(5th January)
Finally the beautiful rocks of St Barths finally
approached us as we venture in to the bay after a very choppy sail over from St
Maartins……
The journey
from St Maarten to St Barths
We
had waited what felt like an eternity for the Christmas trade winds to die down
to give us a window out of Simpson Bay and as the gate out of the lagoon lifted
to let us onwards on our journey from St Maartin, we passed an array of super
yachts with helicopters and a sailing yacht just for good measure sitting on
their decks in case the owner had a particular fancy of vehicle outside the
standard jet ski option. It
suddenly dawned on us that our yacht Tom Tom is in the company of a lot of
bigger brothers and sisters out here as the world’s elite use this stretch of
the Caribbean as their playground – with the warm tropical climate and blue
coral seas in the middle of January as the snow thrashes the UK, we can see the
appeal! The haven of the Caribbean
to the big boats was clearer than ever as we ambled in to the bay of St Barths
to see the sites of the most prestigious yachts in the world as our company,
such as the famous and very aerodynamically challenging modern shape of the boat
known as ‘A’ which is extraordinary in shape and either belongs to Larry Ellison
or Abramivich –as you can probably tell, this topic of ownership had much
debate! ‘A’ was joined by the well
known super mega yacht called ‘Luna’ which used to be owned by a big player at
Microsoft (Paul Allan) but was then sold on to… again – one Mr Abramavich! The word was out that the Russian had
been on holiday over the New Year and rather than taking one boat, a host of his
best toys littered the waters around us.
More
relevant to us, our journey from St Maartins to St Baths had taught us that with
the best will in the world of using all the wind and weather websites and
forecasts – in particular, one know as ‘Wind Guru’, those promises of 3 feet
waves often go totally against prediction and turn in to up to 8 feet + in
height – not pleasant for those of us who are partial to a bit of sea belly
during particularly rough voyages!
However the reward was evident as we set our anchor in
the clear seas and cooled down in the afternoon with a swim. With our snorkels on, we could clearly
see the seabed – and unfortunately the underside of Tom Tom which revealed that
after a few weeks in a murky Simpson Bay marina, a strong attack of the dreaded
barnacles had plagued itself across the hull, rudder, keel, and most annoyingly
the propeller – this suddenly shed light on why we were perhaps a few knots
slower on our journey than we had expected. By the next morning I took a deep sigh
and got back into the water with my snorkel (taking advantage of the morning
sunlight’s visibility through the water) to try and scrub – what a task this
is! The propeller proved the
biggest challenge as the barnacles showed their reluctance to release their
grip. After a never ending 2 hour
battle (which Nick guided me on from deck, and then later joining in the action
– flippers in tow!) we pretty much completed our chore – complete with an array
of barnacle scratches and cuts across our bodies as a result of trying to wedge
ourselves in odd positions under the boat to try and scrub without being pushed
away by the tide. Exhausted we
were!
Gustavia
With
all the graft out of the way, we went ashore and checked in through customs to
the beautiful and chic main port town of Gustavia. The feeling is absolutely French with a
twist of gingerbread colonial houses in many pastel colours of the rainbow. The cars of choice on the island are
Mini’s and this just adds to the charm of the island along with its Euro,
Boulanger bread, colourful boutiques and unique St Barths number plates
demonstrating that their identity has its own specialness outside of a normal
French province. We ambled up and
down the tranquil shaded streets overlooking the harbour and hills of St Barths
and people watched in the bar over a chilled Origina – our drink of choice in
the French islands! The designer
shops of Paris have tapped in to the island’s appeal and many upmarket boutiques
sell the latest Roberto Cavalli designs intermingled with a bit of Cartier for
good measure! The one thing that
was apparent is that the French have done an amazing job of keeping the old
colonial buildings in good stead – which is a big challenge in the Caribbean and
the streets are unbelievably clean.
St Barths is absolutely one of our favourite places and an absolute must
for anyone venturing out here on their boat. After 2 nights in the bay, we were ready
to move on to our next stop. With
the anticipation of getting to Antigua next, ‘Wind Guru’ yet again demonstrated
its pot luck predictability. As we
headed out South East of Gustavia at a not very friendly hour of dawn, we passed
by St Barths on our journey only to discover that the wind and the seas were
against us. The slamming gave us
some serious decisions to make – either to take the chance of getting to Antigua
and adding another 7+ hours to the journey with a boat slamming hard off each
big wave which created a high risk
of damage, or make a ‘Plan B’ on the spot…. As the next blog will show, the
latter was what we chose to do which took us off course to our next island and
created much more exploration than we had planned for…. We left the chic islands
of the super yacht supermarket behind us and headed forward to our quieter and
less tourist driven destination.
Pluses
Clean Boat
Goal
of dropping anchor in St Barths (with the weather not in our favour
originally)
Minuses
A
few scratches
Bumpy seas
Saying goodbye to good friends in St Maartin
