even better when a bonito managed to get itself hooked on the fishing line. Not quite up to Benji’s standard but it tasted better than anything he caught.

We arrived late at night and anchored in Simpson Bay. The swell was horrible and nobody slept much. It was good to see morning appear and change the flags again.

We waited for the swing bridge to open and then entered into Simpson Bay Lagoon. What a difference. It’s a large enclosed area of water which means no swell. The island is half Dutch and half French. We anchored near the border on the Dutch side just under a lump of rock called The Witches Tit and started working on the boat.

We stayed in the lagoon for 11 days mainly so we could get a spray dodger fitted for the return trip.

We took time to bring the boat up to scratch. Changing filters, fitting a new anchor light,  re-wiring the wind instrument, doing the bulk of the food provisioning for the crossing -the list seemed endless.

The weather was mixed during our stay and at night the wind was cold I even had to wear

a fleece and ear muffs one night and this is April in the Caribbean! I blame Barrie.

We took time out from all the jobs to look around some of the island and used our dinghy to get across to Marigot on the French side. We climbed up to Fort Louis which of course had great views across the island.

But after all that exercise we needed a long lazy lunch so we headed for a restaurant called Layla’s on Marigot Bay beach.

Lunch was delicious

We went for a swim after lunch and came across this boat. I think Barrie saw it as a little renovation project. I had to remind him he still at a bathroom to finish when he got home!

Next day was back to jobs. You meet some interesting people in St Maarten By now we were tied to a dock and the guy working on the next boat always had a parrot on his shoulder wherever he went. He’d found it as a chick in Venezuela and it had been with him ever since.

Then there was the guy called Mike who ran the daily radio net for all the cruising yachtsmen in St Maarrten. You could ask for advice, listen to what was happening, announce items you wanted to sell etc. He also made a living cleaning the bottom of boats. The lagoon is like warm soup – very dirty and you can literally watch stuff growing on boats. I asked him to come and clean Peejay just before we left the lagoon.

But the best bloke was the one who operated the swing bridge into the lagoon. The bridge opened at set times every day and you had to listen on channel 12 for instructions. If you didn’t move immediately when he said go he started ranting and raving at all the boats and yelling that he wasn’t going to open the bridge for them anymore. He shouted at boats every day – he did it on the way in and he did it on the way out. For some people it was their first impression of St Maarten – what an advertisement!

And that was St Maarten. The boat was ready for the return crossing so we grabbed some sleep and then headed off to the British Virgin Islands – our starting point for the return trip.