Sint Maarten
Moonbeam
David and Lynn Wilkie
Thu 14 Mar 2013 12:57
18.02.396N 063.05.637W
16.2 Miles logged
We left St.Barths and headed for St.Maarten, slightly delayed by a sheared
bolt on the 2nd alternator mount!
Zero wind but we caught an edible fish! A king mackerel sacrificed himself
to a Thai curry!
We entered the lagoon via Simpson Bay lift bridge and anchored opposite a
super yacht marina on the Dutch side; in the past we have stayed outside but the
forecast was for 13ft swells from a storm in the North Atlantic which cause
every anchorage to be rolly.
Through the lift bridge into the Lagoon. It opens 3 times a day and we
always watch to see who may be arriving!
Large yacht threatening to drop anchor on our aft deck!
Boat (rubbish!) jumble on the French
side
French fish market
Sint Maarten or St.Martin is a confusing place. It has a duty free status
that attracts business and yachts but life is far from simple!
The whole island is 37 square miles and split between the Dutch and the
French with a total population of about 77,000. You can check in on the French
or Dutch side and that covers you for both sides!
But on the French side the shops close for 2 hours at lunch time- the Dutch
do not. On the French side you pay in Euros but on the Dutch side you pay in US
dollars; unless of course you go to a Chinese supermarket in which case the
prices are marked in Antillean Guilders but the tills are in US dollars.
All the Caribbean islands from Trinidad north are part of the North
American phone numbering system so that the numbers are prefixed +1 so you can
dial in the US and Caribbean without an international code but if you want to
speak to someone on the French side you have to dial 011 before the number.To
further exasperate the situation my ‘ Caribbean mobile’ with it’s Digicel
Grenada sim card only works on the French side.............. Most people speak
English but there is also the universal Caribbean Patois which I find
unintelligible and of course with my luck when I went for a ‘proper’ haircut
(Lynn normally cuts it !) I selected a barber who only spoke Mexican which
created some communication problems but at least now my Telly Savalas
impersonations are a bit more accurate.
On most of the Caribbean islands you can now get good wi-fi but not in
St.Maarten! Supposedly there is so much electronic ‘pollution’ in the airwaves
that the signals cannot survive! Oh, and the mains electric is 110v on the Dutch
side and 220v on the French side – we will stick to 12v!
Luckily both sides of the island drive on the same side of the road!
Meanwhile we are busy varnishing the toerail, rewiring part of the charging
system and visiting the many chandleries!
Thursday afternoon out through the bridge then an uncomfortable night at
anchor before an early start for the 80 mile passage to the BVIs
|