More St Maarten. 18 01.935N 63 05.763W

Persephone... Cruiser/Racer
Nigel & Karen Goodhew...
Thu 30 Mar 2017 14:54
We stopped briefly in Marigot, on the French side of St Maarten. Thee's quite a different vibe in Marigot. Its all a little bit quieter, less ostentatious and there are fewer superyachts or motor yachts. The bay is huge and there's plenty of space for hundreds of yachts to anchor, mostly in 4 metres or so of water. The bottom is sandy, so when the sky is clear and blue, the sea becomes an iridescent pale blue....fantastic!

Although the formalities of entering St Maarten are significantly cheaper in Marigot than they are on the Dutch side, the office was closed for us, so we remained under the "Q" flag for a little over 24 hours, before upping the anchor again and transiting around to Simpson Bay again.

The wind has fallen light and most unusually, clocked round to the western side of the compass. It has also been very hot here, humid as well, and without the breeze, quite difficult to live on Persephone. We have been across to the yacht club to dine, and spent a little more time with Steve and Brenda. Yesterday we took the bus to Philipsburgh for a change of scene and some shopping as well as an afternoon on the long beach there.

Today, we are restocking the larder and tomorrow, we plan a short sail across to Statia, and then maybe to St Kitts. We hope to catch up with Win2Win somewhere out there and do some sailing together.

We have now procured the charts for the Bahamas, especially the Exhumas, which we hope to slot into our itinerary before setting back out across the Atlantic later in the spring.


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