After Barbuda, St.Barts and St.Martin...
Chelone's travels.....
John and Susie Blair.
Fri 12 Apr 2013 18:06
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We hoisted Chelone's sails in the first light and
made our way seaward to
start the sail north from Barbuda towards St.Barts. More Humpback whales came into view as we took our morning coffee in the cockpit, again they were really close so we got a good look before we went our separate ways. Barbuda, being so low was soon out of sight but before long we could see St.Kitts and Nevis way off on our port bow as they're of much higher elevation with volcanic peaks shrouded in cotton wool clouds. St.Barts has no such volcanic peaks and it wasn't until mid afternoon that her land came into sight, we sailed around her southern rocky shores and into the main harbour of Gustavia as the sun set and wind fell away to nothing. We had dinner, watched a movie and hit the sack wondering what St.Barts had to offer as neither of us had been here before though we only plan to stop for a few hours as respite for the journey to St.Martin, hopefully we'll call here again for a proper foray on the way back to Antigua in a few weeks. In daylight the anchorage was incredibly busy with cruising yachts, mega yachts and local fishing boats in every available space. The harbour and surrounding landscape looked lovely, we lowered our dinghy and made our way ashore. Gustavia, St.Barts' main town has the inherent charm of a small port, it's red-roofed buildings akin to those we'd seen in Martinique a few weeks back. We landed at a convenient dinghy dock at the waterfront and were immediately propelled into a world of expensive restaurants and even more expensive boutiques (much to Susie's delight!)...Gucci, Longchamp, Prada, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Channel....and many, many more (I've probably misspellt them but I don't go in them very often!) what a nightmare! where's the ships chandlers I say, or diving shop or summat! We found middle ground by way of a supermarket and bought a
few goodies before heading to the
oldest bar in town
for a refreshing local beer.
After another wander around the streets taking in
the sights we made our way
back to the dinghy and the five minute trip to
Chelone. Susie made a gorgeous
lunch and we decided to continue our passage to
St.Martin, a mere 15 miles
downwind so we hoisted the sails and set off.
St.Martin was clearly in view from the start,
a straight forward enough sail
though our course
took us past nasty rocky shoals and the tiny
island of
Ile Fourchue, apparently a very nice anchorage and
haven from sea and swell.
We closed St.Martin's southern coast and rounded
into a bay where there's
an access 'swing bridge' into the lagoon
beyond.Opening time was in 20
minutes so time for a quick swim to cool off. We
entered the lagoon amongst
a convoy of other yachts, fishing boats and huge
mega yachts, some of which
only just seemed to
fit through the narrow bridge opening.
Neither of us have been here before so what lay
beyond was a mystery! once
through the bridge we were greeted by a crowd of
waving revellers at the
St.Martin Yacht Club which is perched overlooking
the channel entrance, as
we were to find out later, happy hour coincides
with the late afternoon bridge
opening making for a popular daily meeting point
for cruisers.
Thanks to our trusty SSB radio and the fantastic
community of cruisers that
take part in the daily 'net' we had a group of
contacts already rooted in the
lagoon who were keen to help us locate in a good
spot and so once inside
we called up on the VHF radio and were given
instructions to reach their
location in a sheltered and logistically
favourable part of the lagoon and duly
made our way there through the vast anchorage of other cruisers and dropped
anchor near them at a location called 'The Witches
Tit!'.
St.Martin is half French, half Dutch therefore one
can do the Customs
clearance in either country, we were advised that
the French side's far cheaper
and so cleared there. The lagoon is also half
French/Dutch and at first we
wondered how this affected things but soon all
became clear, I'll spare you
the details though basically the French side was very expensive and
mostly
boutiques and restaurants whereas the Dutch side
has the mega Chandlers
huge hardware store and other really useful
facilities, this was by far the best
place for sourcing boat gear that I've come across
in the Caribbean yet and I
could see why cruisers flock here (It's a Duty Free
Island too).
So, we were to be here for 22 days! I think we
reckoned on a week or two but
we were to meet such great friends here, other
cruising couples, some Brits
(even Welsh!) some American, Canadian, South
African etc. In addition to the
now routine SSB check ins (yes two) in Simpson Bay
lagoon there's a daily
VHF Net also which was very informative with a
weather report, cruisers
movements and even a 'buy sell or swap' feature which was very popular.
So we spent most days hanging out with our gang of friends in one way or
another, there was a lovely beach on the seaward side of the lagoon next to
the airport runway for a cooling swim and relax on a free sunlounger, the
incoming/outgoing aircraft certainly got your
attention though we were told
that one of the 'must do' St.Martin experiences is
to visit the beach at the
west end of the runway where incoming airliners
landing gear almost brush
the beach parasols and departing aircraft have
you clinging for life on the
airport barrier fence as you're blasted by their jet engines! well, we didn't
get
round to doing that but I've uploaded a picture to
the blog to give you the idea.
So three weeks of fun in Simpson Bay and we headed
back to Antigua via
St.Barts, a long windward leg in company with four
of our new friends on
their boats, we all anchored off Jolly Harbour late
evening and turned in.
We all met up in the morning for the usual Customs
check in and as a few
friends were soon going to part ways it was
proposed that we have a get
together so that evening we were in a 30+ strong
crowd at the Italian
restaurant in Jolly Harbour for 'all you can eat'
pizza and lasagne where
we once again had the chance to met up with more
folks whom we'd only
ever heard on the radio.
Following a late night spent aboard a neighbours
mega yacht we said our
farewells to those who we'll not see again this
season and set off for the
short sail around the coast back to Falmouth
harbour in readiness for the
upcoming Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta which starts
next Thursday.
Last evening Susie and myself took a stroll over to
English Harbour for a
little after dinner exercise and bumped into friend
and fellow Brit sailor
Peter who again invited me to the 'Tot club' as
they were about to
do their thing so I joined them in a toast to her
majesty with a generous
'tot' of high octane Pussers rum followed by some
chat with other tot
members some of whom have been living on the island
for many years.
This morning I met with another mate anchored
nearby and he asked if
I'd be interested in crewing aboard legendary race
winning yacht
'Stormvogel' (she was the yacht featured in the
film 'Dead Calm'!).
Sounds good eh? fingers crossed for
that.
All the Best,
JB & S
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