The Martins(Maarten)

The Martins/Maarten

A little like landing in paradise and returning to a more familiar cruising world – we dropped our anchor in Marigot Bay in French Saint Martin about 17 hours after leaving Virgin Gorda.  Since we are a SLOW trawler – to cover the 95 miles from the mooring field off Spanish Town where we cleared out of the British Virgins to St Martin’s Marigot Bay, we needed to travel at night.  This allowed us to both leave and arrive with good light.

First a couple words about that clearing in and out process.  Fortunately, in the USA we now have a very easy process that uses an APP called ROAM. So, go into the US territories of Puerto Rico and the US Virgins is easy.  The British Virgins, however, require a face to face stop at one of the limited locations that they staff for very limited hours each day to complete the paperwork and pay the appropriate fees. Clearing out is necessary both for the BVI and also since often the next country may require this paperwork to process clearing in! So, Steve made a run in to see the officials at the office in Spanish Town to get our paperwork in order, then he came back to take a short nap before we headed out.

The weather did mostly cooperate. It was not flat, but given our easterly heading against the prevailing current and winds, we were glad to see moderate seas that even flattened a bit as the night went on.  Although we did not see much traffic, we were by no means alone.  At least three big (1000ft plus) cruise ships passed us heading west and a couple joined us for the last hours heading east. Happily, they are well lite up and are visible more than ten miles away. All the cruise ship traffic should have foreshadowed the crowds on some of these islands!)

Arrival in Marigot Bay is straight forward – even in this busy harbor, it is easy to find a spot to drop the hook. There are no obstacles to avoid so navigation is not tricky – a welcome relief after traveling overnight.  Even taking shifts – we are a little sleep deprived on arrival, so our first activity is usually a nap!

Second on the agenda was to officially clear into St Martin.  We dinked into the shore and walked to the Island Water World store to use their computer to complete the paperwork for a $2 fee.  The most difficult part was finding the correct place names in French from the drop-down menu.  Of course, after a few struggles, Steve pointed out the clearly posted BOLD cheat sheet in English, which my sleep deprived brain missed. (who knew that the French for BVI was Virgenes Angeleter?) What is not to love about all things French? Lunch to feed our hungry stomachs was in a chic lagoon side eatery called “Enjoy”. We could have been anywhere in the south of France with the attention to quality and presentation. Then there was a walk through the Super U grocery store with a vast selection of wines, cheeses and all manner of delicacies to tempt our appetites. (A good place to go on a full stomach) Quite a change from the basic choices in beach hot spots of the BVI more interested in selling rum drinks than food.

One of our excursions in St Martin was the monthly nautical flea market. While the wide variety of offerings contained nothing on our list, I was able to get a haircut complete with an Irish Coffee.

The ruins of Fort Louis overlook the harbor and made a nice walk to work off the obligatory stops at the bakery. While the “market” along the dock seemed full of imported touristy items for the cruise ship mobs, it did provide a colorful accent to balance the sad destruction of much of the old part of Marigot.  This area took a direct hit in 2017 and suffered extensive damage much of which has yet to be repaired. 

Moving around to the south side of the island we headed to the Dutch territory and checked in to Sint Maarten. Here the repairs were well advanced and only a few reminders of the hurricanes remained. Although we had visited the Island Water World store on the French side, we also stopped at the main showroom on the Dutch side.  This plus the Budget Marine store rival any marine store we have ever visited explaining why many mega yachts spend a good part of the season in this harbor and several good yards do excellent repair work. 

anchored off Simpson - a mega, mega yacht

We anchored in Simpson Bay which was fortunately calm in the northerly winds and explored by dink the famous Lagoon, of course finding more bakeries and grocery stores.

However, seeing some calm weather we headed over to our next country!

passing the cruise ships on our departure.....