Sint Maartin

Hi everyone,

We spent nearly four weeks in Sint Maartin.  Don't know where the time went!  Tis a very social place and boasts the best chandleries in the Caribbean.  It's also duty-free.  We had a great time.

One of many superyachts at St Maartin

We spent most of the time anchored in the lagoon.  Doing so gets you out of rolly Simpson Bay but the wind funnels around the hills to produce gusty conditions.  It's also a plane-watcher's paradise as aircraft from little bug-smashers to Boeings and Airbuses thunder 500' overhead all day.  A trip to Maho Beach to have them do the same at 100' is a must!

Entering the lagoon

Passing St Maartin Yacht Club

Our time was split between boat jobs and socialising.  The boat jobs included getting a quote for a holding tank.  Sounds easy but took a fortnight and then the quote was twice the price of the original verbal estimate.  So no holding tank for a little while longer.  We did manage to arrange shipment of 5 years-worth of engine consummables (filters, impellers, V-belts etc) from the UK.  No Craftsman engine dealers in this part of the world.  The UK dealer Cheshire Marine found a means of shipping via Fedex at half the nominal Fedex rate.

The package arrived within a week at Business Point in Lagoon Marina.  Business Point is a DHL agent and accepts all parcels for cruisers for a small fee.  Very good service.  The Lagoonies bar & cafe nearby is a popular rendezvous point for cruisers.  It has a dinghy dock which is very convenient for visits to Island Water World and Budget Marine, although both chandleries have their own dinghy docks.  Lagoonies is also close to electrical equipment store Electec.

View from Lagoonies Bar & Cafe

Other popular rendezvous spots for cruisers are the St Maartin Yacht Club next to the lagoon bridge and the Soggy Dollar Bar about 200m W of the bridge.  Both have dinghy docks.

Fuel and water are available at Island Water World.  IWW hosts cruising talks every few weeks with free beer and t-shirts.  We attended talks on marine diesel engines and fishing at sea.  The latter also featured demo inflations of several liferafts.  Water can also be delivered to your boat in the lagoon by Bisqetin (aka "Biscuit Tin").  The cruiser's net at 0730 on VHF 10 announces all these events and services.

Island Water World and Budget Marine seem to stock complementary brands in some areas.  For example one stocks Harken and the other Ronstan.  Budget Marine's building also hosts a Raymarine agent which seemed quite well stocked.

Sunset in the lagoon

Another place with a dinghy dock (kinda) is Port de Plaisance, a resort on the N side of the lagoon, just E of the causeway.  They offer weekly visitor passes at US$20/person which gives access to their gym, pool, showers and wifi.  We visited the pool several times a week which was indeed pleasant.

One aspect in which Sint Maartin is poor is internet coverage.  The local carrier is very expensive.  The French side carriers are more affordable but their coverage of the Dutch side is unsurprisingly poor.  We signed up for a Digicel contract which is supposed to cover much of the eastern Caribbean, unlike their pre-paid SIMs which are said not to roam well.

The pool at Port de Plaisance

During our stay we spent time with Aussie sv Kynic at Lagoon Marina.  We met them in Antigua where they purchased their boat.  They came to St Maartin to have more work done on the boat to prepare for their voyage home.  Gave them a hand with their SeaTalkNG (NMEA2000) network, AIS, VHF and SSB, plus a demo of SignalK capabilities.  We also met Aussie svs Expedition, Celeste, Medea and Double Shot - mostly at the Soggy Dollar!

Also during our stay our friends on New Zealand sv Cerulean visited for a few days.  We took them on a tour of the island which was a lot of fun.

Kiwi sv Cerulean arriving

The Kiwis are coming!

Exploring the island

Sidestreet in Philipsburg

Philipsburg Courthouse

With the departure of the Ceruleans and the arrival of our engine spares we needed only to wait for a weather window for our last windward passage of the season.  Happily one came along a week later.  The afternoon before departure we cleared out and left the lagoon to spend our last night in Simpson Bay anchorage.  Very rolly but it allowed us to dive on the boat to clean the prop in clearer water prior to departure.

Lined up to exit the lagoon

Our time in St Maartin felt like a holiday.  Anchored in flat water and lots of socialising.  Now to explore more of the eastern Caribbean!

Trust all's well where you are.

British Virgin Islands to Sint Maartin

Hi everyone,

We're now anchored in Simpson's Bay in Sint Maartin.  The passage was unlikely to be fun given it was directly into the usual trade winds.  We appeared to have a weather window which would see moderate ESE winds swing ENE.  In the event they did pretty much the opposite!

BVI departure

Enjoying Soper's Hole

Here's our track and graphs..

Track

Graphs

Here are the vital stats for the passage…

    • Distances/Speeds

        • Route Distance = 120nm

        • Logged Distance = 124nm

        • GPS Distance = 126nm

        • Duration = 28h

        • Average boat speed = 4.4 kt

        • Average speed over ground = 4.5 kt

        • Minimum boat speed = 4 kt

        • Maximum boat speed = 6 kt

    • Weather

        • Minimum wind speed = 6 kt

        • Average wind speed = 10 kt

        • Maximum wind speed = gusts to 22 kt

        • Apparent wind angle range = 20 to 80

        • Seas up to 1m

        • Swell up to 1m

        • Bands of clouds with regular rain showers.

    • Engine

        • Total = 20h

We had a marvellous sail from Soper's Hole across the top of Tortola to Anageda in SE winds.  At Anageda the winds turned abruptly NE and lightened to 6-8 knots.  That left us in a sloppy sea and little wind.  So the motor went on.

The rest of the passage was motor-sailing with the wind about 20 degrees off the port bow.  The wind slowly veered, eventually to nearly SE.  We had to keep a sharp lookout for fishing pots in all shallow water - there were a lot of them!

Simpson's Bay

It was good to arrive in Sint Maartin and turn off the engine.  Before departure we had completed online EHAS applications and received pre-approvals.  Both being vaccinated and boosted no Covid test was required.

Checking in was simple.  The police/immigration office is on the W side of the channel to the lifting bridge into the lagoon.  We secured our dinghy between two ferries immediately short of the bridge.  From there it's a 50m walk to the office.  Two forms to fill out, show the emailed EHAS pre-approvals, and pay the anchorage fees (US$20/week) and you're in.

Since arriving we've revisited Lagoonies bar and discovered the Port de Plaisance resort.  At the latter US$20/week buys use of their dinghy dock, pool, gym, showers and wifi.  Guess where we are right now!

Trust all's well where you are.

BVIs Week 3

Hi everyone,

Our third week in the British Virgin Islands saw us exploring the north side of Tortola and the Jost Van Dyke (JVD) islands.  We ended up at Soper's Hole (aka West End) where we cleared out.

View from Foxy's Taboo bar on JVD

Moving short distances between anchorages made us a little lazy about recording our tracks.  Below are the tracks we captured...

Partial Week 3 Tracks

From Lee Bay on Great Camanoe Island we motor-sailed the short distance to White Bay on Guana Island.  We anchored in about 12m over sand N of the mooring balls.  Using our WiFi Extender we could access the internet via the password-free resort WiFi.  Very nice!

White Bay has some nice coral regrowing on the reefs inshore of the mooring balls.  Monkey Point to the south was a well-known snorkelling spot but strong winds made it unattractive during our stay.  We spent two nights at anchor here.

View towards JVD from Guana Island

From Guana Island we sailed W to Diamond Cay off JVD island.  We anchored off Little JVD in a 10m 'hole' over sand.  The anchorage gave surprisingly good protection from ESE winds.  And we were well clear of the moorings further W.

Rainbow at anchor off Little VJD island

It was a short dinghy ride to JVD.  We tied up at Foxy's Taboo dinghy dock.  From there it's a 15 minute walk to the Bubbly Pool.  Seas funnel through a narrow gap into a pool, with each producing a literally bubbly rush of water.  Certainly worth the walk to experience.

Foxy's Taboo bar on JVD

The Bubbly Pool on JVD

At the Bubbly Pool

Back at Foxy's Taboo we had a cool drink before dinghying across to the B-Line bar on Little JVD.  This is a much smaller bar and we each had one of their rum punches.  The bar is covered in boat and crew names - all dating from after the recent hurricanes.  Zen Again is there on the roof and on the leg of one of the benches.

At the B-Line Bar on Little JVD

Decorations welcomed - and we're from down-under

From Diamond Cay we motored the short distance to Great Harbour on the S coast of JVD.  We tried anchoring but found only rubble.  After a week anchoring we were content to take a mooring.  They're all US$30/night.

We dinghied ashore to explore.  We tied up at Foxy's Bar dinghy dock.  We walked all around the periphery of the bay to the ferry dock and marina.  We returned to the famous Foxy's bar for lunch.  Lots of boat names all over the structure, nice drinks and very good food too.

JVD taxi

Foxy's Bar at Great Harbour, JVD

Zen Again at Great Harbour, JVD

We spent only one night at Great Harbour.  From there we motor-sailed across to Soper's Hole on the west end of Tortola.  We cleared out there in 2016 for Bermuda and it was good to return.  We took a mooring between the marina and the Customs/Immigration office.  We spent the afternoon rewatering and provisioning at the Harbour Market supermarket.

Throughout our time in the BVIs we had been reviewing our plan for the rest of 2022.  Two weeks in we discovered the US Embassy in Nassau's visa waiting time had blown out from 43 to 99 days.  Emailing them resulted in our understanding the waiting time was optimistic for third nation citizens.

We certainly don't want to end up 1000nm to leeward of alternative places to spend the hurricane season.  So we took the sad decision to give up on visiting the US this year.  We decided to head E to Sint Maartin and cruise S to Grenada where we'll spend the hurricane season.  Such a shame to miss out on the Bahamas and the US east coast.

Soper's Hole

We spent two nights at Soper's Hole watching a developing weather window for our passage to Sint Maartin.  By then we'd accepted our decision and were looking forward to exploring south.  But first we needed to work our way 80nm east into the trades.

It was great to visit the BVIs again.