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Date: 18 Dec 2011 21:38:00
Title: St Maarten/St Martin
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Well, again our meticulous planning has been thwarted by the weather!  As I said, we had planned to make Saba our next port of call, but the weather forecast decided differently.  Saba is basically a round island, with only one anchoring area in the north west.  With a northerly swell coming and a reasonably high winds it was going to be horribly rolly, also it can be difficult to get ashore in bad weather, so we could have been stuck on a rolling boat unable to get off!  Looking at the other islands it seemed that St Martin was our only option for an anchorage well protected from northerly swells.  Having decided that, we got ready to leave Statia, and John went ashore to check us out, only to find that it was a national holiday and immigration was shut until the next day!  Eventually, John managed to find someone at the port who phoned the immigration person at the airport who agreed to come once the next plane had landed, but didn't say how long it would take.  You can't leave without checking out, as if you arrive at your next place without the correct paperwork, they send you back until you get it.  Meantime, I was getting the boat sorted until I managed to put my back out stowing gear in the lockers - I was completely unable to move for about 15 minutes, until an urgent need to visit the loo spurred me into painful action.  For the rest of the day I was barely able to move.  Staying where we were was not an option as that too was open to the incoming bad weather, so we had no choice but to sail.  We spent the whole day motoring into wind, tide and waves, with the boat crashing down over the water with waves big enough to fill our dinghy with salt water!  It is ironic that to get out of the way of the bad weather, we had to spent a whole day heading into it.  It was  a dreadful sail for me, I was in agony the whole day and John was left to do everything - he says no change there, but don't believe him!!
On arrival in St Martin, the weather calmed down immeasurably as we got into the shelter of the bay and we are now safely anchored.  We are currently in Simpson Bay on the Dutch side of the island.  St Martin is split into 2 parts, one side French owned, and the other Dutch, hence the 2 spellings. There is a large lagoon just under the bridge where there are large anchorage areas and mega yacht marinas.  However, we have decided to stay out in the bay for now as the lagoon anchorage area is quite crowded.  The lagoon is half on the French side and half Dutch, so you need to be careful where you anchor as if you cross that imaginary line, you have to go back to the side you cleared the yacht in, clear it out again, and check in again on the other side!!  We are able to go back and forward in the dinghy or outside the lagoon by road or bus, so we had lunch in France on Sunday commuting by dinghy,  but the yacht had to stay on the Dutch side - complicated!  There are also other differences between the 2 halves of the island - on the Dutch side electricity is at 110 volts but 220 volts on the French side.  The currency on the Dutch side is US$, but on the French side it is either US$ or Euros, however you need to be careful which currency you pay in as one shop was offering $1 = €1 exchange rate!!
You can really see how the other half live here, the mega yachts are really something else!!  When we arrived, there were a few boats waiting in the Bay for the bridge to lift, and those that can get through tie up on some of the most expensive marina berths in the Caribbean.  Those, such as Abramovitch's new yacht Luna, that can't fit through the 17m wide bridge have to stay out.  The St Martin Yacht Club is right next to the bridge and a great place for a sundowner while watching the yachts come through - note to self, never come in at 17.30 bridge, far too many people watching and waiting for someone to make a mistake, some have fender room only at the side.  Yesterday morning we watched people arriving by helicopter to their yacht and another group came out in a large tender, followed by 2 luggage tenders - crazy world.
As far as we have seen, this is so different from any other island we have been to - it's busy, they have traffic jams and the whole place is a bit overload after 3 weeks in places such as Nevis and Statia, where time basically stands still - here it is all rush, rush, rush.  We spent most of the weekend working on the boat, something we are doing more of now and had Sunday as a day off for exploring the area.

 An arriving mega yacht

 Just squeezing through the bridge - this one got a large cheer from the yacht club crowd when he got through

One of the more interesting houseboats we saw on our trip around the lagoon

 Not the best attempt at anchoring!!!
 
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