St. Kitts Part I

On Mar 4th, 2013 Published By B.J.

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Welcome to St. Kitts!  Here’s your Monkey!

At least that’s how it seemed, with the guys running around the cruise ship terminals looking for women and children to put monkeys on for photo opportunities (suggested monkey rental donation…$2.50 per person).

We’d read about the fact that there were monkeys on St. Kitts, but the cruising guide said they were shy.  They are, sort of.

St. Kitts (also known as St. Christopher) is part of the two island country of St. Kitts & Nevis.  Both are volcanic islands, and the volcano on St. Kitts still emits steam and occasional bad smells.  So…dormant, maybe?  It’s a moot point anyway, as we decide that having a climbed a volcano earlier in the week we had in fact reached our weekly limit on volcano climbing.

We started our visit in the town of Bassterre, the capitol of the country and the cruise ship landing port.  We arrived in the late afternoon with enough time for me to rush into customs and clear us in for the evening.  When I returned to the boat no one was particularly interested in heading into town, we were all tired and spent a quiet night – we figure to check out the town the next morning.

One night anchored in front of Basseterre was enough to convince us we didn’t want to spend another.  For whatever weather reason this normally placid anchorage was plagued by rolling waves from off shore, making for a bouncy and restless evening trying to sleep.  We’d had similar, but not quite as rough, nights at the anchorage in Statia the prior couple of days so we all were looking forward to anchoring some place…flat.

After breakfast we headed in to check out the town.  One thing we’ve learned cruising the Caribbean is that most of the cruise ports are really, really similar. You’ve got duty free shops for booze, smokes, watches, jewelry, etc. Some restaurants and bars, hawkers and aggressive cab drivers, and a lot of “specials” targeted at the Cruise Ship crowd. Yes – there are some differences…Phillpsburg on St. Maarten had a beautiful beach and a busy board walk, and in St. Kitts there are guys running around sticking baby monkeys on strangers.

After a stroll around town and a refreshing drink at the Ballahoo restaurant (which has a lovely balcony where you can watch the goings on in the traffic “circus” down below”) we decided we’d seen enough of “town”, and we headed back to the boat to sail down the coast a few miles to Whitehouse Bay.

Unlike Basseterre, Whitehouse Bay has…nothing.  There is allegedly a dinghy dock; we saw a flat rock that you might be able to step off of.  This is NOT a bad thing in our book by the way – we like quiet anchorages without music, noise, jet skis, and the like.  This particular anchorage had a wreck close to shore in snorkeling depths; that was pretty cool.  We did find ourselves followed by a curious? barracuda as we swam from the boat to the wreck.  He kept a polite distance behind us but stayed with us all the way until the water got shallow.

Christophe Harbour

Later in the day we did head around to nearby Ballast Bay by dinghy to check out what was supposed to be a large project in development.  Christophe Harbour is indeed the brainchild of many big thoughts.  Most of the Southern end of St. Kitts is owned by the brains behind Christophe Harbour.   Over the next few years this relatively quiet and uninhabited part of the island will be turned into a thriving community of condos, luxury homes, golf course and a 300 slip marina.

Little of this was known to us  when we headed in to take a look around just to see what was near by.  Our cruising guide had vague descriptions that sounded like much of the marina was done and there were lots of restaurants nearby, but while we saw active dredging of the salt pond that had been opened to the sea for the marina there wasn’t much more there at that site than a nice dock, a road, and a porta pottie.  We got off the dock and started walking.

There was much excitement on board about the possibility of seeing a monkey in the wild.  St. Kitts is populated by Green Vervet Monkeys which were originally brought as pets many years ago.  They escaped in the wild, and now numerous troupes of monkeys roam the island.   Our cruising guide described them as shy.  We had little expectation of seeing any monkeys, particularly not walking down a ROAD for cryin’ out loud – monkeys are supposed to like jungles and trees and
HEY LOOK, A MONKEY!!!
IMG_0136 Not a few hundred yards into our exploratory walk we spotted a small group of monkeys, even as we were discussing how unlikely it was that we would get so much as a glimpse of one.  Several of them walked in to the road and one of them sat in a tree very close by us, apparently just keeping watch.  Of course we were totally fascinated by these critters, it’s not every day you see wild monkeys just walking around.

Apparently there are now so many monkeys that many of the residents aren’t so fond of them.  They have a tendency to forage for food in large groups and may not be so discriminating about cultivated versus wild when it comes to food selections.

We continued our walk down the road looking for…stuff…when a car going the opposite direction pulled over and offered us a ride.  Astute observer that I am I noted the “Christophe Harbour” logo on the side of the car.  We’d been picked up by a fellow named Aeneas, one of the managers, who offered to give us a ride down the road.  “Would you like me to drop you at the beach, or do you want to check out our private beach club?”

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View of the Private Club

Well, yeah.  That one was kind of a no-brainer.  The club is lovely and secluded with a solicitous and friendly staff.  We walked around the grounds a bit (more monkeys on the drive in) and settled ourselves down on the really, really comfy deck couches for some top shelf Piña Coladas while we looked out over the water.  It sounds like the model for this whole development is one of ownership – they are selling homes, condos, and dock space to build the community.  I’m guessing the club membership comes with it.  It’s very well done and tasteful, but it sounds pretty expensive. 

Hearing about a project like this leaves me a little torn.  On one hand, there has to be huge negative environmental impact, and the buy-in will be pretty large and limiting, cordoning off this space for a small group of people.  On the other hand all of these islands struggle to keep pace economically; tourism certainly suffers in a weak global economy.  A development like this will bring jobs and revenue in to the country, quite literally by the boatload.  I do like that they will be trying to reach out also to smaller boats and transient cruisers.  A few more marine facilities and another safe harbor on an island that could use more of both aren’t the worse things to build.

One the walk back we were treated to…even more monkeys.  Aeneas had mentioned that a little later in the day more of them come out and we were not disappointed.  Parts of the lowlands by the water looked like the African veldt, with large numbers of monkeys off all sizes and ages scampering through the grass.  On the way back we also saw a number of mongooses (mongeese?) and birds of all sorts  Sadly the mongooses were too far off and too fast to get a decent picture even if I had my good camera with me.  But the walk back was a nice, quiet end to an interesting day.

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The Salt Pond, opened to the sea where the marine will go.
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Our First Volcano

On Feb 26th, 2013 Published By B.J.
Are we nuts?  That thing looks freaking huge!

Today we climbed a volcano.

St. Eustatius is a volcanic island, with two volcanoes that eventually merged their flows to form the island.  The taller, single cone is called “The Quill”, the name of which is a mangling of the Dutch word “Kuil” which means “pit”.  The center of the volcano forms a deep circular valley or pit – in the days of slavery runaway slaves supposedly went there to hide. 

The highest point of the Quill is almost 2000 feet (600 meters) above sea level.  The bottom of the pit is 895 feet (273 meters) above sea level, so the drop from the peak to the floor is around 1,100 feet deep.  This is a dormant volcano, meaning it is not “Extinct” in that there was volcanic activity about 1,600 years ago.  On the nearby island of Montserrat the volcano there was believed to be extinct, until it erupted in 1995.  This one seems pretty quiet though – there is absolutely no evidence of any sort of activity that scientists are aware of though it is considered “Dormant.” 

Obligatory “gorgeous flowers we saw on the walk” photo.

The St. Eustatius National Park maintains and protects the Quill.  Like everything here there is a lot of history to it.  The slopes of the volcano were farmed in the past, with various spices and other cash crops grown in plantations.  All of that is abandoned now and the area is protected from cultivation.

We intended to set off early this morning, but early this morning it was raining.  So instead we made waffles and waited for the rain to let up, finally getting to shore around 11:00 a.m. to being the long hike upward.

Even 1/1000th of a second couldn’t catch his wings!

The first third of the elevation to climb is basically in the town.  Leaving town, you start slowly heading up hill towards the Quill.  Signs point to it, as you work your way up from the paved roads to a dirt road. On the way you pass houses, some fields with cows, dogs, chickens, flowers and a lot of hummingbirds.

The dirt road eventually comes to the start of the path up the hill.  At this point you’ve already climbed up a fair amount, and the huge tankers in the harbor below look like child’s toys.  We can’t even see out boat because it’s lost under the edge of the cliff, and the volcano still looms over head, wreathed in clouds.

Because of it’s height and the enclosed crater/pit, the volcano supports several distinct ecosystems which you can see as you climb.  The St. Eustasius Parks site describes it better than I can, but suffice it to say you can clearly see the changes in the vegetation as you get higher and higher and the inside of the cone looks like a different place entirely.

The main fauna on the volcano are large hermit crabs, iguanas, red bellied racer snakes, vzarious small grounds lizards, a variety of birds…and chickens.

The hermit crabs are amusing.  From an evolutionary viewpoint their behavior seems very, very…stupid.  These things are all over the hill side, a very STEEP hillside.  The range in size from little ones smaller than a quarter, with the largest we saw being a little smaller than your fist.  Now suppose I was some Hermit Crab Eating Predator (HCEP), walking stealthily along the path looking for lunch.  The crab’s reaction to our presence was to immediately withdraw into their shells.  Now keep in mind, the live on a STEEP slope, when they pull their bodies in their shells they let go of what they are holding on to and immediately roll down hill.  Right onto the trail, though you hear them rustling as they roll through the leaves as you walk along the trail there is a constant, intermittent rain of idiotic hermit crabs rolling in front of you.  If I was that HCEP I would have eaten my fill long before I reached the top.  At least the odds favor that there were an equal amount of crabs downhill from the path that rolled away to safety.

The trails are well marked, and the roughest part of the hike was after the sign that pointed to “Crater Rim, 10 Minutes”, at the top of which I was puffing like the bellows in a blast furnace run amok.  After six weeks in St. Martin wallowing in a sea of French bread and cheese floating in a small ocean of French wines I thought, somehow, climbing a volcano would be a good idea.  Well…it wasn’t pretty but I made it up there.


Me having words with a rather pushy chicken.

For the last 10-15 minutes of the hike, we were treated to the loud serenading of…chickens.  Yes, domestic chickens run feral live all over the top of the volcano.  It seems that some hikers even feed them, since there was a pair at the summit of our hike that were quite friendly and forward.  Especially when you reached in to bags for water or camera lenses, they were right there with you.

View of the crater

At the top of the crater rim we were about 1,300 feet above sea level.  From this point there were a couple of paths we could have taken, one that went around the rim which was supposed to be difficult but took you to the highest point on the island, pictured above.  The other was down to the bottom of the pit, which was supposed to take about an hour round trip.  We guessed that was less than ten minutes getting down, and the other fifty climbing back.  It was steep, rocky, slippery and plastered with numerous warnings about the hazards you may face on the way down.  The fundamental problem we saw with tackling either of the “Difficult” paths is that they lay after you’ve already climbed to the top of the volcano and are already pretty pooped.  We decided that though the trip down to the bottom of the crater sounded really, really cool on paper were really weren’t up for it.

At the top of the trail we met a couple of English cruisers with an appreciation for this sort of natural beauty as well.  We had a companionable chat about the volcano and cruising while we all were catching our breath and resting our trembling limbs for the trip down.

One of two Red Bellied Racers at the top of the trail

Fortunately going down hill seems to use rather different muscles than going up – you get a great burn going in your quads but it’s a lot faster.  And your water bottles are a lot lighter!

We headed back to town on a mission – find someplace to sit, drink something cold, and eat which we finally did just across from the dinghy dock.  So we did our first volcano…where’s the next one?

Posted in St. Eustasius, Statia, Volcano | 3 Comments

Welcome to Statia!

On Feb 26th, 2013 Published By B.J.
View from the top, or at least the town level.
Fort Oranje

St. Eustatius, or Statia as it is frequently known, is another small island in what is known as the Netherland Antilles, or the Dutch Caribbean.  It has a long and storied history with more than a few interesting things to it.  I had no idea that St. Eustatius was a bustling center of trade back in the 18th century – huge volumes of retail merchandise moved through this island centuries before the invention of Duty Free Shopping and cruise ships. Statia was a major supplier of gunpowder to the fledgling United States during the American Revolution and was the first place where an American naval vessel was accorded military honors and recognition.  This of course did not sit well with the British who promptly invaded.  Again.  Like many Caribbean islands this one changed hands many times in the 18th and 19th centuries, though the predominant governance was Dutch.

Cool flowers on the walk up the hill.

In it’s years as an economic hub the population of the island was as high 20,000 people, many of whom accumulated large fortunes in the shipping and trades.  A lot of products where re-branded, so the neutral Dutch could buy from and sell to the various other factions (French, English, Spanish, etc.) that were constantly warring with each other.  The population now is around 3,000 with a very different economy.

It’s not a cruise ship spot – the waters are too shallow and there are not the facilities here to dump more people on the island than live here now for a day.  So the tourism business, while a critical component of the economy, is also focused a little differently.  For example tonight we are the largest pleasure craft in the harbor.  They LIKE cruisers here, and they are very friendly to the transient yachting crowd.

The island has an interesting layout.  The “Lower Town” is along the water where you can land your dinghy.  There are a few shops and restaurants there, and the basic government services for Customs & Immigration and the Statia National Park service.   But up a steep staircase (and a steep road) is the Upper Town, on a bluff overlooking the harbor.

The Upper Town is where most everything is; government offices, most restaurants, grocery stores, shopping and services.  The architecture here is a mix – you have a lot of old buildings, a lot of old ruins from the boom years, and all mixed in with newer construction.

In the more recent past someone cultivated some Macaws on the island.  We all had a thrill seeing three Scarlet Macaws flying around, climbing in the trees and eating nuts.  They are beautiful birds, although you really, really don’t want a colony of them “singing” outside your window.  It’s not “Polly want a cracker” or “Anchors Aweigh” to these birds gone wild, their cry is a loud and harsh squawk that you can hear from quiet a ways off.  We were all enchanted watching them flashing around in the trees – it is surprising how well a bird with such stunning plumage can make itself disappear.

Statia is a volcanic island; the volcano and it’s bowl are known as the Quill.  Our plan tomorrow is to walk up there and have a look around – so no pictures of that yet.  It promises to be an interesting hike, however.

Posted in Parrots, St. Eustasius, Statia | 2 Comments

Saba Flyby

On Feb 25th, 2013 Published By B.J.
Saba’s highest point is often shrouded in clouds and fog.

We’ve finally left St. Martin.  After six weeks there it was just time to move on, it’s a lot longer than we expected to stay.  There may still be a blog post of two about it forthcoming but we’re off to new adventures.

This morning we set our course for Saba.  This island is basically a big cone.  Steep sided, it climbs to around 3,000 feet in altitude and is prominently visible from St. Martin on a clear day.

Most see bottoms tend to align with the contours of the shore, so a place with steep land and cliffs also tends to get deep very fast once you are in the water.  Saba is no exception, a mile or so off the island and we were still in several thousand feet of deep blue water.

If those are bays than one wall and no roof is a house

As mentioned Saba is basically a cone, a round island.  There aren’t really a lot of natural harbors or bays – what is called a “Bay” on Saba isn’t something most people would identify as a bay.  They lack things like sides, or shelter and protection.  The “anchorages” are very deep and almost totally unprotected.  Everything we’ve read about Saba says that you just might find it not comfortable to stay.  North swells make the West side lumpy, East winds make the South side rolly, the East side doesn’t ever seem fit for boats.

So today sailed to Saba on a fast reach from St. Martin, and went around the North side of the island to the West coast.  The moorings there…looked pretty uncomfortable.  So we headed around to the South end of the island.  Those moorings were even worse, we would need sea sickness medication to get to sleep in our bunks!  And that much chop, getting into the dinghy and back on the boat can be quite dangerous.

We decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and sailed on to Statia (or St. Eustatius).

Right now we’re anchored in Statia.  Not too much to tell yet since we’ve not cleared customs of left the boat.  But it sounds really cool!

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Carnivale in Marigot

On Feb 20th, 2013 Published By B.J.

This is our first Carnivale in the Caribbean.  So far we like it, even if it’s a bit loud.IMG_1979

We actually missed most of the French side Carnivale this year.  Apparently it started some time in early January and ran up until Ash Wednesday.  For this I do sort of fault the tourism office.  They sort of kind of tell there is stuff happening, if you know enough to ask them about it.  But sometimes it seems almost like a State Secret as to Where and When the event actually is!

We knew that on the last Tuesday before Lent there was one more parade; we’d already missed the Grand Parade the prior Sunday because we had no idea it was happening.  But we wanted to catch some of it, and we’d heard on the radio it was to be at 2:00 p.m. “along the waterfront in Marigot”.  So we piled into the dinghy and headed in to town around 1:30, figuring we can walk to the waterfront and follow the crowds and police lines and so forth.

You know how in the U.S. when there’s a parade?  The police close off some roads and clear parking on the parade route, there’s some no parking signs, people start to line up to watch, and so on.  You can tell it’s coming, no?

We arrive down town and walk to the waterfront area an there is not a single hint at 1:45 pm that there is to be a parade at 2:00.  We look, we listen.  We walk all up and down the waterfront.  Nothing.  We walk down to the Office of Tourism to see if perhaps they’ve listed a location for the parade of could tells us…Tuesday afternoon, they are closed.  Clearly because there is a parade…

IMG_1983 My small gripe is that the calendar of events for Carnivale gave the dates of the events, and not a thing more.  We could not find ANY detailed information about any of the events, not the time or the place – because it just wasn’t published anywhere we could find it.IMG_1930

Back to the Streets of Marigot.  We’re starting to get discouraged, as it’s well past 2:00 and there’s not a whisper of music, not a policeman or a hint of a parade to be found.  Finally we give up and decide to walk back to the dinghy; on the way we spot a couple of police cars on one of the back roads.  Hmmm…the policeman politely told us that yes, the parade was coming down this road and gave us a rapid description in French of the parade route, complete with hand gestures, that none of us followed. But we knew we were ON THE ROUTE, and we started to see some people hanging around.  So we pulled up some sidewalk and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

We could hear some music from time to time, but it turned out to be a store front.  Most stores were closed for Mardi Gras, but this one was making enough noise to make us think the parade might almost be coming.

We waited some more.IMG_1934

Finally we figured that one of the streets we were on looked a lot easier than the other one for the parade to come down, so maybe we should walk ahead down the likely route to see what was happening.  A couple of blocks away we made a right and THERE IT WAS.  Closed streets, policemen, crowds lining the sidewalks and everything.

Of course there was no actual parade yet, it was only 3:30 or so and this was Island Time so that is completely within the acceptable limits for an event scheduled for 2:00.

Well, as you can see from the pictures the parade did actually begin and we did get to have a look at it.  And it was a fun parade.

The costumes, for a small sort of “after the Grand Parade” parade I thought were pretty impressive.  All ages and genders were bedecked in spectacular arrays of flowers, feathers and glitterIMG_2000. There were troupes of young children, teenagers and adults.  One thing that impressed me was that these were all regular, real people, and everyone was out there strutting their stuff and you could tell they all felt proud and beautiful.IMG_1954  It’s hard to picture an event like this back in the states where we have such harsh standards of beauty and judge those outside those brackets so unkindly.  Some of the most charismatic people in the parade were the winners of the “Miss Plus Size” beauty pageant – this wasn’t a joke or a gag like it might be in the states, these were beautiful, vibrant women; accepted for who they are and proud of it.  And you could see the happiness and humor as they saw friends and family along the way and broke ranks for hugs, pictures and fun.

Overall, it was worth the wait and the hassle trying to track down the parade route, I’m glad we didn’t give up.
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That Yoda Guy!

On Feb 19th, 2013 Published By B.J.

A really neat museum of Star Wars and other movie memorabilia put together by a former creature effects and costumes wizard was one of the more surprising finds in the town of Phillipsburg!

Phillipsburg, on the Dutch Side of St. Maarten, has a very similar feel to a lot of Caribbean towns where the primary business is catering to Cruise ships.  You’ve got the sidewalk hawkers for everything from taxis and T-shirts to beach chair rentals and happy hours.  It’s not a bad place and I didn’t dislike it, but it is busy and crowded and you’d do well to wear a T-Shirt saying “No Thank you I don’t need a Taxi/New Hat/Massage/Beach Chair/Jewelry” so you may walk down the board walk unmolested for a stretch.

IMG_0307But my favorite part of the town of Phillipsburg (OK, it’s in contention with the guy selling the $1.00 beers on the boardwalk) was “That Yoda Guy”.  Nick Maley became known as “That Yoda Guy” on the set of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back because if his instrumental role in the creation of the puppetry and animation to create the  character of Yoda back in the days before digital animation and CGI .  Though he was also involved in the other movies in the original Star Wars trilogy as a creature effects animator as well.  He’s also got a list of other movie credits as long as your arm including Highlander, Superman, Krull, and many others. 

Mr. Maley retired from the movie industry some time back and moved onto a sailboat with his wife, where they cruised for a time.  Eventually they settled in the Caribbean, and this small but interesting museum was opened.  What is novel about it is that although it contains many things from Mr. Maley’s private collection, Mr. Maley himself brings a lot of inside scoop on how the Star Wars movies came together.  He was there, and knows a lot of the details – be it technical or anecdotal, that provides some fascinating insight into how these iconic movies came together the way they did.
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Throughout the museum are original art works and memorabilia, some for display and some for sale.  And Mr. Maley and his wife are there, on site, to talk to and answer questions.

Passing by on the sidewalk on Front Street, I heard the Star Wars theme paying quietly – looking around I saw the signs.  Having no idea what to expect, we mounted up the stairs expecting something…tacky maybe?  Instead spent a very pleasant hour or so talking and exploring and learning some very, very cool stuff about some of our favorite movies.

Well worth a visit!
Never tell me the odds!

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Anguilla!

On Feb 19th, 2013 Published By B.J.

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St. Martin is French, Sint Maarten is Dutch.  About six miles north of the island of St. Martin is Anguilla, which logic would dictate is…British!

From Marigot you can easily see Anguilla (pronounced ahn-gwee-la) in almost any weather conditions, it’s that close.  Anguilla boasts an extensive system of national parks and protected reefs and islands, unfortunately the government of Anguilla makes it prohibitively expense for a boat our size to actually visit them.  They’re rules put is in the larges size class for a Cruising Permit, meaning it would cost us the same $330 per week to cruise that someone in a 200 foot megayacht would pay.  Or $90 per day, with two days needed if you want to actually stay over night.  Smaller boats get off easier, but we’re at a critical point where it gets really expensive for us even though it’s a rounding error for someone with a boat that has a paid crew of a dozen and measures their fuel consumption in gallons per minute.

Not that I’m bitter – it’s a lovely place and I’d love to see more of it but it would be nice is they’d rethink their cruising permit rate structure.

If you stay in Road Harbor (and only Road Harbor) there is no need for a Cruising Permit so that is what we opted to do.  You can rent a car for less money than a single day permit, so the best way to see the main island is to anchor in Road Harbor and rent a car.

Road Harbor and the town (village?) of Sandy Bottom is a small place with a few beach bars and restaurants, a pretty beach, and a few small shops.  It’s a decent anchorage and a jumping off point for the rest of the island, and it also is where you clear in and out of customs.IMG_0251  We had a nice casual mean there at John-o’s place, one of the beach front bars that used to get some celebrity traffic in the past even though it’s an out of the way place.

Renting a car, we decided to see as much of the island as a we could.  We drove from one end to the other checking out more than a couple of the lovely beaches.  There are the “primary” roads, which are paved and on which you drive on the wrong side unless you are a mad dog or an Englishman.  They are also fond of rotaries which are especially intimidating and confusing if you’ve not driven a car on either side of the road in months – especially the “double rotary” where one feeds into another.

The “secondary” roads are a lot less confusing, as they really aren’t wide enough to worry about a “side” per se.  Also they tend to be a lot less paved, so the “side” you pick sometimes has to do more with avoiding ripping the bottom out of the car than what the driving laws specifically say.

Tourist map in hand, we set out for a nice place to just hang for a bit – a beach, maybe some lunch and a cold drink.  After a couple of false starts and stops we decided on the Palm Grove Bar & Grill, also known as “Nat’s Place.”  This took us off the primary roads for the first time, as we drove down windy dirt and sand roads towards a seemingly empty horizon.  Eventually we came across a place that looked as if the next hurricane to pass within a few hundred miles would blow it over – Nat’s Place!IMG_0263
It’s obviously very casual.  Shoes optional, Nat offers reasonably priced good food.  A shock, really, based on some of the meal prices we’d seen in beach front restaurants, but I suppose we aren’t paying for linens and a sommelier here. It was a quite nice lunch on a breathtakingly beautiful beach in the middle of nowhere – what’s not to love?

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After lunch my father and I sat in the shade of the restaurant while the rest of the group went out for a walk on the beach and some splashing around.   Eventually we had to leave, since we wanted to see more of the island and perhaps pick up some things to bring back to the boat for breakfast the next morning.

At the other end of the island there is a well known Trattoria (who’s name escapes me – we didn’t eat there) located on yet another breathtaking beach.  This one is on the South side of Anguilla and has a lovely view of St. Martin from the restaurant and the soft sand beach in front of it.
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Eventually we headed back to the boat, though not after an interesting experience trying to do a small bit of grocery shopping.  I guess it was some time since the last supply boat came, because the big grocery store on the island was near empty!  I’ve never seen anything quite like it in a place that wasn’t days from a bankruptcy closing, yet this store was considered one of the best places to provision.  Probably is, the day after the boat comes.

I’d love to come back to Anguilla and spend some time in her parks  There are some beautiful islands around the main island and every beach we stopped at was suitable for a post card.  Hopefully some day the Anguillan government will make it a little more affordable for those of us with bigger boats that aren’t mega yachts to come and stay!

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The Rainbow of Doom

On Feb 18th, 2013 Published By B.J.

OK, maybe “Rainbows” and “Doom” aren’t things usually associated together.

But we learned our lessons about Caribbean rain storms our first afternoon in the British Virgin Islands, and we’ve now got it down to a science.  In short – you NEVER leave the boat with windows open, ever.  For five minutes, even if the skies are blue without a cloud in sight.

The weather here in the Caribbean is generally nice.  If you check a weather site this time of year you will usually see a series of sunny days with temperatures in the mid eighties.  And a non-zero chance of rain.  That non-zero chance of rain really must mean “at any particular moment”, because we’ve noticed that there seems to be a little rain almost every day.  It may only last a few minutes, sudden and short.  But that’s enough to leave you with damp sheets for the night if you are unwise enough to leave the boat with windows open.

The air here is clear, and you can see the weather coming.  Not too long ago we were sitting at the Sint Maarten Yacht Club for happy hour and we saw, across Simpson Bay, a most lovely rainbow.  “Ooh, it’s a double!” someone noted.

Of course some more practical then noted “that rainbow is moving towards us!”

Yes, that IS the Rainbow of Doom.  You may be sitting under blue skies enjoying a cool drink and soaking the late afternoon sunshine when you see it, looming on the horizon.  The Rainbow of Doom and it’s accompanying rain shower.  You can see it closing on you, with a following curtain of shimmering rain as it moves across the mountains and hills, over the bay, and towards your comfortable spot.

Sure it’s pretty, quite gorgeous against the verdant hillsides.  But you better make sure your hatches are battened!

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Sint Maarten Yacht Club

On Feb 18th, 2013 Published By B.J.


We joined another yacht club!

One of the sad things about leaving our home in Rhode Island was leaving the East Greenwich Yacht Club where we’d been members for many years.  I’d served on the board in various capacities, our kids had spent years in the junior sailing program, and we had lots of friends and many fond memories.  But when it came time to leave it just didn’t make sense to pay dues on a club we wouldn’t set foot in for years so we had to say our good byes there, too.

We don’t quite have the same connection to the Sint Maarten Yacht Club, and it’s a bit different than the EGYC.  Physically smaller, but perhaps socially larger.  Annually the club hosts the Sint Maarten Heinekin Regatta near the beginning of March, which is known globally in the sailing community as a world class sailing event.  We’ll be gone from St. Martin by then though, so more important to us is the Junior Sailing program and Happy Hour!

ar The club bar and restaurant is open to the public and has a nice happy hour every night from 4:00-6:00.  Discounted drinks and appetizers are nice, but what makes happy hour in this yachtie bar really cool is the bridge.  The Yacht Club is situated right next to the largest opening into Simpson Bay, and any yacht of decent size or deep draft that wants in to the bay must come through here.  The bridge only opens three times per day for boats going in and out (total of six times), and one of those is at 5:30 p.m. – right in the middle of happy hour. 

When the bridge opens every night you are treated to a stately procession of boats, ranging from small sailboats to gigantic mega yachts, all gliding through the bridge opening in an orderly row.  By 5:30 of course the Happy Hour crowd is…happy!  So the cooler boats, and those that blow their really loud horns or have cheerful people on board are greeted with hails and cheers from the crowd on the club deck.

While the 10% discount on our bar tab is nice the real reason to join had more to do with the kids.  The SMYC has a Junior Sailing program, and members get to use the boats as well.  For our kids, and in particular for our son, this was an ideal situation.  They get a chance to meet some other sailors, and sail some more exciting boats like Lasers or RS Invisions.  Will in particular has spent a lot of time at the club, taking some of the (discounted for members!) Junior Sailing classes, and getting invited to sail in some local regattas.  Heaven, for a kid like him.

One of the toughest things to give up was the Junior Sailing program at our old yacht club; it is a wonderful program and both of our children have had some of their best experiences growing up there.  The people that run SMYC are smart, they’ve created a membership class that makes sense for people like us, who are only transitory here, but still want to have a small bit of belonging!

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Will crewing on an RS Invision
Posted in Good Times, Jr. Sailing, Sint Maarten, Yacht Clubs | 1 Comment

Marigot & St. Martin

On Feb 18th, 2013 Published By B.J.

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Saint Martin (or Sint Maarten) is in unusual place, in that it is a single island of not too great of a size that is split in two between two countries.

The local legend is that a Frenchman took a bottle of wine and a Dutchman a bottle of gin, and agreed to walk the island and split it in two where they met.  Supposedly the Dutch side is smaller because of the gin…
The French side of St. Martin is a French protectorate, essentially a part of France.  Which I am very grateful for as I’ve always been a bit of a Francophile with an inordinate fondness for crusty baguettes, flavorful cheese, escargot and of course full bodies dry wines.  All of which are readily available on the French side of the island.

The principle town on the French side is Marigot, pictured above from the top of Fort Louis.  There is a curving open harbor, and a town full of restaurants and cafes with a couple of decent bakeries, an open air market, hotels, and French Groceries.

My parents decided to catch up with us in St. Martin, and we suggested they base operations on the French side.  By reputation the French side is where you eat, the Dutch side is where you shop.  This seems to be pretty true.  My parents took a hotel for the first few days of their stay which proved fortunate as we ended up taking longer to get to St. Martin than we expected.

When we arrived we picked my parents up and brought them to the boat.  The weather was expected to be nice, except for a large Northerly swell that was coming in from a weather system in the North Atlantic.  That broad crescent shaped harbor is open to the North, and it was expected that there would be large waves and rolls coming directly in to the harbor.  It was a wise move to the Fort Louis Marina which is inside the curved sea wall you can see in the picture above.  We ordinarily don’t do marinas (for a lot of reasons) but with my parents on board and us not really sure of the layout of the area it seemed prudent.  So to the marina it was to wait out the swells and explore Marigot.

There is a lot to like in Marigot.  Breakfast daily meant a trip to Sarafina, a local bakery (or boulangerie) where the croissants, pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants), and baguettes are all to die for.  Kathy and I were reminded of our visits to France where we visited the boulangeries daily and lived on baguettes, cheese and wine for half of our meals.  Dinner most nights we went looking for a nice French brasserie or cafe – really good French cooking in a casual setting; more reasonable than a more formal restaurant on price but the food is still outstanding.

By the end of this my children are now also committed Francophiles.  Will is now willing to try any sauce a French chef will stick in front of him and my escargots are no longer safe from Danielle.  Much to my chagrin.  The impact is surprising though, it’s interesting to see my children order things in a restaurant they’ve never tried – like duck – and enjoy it, and it’s amusing to take Will to the cheese counter in the French grocery and pick out some of the “more intimidating” looking cheeses.

When the swells let up it was time to leave the marina and do a bit of exploring.  We sailed to nearby Grand Case, a small former fishing village that has morphed into one of the gastronomic centers of the island.  Our timing was poor though, on Tuesdays Grand Case has a “Mardi Gras” every week, where they close off the main street and have street performers, food, and music.  We were not there on Tuesday, unfortunately.  We really didn’t get to give Grand Case a chance to showcase it’s strengths for a few reasons, but partly because we couldn’t see clear to go into the much more expensive restaurants after so much great dining in Marigot. 

After Grand Case we headed to Anguilla for the weekend, then returned with my parents to Marigot, where they had a hotel room awaiting them for the last few days of their stay.

Although we’ve seen more of the island since then, including the Dutch side, the “lagoon”, and some of Marigot’s Carnivale those are all subjects for another post!

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Posted in Good Food, Good Times, St. Martin | Comments Off on Marigot & St. Martin