Carnival and Tintamarre
Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Wed 26 Feb 2014 22:12
We have spent a bit of time in St Martin servicing engines and electronics on Stream and generally making sure everything is ship shape. Darrell has changed the domestic batteries; an interesting job at the best of times as it involves manoeuvring heavy batteries into very small space, but in the heat it was even more fun! It also gives him an excuse to log more information in his little books every few hours as he checks how much electricity each item on the boat draws. (How sad I am!)
By Sunday afternoon we needed a break and were drawn by the loud music from Marigot. So off we went to explore and found that the streets were packed by onlookers, as the children's carnival parade went through the town very slowly. Dancing all the way to loud music. There were eight different floats from the different French quarters of St Martin and elementary schools. Each had a theme; sunshine, agriculture, sugar, sweets and bees among others. Think the carnival at Rio with mainly small children and no naked flesh. They were mainly preschool up to the end of middle school age children. The costumes were bright, elaborate and colourful set off by the fantastic masks and face paint designs. (Sarah should have bought out her stash of masks as she could have made a killing!) Each group of children were contained by ropes held by their adult helpers and had a dance leader geeing them up. The dancing was very good with most groups keeping in time and the enthusiasm going all afternoon, only a few fell asleep on the back of the floats! Each group had a float and a van for its own music which blared out from the many speakers. A drum band was at the end of the parade, beating out the carnival rhythm on a variety of drums (many home made from plastic barrels) and conches.
They definitely brought Marigot to a halt. All the locals and tourist were out watching. Many locals had set up lots of stalls to sell things they had made including alcoholic drinks, barbecue chicken, candy floss, pop corn, toys and flashing lights. Several pop up restaurants had appeared and were doing great business. Four DJ's were battling it out along the street by the sports stadium so you can imagine how loud it was! The streets were closed as the parade rolled passed, but would open quickly to let cars through and then close as the parade returned on its route back. The police were much in evidence ensuring the safety of the crowds and that the parade could move unhindered. However, this did not stop the local youths entertaining the crowds by doing high speed wheelies on their motorbikes, in front of the watching police, with no helmets! The bikes ranged from an R1 to a very muddy moto cross, to a Vespa scooter, in varying conditions. And this was just the start of the carnival festivities.
Bearing in mind that Mardi Gras is not for another week, the St Martins people have different events on every day, including Miss Elegant Plus Size, (we were lucky to see the 2013 winner handing back her crown), a battle of the Caribbean bands night, mind that seems to be most nights, especially as the local youth samba band has taken to practising on the front every evening. Mind they are quite good and we like to try to identify the rhythms we know from Bellingham!
As we felt we were beginning to get Harbour Rot we decided it was time to go for a sail. So our destination was chosen after much consideration. Tintamarre, the flat island, a small uninhabited island off the North East end of St Martins. It is part of a nature reserve and had a runway on it during WW2. There is a nice sandy bay, which was very busy when we arrived for lunch. We anchored behind two Swedish yachts that came in just ahead of us. As we were having lunch, a customs launch appeared and did a circuit of the bay checking boats, before homing in on the Swedish boats. They came alongside one and deposited two officers on board and then went to the second boat and did the same. There were lots of discussions and paperwork being checked and signed. All this gave Sarah fuel for her over active imagination, enabling her to work through several implausible scenarios for Darrell's entertainment before swimming ashore for a wander along the beach amongst people with varying amounts of swimwear on (or not)
As it was rather rolley in the bay we decided to sail back to Grand Case to anchor for the night and as we headed south we saw several yachts with expensive sets of sails and crew sitting out on the rails obviously out for some practice for the St Martins regatta which starts in a weeks time.