The last I wrote we were in the US Virgin Islands with the plan to re-enter the British Virgin Islands while waiting for a weather window to St. Maarten (or St Martin if you're on the French side). Well, we found our weather and made it to St Maarten without issue. We left after dinner and sailed overnight for an early morning arrival. We anchored in Simpson Bay to clear in to St Maarten and then found a good spot in the Simpson Bay Lagoon to anchor.
Simpson Bay Lagoon is a great place to anchor if there's a big swell from the north, which is what we've had for the past 2 weeks. Those lovely snowstorms have rolled off the US east coast and have been sending us 8 - 12 foot swells from the north. Not so good to anchor out in the bays. Can you people please keep your nasty weather to yourselves?
So, we're here in the Lagoon, which we had thought would be a great place to hang out. It has been pretty convinent and at first very cool, but the shine has worn off and we're ready to get the heck out of here. You might have caught that from Jen's last post. ;)
The lagoon has the advantage of being well protected from any waves as it is 100% land locked, accessible through only two very narrow canals. It is about 1 mile in diameter and hosts at least a hundred boats. It also has a very busy airport which really detracts form the nice quiet Caribbean anchorage mojo. The other big issue is that it is a land locked lagoon with over a hundred boats... with no pump-out facilities... but the poo has to go SOMEWHERE! So, let's just say the lagoon doesn't provide the relaxing afternoon swimming venue we are used to. Jen's been calling it poo-water, which isn't too far off.
So given the less than pristine quality of the water, we don't use our watermaker and instead I haul water from shore in the dingy in 5 gallon jugs. We have four, and it takes several trips to fill the tanks. Well, something has to fill up the day, and the sun is shining and the view is cool. In fact, we're anchored just off of Witch's Tit. Got to love the salty sailors who named things back in the 1700's. No politically correct silliness then! Oh, and if you're wondering, it's a fair description.
So while we're on the topic of things that aren't great about this anchorage, well, all the nitrogen in the water from the boat effluent has encouraged a robust growth of weeds, which are NOT conducive to secure anchoring or restful nights when the wind pipes up. We have dragged anchor and watched many other boats drag in our stay here. We seem to have a good stick now and as a precaution, we used our engines to test the anchor today after a wind shift to ensure we're still well stuck.
On the positive side, it is a very cool place to be. This is a duty free port with very well stocked marine supply stores, which we needed. I purchased over 200 feet of line to replace line chafed badly during the passage from the US, a worn main halyard clutch wedge that I thought I was unlikely to replace before returning to the US (also damaged during the passage) and lots of miscellaneous stuff that comes up.
More interestingly, with the French and Dutch influences here, the bread, pastries, quiche, deli meats and cheese here are amazing and we're doing our best to sample it all. Morning dingy excursions to the patisserie for croissants and quiche for breakfast, grabbing fantastic stinky cheeses and fresh crispy breads for lunch and snacks... They have the good stuff here! During Quinn's naps we've taken to leaving the cheese and bread on the galley counter while we play cribbage so that we don't eat too much of it. In between hands we "get some exercise" to go scarf another bite of great stinky cheese, prosciutto and bread. Yum!
We took a $1 taxi ride to the other side of the island to hit a CostCo lookalike to pick up two more water jugs and some other goodies we needed (and could fit in our laps in the taxi-van on the way back). Nice system here - $1 per person per ride as far as you want to go, but the taxi-van stops whenever someone wants on or off so it's more like a bus ride. Works great.
We've taken the dingy across the lagoon to the French side several times. No customs required as long as you've cleared in with either the Dutch or French. We've explored a hilltop fort from the early 1800's built to protect the anchorage from the British privateers, eaten in some yummy restaurants, and explored the street markets. Lots of fun there. There is a great anchorage there in Marigot Bay, but is exposed to the swell from the north, so we haven't moved there as we had hoped to.
We look forward to returning without the northerly swells and being able to anchor in the coastal bays. Meanwhile, we're planning our crossing over to Antigua, which is about 90 nm ESE from here. We hope to leave Wednesday.
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