12t/13h April - Simpsons Bay Marina, St Maarten 18:02.050N 063:05.388W
Whisper
Noel Dilly
Sun 14 Apr 2013 01:06
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"Simpsons Bay
Marina, St Maarten" - 12th April
We are now busy preparing for the next leg of our adventure. We will be leaving the Caribbean and sailing north to Bermuda on Tuesday, weather permitting. Today has been spent 'spring cleaning' below deck; laundry; visiting the marina store via dinghy for a couple of bits and pieces; checking out the supermarket, so that we know what they have in stock as we want to get our major provisions for the whole trip to the Azores, as shopping in Bermuda will be expensive; filling up with diesel using jerry cans, the marina fuel dock is just at the end of our pontoon, but they are out of fuel, so Noel had to take a trip across the lagoon to Island Waterworld for fuel and finally re-visiting Customs & Immigration again to pay our fees which we couldn't pay yesterday as they were without power. In between these tasks we enjoyed lunch at the local yacht club and a quiet evening on board planning tomorrow's itinerary! "Simpsons Bay Marina, St Maarten" - 13th April This morning we
visited Philipsburg as we are hoping to meet up with two W&F Yacht Club
members who are visiting the Caribbean on a Cruise Liner. The buses here
are mini buses which do not run to a time table but are frequent and
cheap. As we left the Marina we saw one of the dock staff and asked him
where we had to wait for the bus, he was just pointing to across the road when a
bus came along, he gave a most ear piercing whistle which had the desired effect
of bringing the bus to an abrupt halt. We rushed carefully across the
busy dusty road and were soon seated. We always enjoy these bus rides,
they are just so casual and everyone polite, saying "good morning" etc when they
get on and calling out "please will you stop here" when they want to get off and
it doesn't seem to matter where you are. Customers just hand over folded
notes to the driver and everybody is happy.
We were dropped
off at down town Philipsburg and walked past the many market stalls down to the
sea front and along the beach towards the Cruise Liner Terminal. We were
quite early and the water front quite quiet but very much geared up for the
tourists. There were three cruise liners in the bay and this appears to be
normal as we saw three when we arrived the other day. We wandered back
into the town which was beginning to liven up, hats, shirts, dresses, gifts,
momentos were everywhere to be purchased, along with Perfume Shops, Jewelers,
Boutiques etc. We found a nice quaint French Cafe in a quiet street and
enjoyed morning coffee before deciding that we had seen enough. A bus going
our way appeared and we were heading back to Simpsons
Bay.
The bus dropped
us at the supermarket so we took the opportunity to buy some of the heavy
provisions we need and the supermarket supplied a van and driver to transport it
for us. Once the stores were packed away we enjoyed a leisurely lunch at
our favourite bar. We then took a dinghy trip over to
the Marine Store to yet again ask if they have a shroud cleat for our
ensign halyard. Persistence paid off this time, a young girl in the
clothes section looked on the computer and said that their were two in
stock. She called over the young man whom had previously told Noel that
they didn't have any, although we have been told by other branches that they
do. He, as we had done, looked on the display shelves but there were
none there, this time he said that he would look 'out the back'.
Eventually he came back waving one in the air - bingo! This is now fitted and the water tanks also filled
up. It has been a productive day and our list of preparations for our
passage is getting shorter.
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