St Martin

We left North sound BVI in the early hours with an alarm at 5am and anchor up before dawn at 6am and underway sailing as the sun came up. We had a most fantastic weather window of north-east to north winds giving us almost 20 knots just forward of the beam for the whole trip. It was 83 miles in 12 hours so an average of 7 knots the whole way and a wonderful sailing day arriving in daylight in Marigot Bay, Saint Martin. We were here last year so it’s nice to be back in a familiar harbor again.

Leaving at dawn

Arrival in St Martin in daylight!

We intend to spend a month here with boat jobs to do, shipping in parts and enjoying the wonderful grocery stores with good prices. We expected to find many friends here and within an few hours our goods friends Michael and Karen on s/v Nauti Dog hailed us to welcome us in. We didn’t take long to get off the boat and go in for our fix of French bread, pate, cheese, wine and a host of food things we love about the French islands.

The market stalls

Lots of nice shells

More shells

The fish market onSaturdays

Live lobster for sale

While on a trip into town we stopped to walk the path to Fort Louis which overlooks the harbor with great views.

Fort Louis

The anchorage at Marigot Bay

Great views

We also took the opportunity to spend time at restaurants with lots of other friends we had met in Grenada. An interesting restaurant Karen and Michael showed us is Little Jerusalem which is a Lebanese style restaurant which specializes in shwarma, a type of pitta stuffed with lamb, chicken with a lovely blend of spices. We also notice lots of Moroccan restaurants but haven't found one open for lunch yet. We also visited teh Pink Iguana to listen to some cruisers who have a gig there.

Pink Iguana is a boat that's a bar

Cruiser band White Chocolate

One afternoon Liz and Karen walk Chester one of their two dogs on the beach and into town for fresh veggies. They got a close up look at the two boats washed up on the beach after the hurricane that hit last summer, such a shame for the owners but a great job cleaning up by the locals after the storm. They also met Olive Augustine who is featured in The Spice Necklace which is one of Liz’s favorite books written by a cruiser about her travels through these islands and the people and food she discovered. Olive takes ages telling Liz about her friend and the other cooking books she is featured in and with her daughter, Karen and Chester they pose for a picture.

The aftermath of the hurricane last year

Karen, Olive and her daughter with Chester.

Well maintenance does eventually catch up to us and our solar panels at 14 years old are beginning to lose efficiency so we decided to investigate new ones. After a lot of internet searching we found that prices were as good here in St Martin (duty free) as they were in teh US so considering shipping costs we couldn't beat the local price. Well we got the same physical size and new panel are 100W compared to teh old ones at 75W so technology has improved a lot. We bought 4 new ones and Michael helped Devin install them on the existing frame in around 3 hours. Boy what a boost we go from 12-14 amps to over 21 amps straight away!

New solar panels

All installed and the bimini going back up!

We heard another cruisers announce a day trip to Saba which is about 30 miles away and quite a challenge to get to because of the very rocky shore leaving little protection from the open sea. With just a few mooring balls provided by the park service it can be a very uncomfortable place to go unless winds and seas are clam. Well in the winter this is rare so we decided to take the day trip over rather than spend a few nights in a rolly anchorage. We were far from alone in the decision as 40 other cruisers decided that was the way to do it too. We took the 90 minute trip in a fast catamaran and entered the tiny harbor in the lee of the breakwaters.

The ferry inside

Saba arrival

Queue for Immigration

Saba is a very unique island being formed by a volcano standing 877m tall and with steep sides all round formed by lava flows. It is a Dutch island and therefore it is the highest place in the country! The engineers said they couldn’t build a road around the island as it was too steep. So a local man Josephus Lambert Hassell took a correspondence course in civil engineering and designed a road that they started in 1943 and finished in 1958. It was truly a monumental task but the result is amazing to travel on.

Church at the bottom

Nice mural inside

The view of the Bottom from the road above.

The road they couldn't build !

Still room for new business ventures too.

Our bus drivers house 

The airport the samllest commercial airport at 1300'

Outflow from the volcano

enjoying the views

Hell's Gate church

The town at Windwardside

After the bus tour of the island visiting quaint towns of The Bottom, Windwardside and Hell’s gate we did a short portion of the Mount Scenery trail back down to the restaurant for lunch. 

Mt Scenery trail

Trail rules

The store at the end of the trail

We were very surprised at the excellent food and really enjoyed the fare. After lunch we walked around Windwardside town and admired the local architecture and the crafts at the local shops.

Walking around town

The highest point on the island

The years of construction for the road

Tightly packed houses everywhere

They called this Whale hill?

We had a little silly moment waiting for the bus as folks hot from walking tried to cool off in the pool without actually going in!

Still little girl at heart

The trip back was uneventful and just as quickly we were back in St Martin, a great trip and well worth it for anyone wanting to go there.

We hope you are thawing from your winter wherever you are.