From birthdays to St. Martin
Regina
Espen Aalstad
Sun 16 Mar 2008 21:25
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18:01.3N 63:06.9W
Finally off from Antigua, but with mixed feelings
leaving lot's of our friends from the ARC behind yet looking forward
to picking up cousins in St. Martin.
Seven boats with kids have joined up to celebrate
skipper Paul on Jigsaw's 50th birthday. 13 of the kids met already at a small
marina in Marocco.
Elin especially has enjoyed meeting up again with
'the only teens' out cruising. All of us have schedules often affected by
visitors and hence have not been able to join up as much as we want - or run
into boat problems!
 Einar's birthday a few day's earlier had been a
quieter affair.
Strange how out at Great Bird Island pirates had
left him a bottle with a map for a treasure. He strongly believes it was Jack
Sparrow.
  Everybody agreed staying with friends longer was
worth a 100nm night sail to St. Martin
even if the wind died down and we had to help with engine.
First impressions are that of a rather
commercialized island for tourists - certainly our most touristy and developed
resort areas we have seen since the Canary Islands.
Philipsburg and Simpson Bay we are happy to leave
quickly and so also their duty free shops...diamonds and cigars
especially.
Espen's niese and nephew from Norway has crewed on:
we will see how Caribbean is different from sailing with Dad! We will give
them more real caribbean memories than the 'playstation' boat outside
Simpson Bay. 27 degree water and swimming all day is still a great start to
Easter vacation.
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