St Martin - regatta time

We find St martin a really easy place to hang on the hook and so we plan to stay here through the Heineken regatta and participate a little in the festivities. While we are waiting our friends John and Peggy contact us to say they are arriving in St Martin soon. We are very pleased to catch up with them since last being together in Boot Key Harbor, Marathon in December 2012 when we were first leaving. They joined us for a trip to Philipsburg with Karen on Nauti Dog so we can go and collect our shipment from the US of soda stream and some parts. We planned to make a day of it and so we have a nice lunch out at a local food vendors court and enjoy BBQ chicken and local sides. We toured the back streets to discover lots of interesting stores and find a milk shake at of all places McD’s.

Karen, Devin, Peggy & John in Main Street

Nice art

Lovely houses and businesses

The streets are very narrow but have lots of character so we keep exploring until we reach the beach promenade where we find all the cruise ship passengers sunning in lounge chains on the beach. Still it’s a lovely boardwalk and lots of good places eat or enjoy a beer while people watching.

Typical streets for walking and cars!

Boardwalk beach

Awesome

More narrow streets

Devin goes to get our packages while Peggy, John and Liz meander the streets and visit the courthouse and church.

Pretty Courthouse

Lovely Church

Nice inside too

Later in the week we invite John and Peggy over for a happy hour catch up on our respective travels in the Caribbean. They have lots of good advice having been here a year longer than us. We have a great time and the ladies plan on attending the ladies luncheon the next day, no pictures but I can assure you they had a great time with lunch out and swimming in the resort pool. The following day we say goodbye to Peggy and John as they head north and back the the USA, we are all so glad we caught up again.

Liz, John & Peggy 

A wonderful happy hour

We have another day out in Philipsburg to attend the Heineken regatta concert on the boardwalk and have dinner out with Nauti Dog. We catch a bus from Marigot and on arriving at the boardwalk bump into the crews of Slow Waltz and Cool Cat. We find a nice Chinese on the back street to have dinner at and catch up on each others plans. The evening starts with lots of loud music from the bars and them out came a steel pan band from the local school which we enjoyed for a few numbers before the concert took off.

Local school pan band

Not just sail boat races but crab races too!

Jackson Wetherbee on stage

The concert was Jackson Wetherbee and although the did some cover songs their own music was better we thought. While we were waiting for the bus back to Marigot we counted 3 buses pass going to the French Quarter. The enterprising driver of bus #4 stops and asks us where we are going. When we tell him Marigot, he changes the sign from French Quarter to Marigot! We’ve never seen that before but it is a benefit of having a private bus system where the driver is boss.

We catch a few glimpses of the regatta as we toured the island after our misguided enticement to a free draw which turns out to be a timeshare sales pitch. Ah well time we have a free tour of the island is a small consolation for time spent seeing a fancy resort complex. The boats also race past our anchorage on the last day so we see lots of racers pass by in the distance. Watching sailboat races is always difficult as they cover a fairly large race course and there is no good place to watch from except another boat.

Our anchorage for a month

View over Simpson bay on our bus ride

Before departing Marigot Nauti Dog persuades us to do the really tourist thing of watching the Jets and private aircraft take off and land at the international airport at Maho Bay. The beach literally runs across the end of the runway and jets are really close overhead and the blast from the engines is pretty strong. The strongest blast comes watching the big commercial jets take off however and they are only about 100 yards away from you! It blows several people over on the beach it’s that strong.

London buses in St Martin?

You have been warned!

Yes they are right overhead

Well that’s it from Marigot Bay, we want to visit Anguilla and there looks like a nice weather window opening so like a lot of cruisers who have been here a while we are planning on an escape after a month in one place.