Anse de Colombier, St Barth, French West Indies

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Thu 13 Feb 2014 14:40

17:55.5N 62:52.24W

 

Sun, Mon, Tues & Wed - 9th, 10th, 11th & 12th Feb

 

Following a very rolly night we opted for an early start to Sunday and so Sarah went for her swim over to the rocks behind us which she remembered being such a wonderful area to snorkel when we were here some two years ago.  She was rewarded with another wonderful experience which made the uncomfortable night all worthwhile although it was too rough for her to circumnavigate the rocks.

 

We launched the dinghy and headed into Gustavia, which is the port here and cleared in through customs after the usual hiatus of me trying to come to grips with a French keyboard.  Sadly for Sarah all the very posh shops were shut, this being Sunday and so we headed back out to Serafina after picking up our emails and raised the anchor and headed round to Anse de Colombier which is a beautiful bay on the north west corner of the island.  The place was heaving with boats and none of the free buoys were available so we anchored just behind the mooring field and chatted on the VHF radio with Nychea who were already there along with Eye Candy. Tony from Nychea helpfully kept an eye on the buoys immediately around him and as soon as he spotted a motor boat leaving he called us up on the radio to give us the nod and dashed over to the buoy in his dinghy to make sure nobody else got there whilst we were lifting our anchor.

 

In the evening we invited both Nychea and Eye Candy to come for dinner to help us with all the fresh tuna we had on board!

 

On Monday morning we got to fully appreciate this wonderful bay after first admiring all the turtles that kept bobbing to the surface around us to grab some air before returning to their feeding down below.  The French have done a wonderful job here and by providing free mooring buoys they have effectively protected the grassy sea bed from being damaged by anchors.  The direct result of this is that there are dozens of turtles happily grazing and swimming around seemingly unconcerned by gawping humans.  The water is a beautiful deep clear blue and the snorkelling is wonderful although the fish life is not overly abundant here.  We have both spent quite a few happy hours swimming with the turtles trying to get ever better photos and we will post our efforts on the website as soon as we are able. http://www.rhbell.com

 

The plan was to spend a day or so here and then move on, but despite the total absence of any form of wifi here, we found it all too nice to rush away from and the latest plan is to head up to Sint Maarten on Friday morning.  With luck, Ruffian will still be there finishing off the jobs they had lined up for themselves!

 

On Monday, Nychea and Eye Candy headed off to clear out through customs and sail south to Antigua and they were immediately replaced by Shian who sailed down from Sint Maarten for a quiet week in their favourite bay.

 

We have managed to do a few important maintenance jobs whilst we have been here including cleaning out the bilges which took quite a bit of time so we now have a tank of dirty water to empty when we next get far enough offshore, but a fair amount of the time has been spent swimming or just sitting and reading in the sunshine.