Caribbean Meets the Riviera?

Before moving on to Ilet Pinel on the east coast of St. Martin we were treated to one more beautiful sunset at Marigot - I never get tired of this!

Not that it was intentional, but according to sailor lore, it is bad luck to start a passage on a Friday. Of course there's that whole thing about having women aboard a ship too that we threw out long ago. Regardless, it was now Saturday morning and the winds looked great for the 15 miles to St. Bart's so we set off having whiled away our Friday on Pinel.

St. Bart's in the distance, beckoning us forward over benign seas.

There are lots of rocky outcroppings around St. Bart's that we had to keep our eyes on. It didn't seem to matter what tack we chose, we had to adjust course around big and small mounds of rock.

There are two main anchorages in St. Bart's, the town anchorage at Gustavia and the bay on the northern tip of the island called Anse de Colombier. We chose Colombier where there are free mooring balls and no anchorage fees, even though from there to Gustavia is a two mile trip in the dinghy.

All checked in at the Capitainerie, we were free to wander through the town. Gustavia is one of those places we've heard so much about and seen loads of pictures, but it really is the prettiest little town we've seen down here. Incredibly neat and tidy, not a speck of litter and loads of historical interest. The island has an interesting history of having been owned by the French, been a pirate and smuggling hangout, given to the Swedes, played a part in the American Revolution as a supply hub and then finally sold back to the French. Today the island plays host to the most well-heeled glitz and glamour and the high-end shops on every corner can well attest to the coin that is spent here each season. However, we have arrived in low season, and - on a Saturday. Only tomorrow will be quieter.

We wandered around town, getting a feel for the little streets and their historic buildings that surround the harbour in a deep U shape, but still manage to follow an organized grid pattern. Many of the buildings are tagged with historical plaques outlining their importance in the town's story and a short climb up the hill provided beautiful views out over the surrounding waters.

One of the old forts that once protected the town from marauding privateers was Fort Oscar, that now houses the local police station.

The Collective refers to the overseas territories of France.

Within the grounds of the Hotel de la Collective were a collection of the most whimsical sculptures. No captions or names to the works so I will leave these to your imagination.

This one's for Caitlin & Jamie!

Wall House - interestingly this building that dates back to the early 1800s and now houses a museum (closed for the season) and a library, has never revealed it's original purpose be it warehouse, residence or public meeting hall.

The Wooden House, and early prefabricated house, and the Brick House, home of a Swedish merchant.

The Anglican Church was actually open for visitors - an unusual sight in the Caribbean.

Simple and austere, but quite beautiful inside.

Another view of one of the shopping streets - this one with cobblestones to enhance the allure.

But Madame, what type of balsamic vinegar do you prefer?

Much of the town is built into the hillsides surrounding the harbour so as you walk away from the water there are choices of steeply inclined lanes or well manicured steps and shopping galleries.

How often can you look back down the street though and catch a glimps of a ship under full sail glide by, or catch a Frenchman scratching his butt? So classy!

We loved Gustavia and will be back tomorrow for another day of exploration, this time a little farther outside the town limits.

Harnessing the Wind

Back in October we added four flexible solar panels to Mowzer with a total of 345 watts.  On a clear sunny day these panels can push up to 18 amps into our batteries and with a house battery bank of 500 amp hours, even with the fridge & freezer running we can get our batteries topped up by the afternoon.

However, on a cloudy day we just don't make it, and after about 4pm the solar panels can't keep up and we run to the negative overnight.  We've found that to avoid dropping too low, we turn off the freezer overnight (don't worry, it stays nice and cold - our ice is still in cubes in the morning) and have to resort to running our gas-powered generator for an hour each evening.

While this is a whole lot better than having to run our engines for three to four hours a day, we'd still like to be a bit more independent of the whole fossil fuel / noise thing.

Here enters the thoughts on wind generators.  Believe me we have pondered this one up and down, backwards and forwards, and listened to countless solicited (and unsolicited) opinions on this topic.  We've also cruised around every anchorage we've been in with our dinghy, checking out the various models and mounting options.

It quickly became apparent to us that along with efficiency, noise is a super important consideration.  We have sat next to some pretty noisy wind generators in various anchorages and can't imagine having that noise on the boat.  Isn't the whole purpose of being out here to try to gain some tranquility?  The noise of the wind in the rigging can be deafening some nights so we didn't want to add the angry whine of a turbine.

Our various forms of research landed us on the D400 - made in the U.K. by Eclectic Energy.    The unit runs almost silently, has good efficiency and great reviews both online and from those that we met that have it installed on their boats.

Once we'd chosen our wind gen, the next step was to figure out how we were going to mount the 17 kg (37 lb) beast.  We arrived in St. Martin with the goal of finding a stainless steel tubing fabricator who could build us a pole to hold the wind generator incorporated with a safer stern rail at the back of the boat; the current setup of three stanchions and some rather corroded steel wire needed an update.

After a bit of a hunt, we found Best Boat Yard at Bobby's Marina could do the work for us in the time we have on the island and so we arrived at the dock for the work to commence on Thursday.  By Friday afternoon, the old stanchions had been removed and the new rail and pole installed, with just an angled brace and some polishing to be finished on Monday morning.  Henry has assembled the wind generator and spent many hours in the engine room setting up the wiring which includes a regulator to control the voltage arriving at the batteries, and a diversion load which spills off any excess amperage in the form of heat (just what we need in the tropics.)

D400 (face down) assembled on the cockpit table - no outdoor dinner tonight!

Off with the old - Curtis cutting off the old stanchions so he could use the existing bases.

On with the new - drilling another hole in the boat for the wire to pass through the base of the pole and into the engine room where the battery bank resides.

All one unit with the pole in the foreground and the rail wrapping around the back of the boat to the other steps in the background.

The new rail at the side of the sugarscoop makes it much safer up and down the steps and also getting into the engine compartment.

The solid rail replaces the wire lifeline we had at the back of the boat.  Along with safety, we can now mount our BBQ a bit more out of the wind back here.

And there we have it!  The wind generator is installed and Henry's putting away our shore cord.

From now on we'll be checking to see if we're closer to breaking even with our power generation vs. power consumption in a 24 hour period.  The addition of the D400 should put us that much closer!

A Different View of Sint Maarten

Hooray!  We've found a fabricator that can build the stainless rail and pole we'd like to install at the back of the boat.  We've been making the rounds of the various businesses and while it's great to see that everyone is very busy, between those that can't be bothered with our little job and those who are imminently going on vacation, we were thrilled to find the good folks at Best Boat Services who have fit us into their schedule.  With this good news we made arrangements to move to Philipsburg at the south end of Sint Maarten and pulled up to the dock at Bobby's Marina where we would get the work done.  Next post will go into the details of the fabrication, but in the meantime, we have taken the opportunity to explore this end of the island that to be honest, we have avoided in the past.

Before leaving the lagoon and our spot in the anchorage at the end of the airport runway, I snapped a couple of shots of the biggest plane that lands here regularly.  The KLM 747 is well-known by those who haunt Maho beach at the other end of the runway (for it's blast on take-off), but it sure makes a racket as it lands and then takes off directly over our heads as well.

Just landed and taxi-ing back to the terminal.  Makes our little sailboats look teeny!

It's amazing how quickly the plane clears overhead on takeoff - hardly time to grab the camera before it is among the clouds.

 Wednesday morning saw us paying our final lagoon fee ($20/week) and preparing for the 10:30am bridge opening.  As we were waiting for the bridge to raise, this cruiser passed us - such a typical view in the anchorage but I loved the t-shirt.

"My Dog is my Co-Pirate" - and this furry fellow loved his dinghy rides!

The outgoing parade past the bridge - all the while being urged to "move along" by the bridge operator.

The lagoon exits into Simpson Bay on the west side of the island.  From the lagoon there is a very clearly marked channel with an anchorage to the east.  The coast guard came whipping out of the lagoon behind us and started blipping their siren at this boat whom we were all carefully steering around.  They take infringements on the channel very seriously since the rest of the bay is quite shallow for the big boats that are heading for the lagoon.

Do not hang your butt out into the channel or you will very quickly have a visitor.

From the lagoon to Great Bay at Philipsburg is only five miles but in that distance we were treated to quite a display of boats out enjoying the 'fresh' breezes - it was blowing well over 20 knots and the seas were running about 6-8'.  The camera always flattens the waves.

The Island Water World team was out practicing - right after I took this they actually flew one hull out of the water.

Canada 1 and Stars & Stripes are two 12 meter America's Cup racers - from the old days when America's Cup boats still looked like traditional sailboats.  These two boats now operate as day sailers for tourists looking for an incredible adrenaline rush.  We altered course as Canada 1 crossed our path, well heeled over in the breeze.

This gives an idea of the size of the waves.

Hang on - this could be a wet ride!

Quite exhilarating to watch these boats in action.

A hull-model of Canada 1 - showing what lies below the waterline to keep all that sail and rig upright.

Philipsburg is the main town on the Dutch side of the island and the main business down here is operating as a cruise port.  At the moment there has only been one cruise ship a day but the docks here, as in Charlotte Amalie, can accommodate many of these behemoths a day in high season.  The unique aspect of Philipsburg is that the entire waterfront is a broad sandy beach lined with a wide boardwalk and various bars and restaurants.  All of the harbour operations are relegated to the eastern edge of the bay which is where we sit in the marina.

Little Mowzer at the dock, massive cruise ship in the background.

Our view of Philipsburg and the beach.

Although we had moved down to Philipsburg we had made arrangements to meet up with Paul & Cheryl from Distant Shores for dinner back at Simpson Bay.  Off we went on the bus for a great get-together over shawarma and then on our return trip we learned a new island greeting.  It is habit when getting on the bus to greet your driver and fellow passengers with a cheery, "Good morning/afternoon/evening."  What we didn't know is that at night-time you greet everyone with, "Good night."  We were so confused when the first passenger said this on her entry - our ears are so tuned to "good night" as a farewell.  Many after the first repeated the greeting so now we are adding it to our new vocabulary.

Today, Saturday, we headed out for a walk in search of some foam to soften up our 'hard-as-rock' cockpit cushions.  We set off before the cruise ship passengers had disembarked which meant that for the first part of our walk along the waterfront we enjoyed a hassle-free stroll, as the vendors were just getting set up at the early hour.  Later in the day, expect entreaties to 'buy', 'eat', 'drink', or 'ride'.  One fellow asked us if we wanted a ride to visit one of the famous beaches which we politely declined.  On our return, he remembered us and immediately put down his placard, commenting to us that we weren't from the ship - we had a good laugh with him over not needing his services to get to the hardware store.

The marina has a Venetian feeling with this bridge over a little canal that leads to the dinghy dock.

The eastern end of the beach fringed with palm trees and cafes.

There are very few dogs wandering around P'burg, this one was a regular we've met up with a number of times now.

The beach, before all the chairs and umbrellas have been set up for the day.

We were successful in finding our foam, and then hit the grocery store where I found a couple more creatively labelled bottles, both of which had me wondering the market they are targeting.

For men:  drink this and you'll look like this guy?
For women:  drink this and you'll be attractive to guys like this?

For men:  drink this and you'll ...???
For women:  drink this and you'll get what you've always wanted to try?  oh my!

We're surprisingly enjoying our time in Philipsburg, now that we've figured out our way around the town.  There are four or five streets running parallel to the beach:  Front Street is where all the high-end jewelry and electronics stores are targeting the cruise ship passengers, next comes Back Street with various 'bargain' clothing and food stores.  The next two streets are named for locals (with two initials) and this is where we find the local scene - schools, churches, little department stores and mini-markets.  I've come to the conclusion that these are more our style.

Getting Things Done in SXM

This little island of St. Martin/Sint Maarten offers up so much to the cruiser.  It the best place to buy stuff for the boat and services abound from fabrication, installation, cleaning, painting, repairing and many more services I probably can't even think of.  On top of that you can find any food or beverage to suit your taste - flown in direct from France or other European delights along with all the tastes of North American home.  The prices aren't bad making it a great place to provision.

What makes SXM so special though is that it is a convergent point for cruisers, especially at this time of the year.  Many folks, and I can't stress just how many, are heading south to Grenada or Trinidad for the hurricane season.  They arrived in Sint Maarten in time for carnival and are now departing the anchorages for the next set of islands to the south - St. Barth's, St. Eustatia, St. Kitts & Nevis, and Montserrat.  There's a whole other set of cruisers, and this group is growing as the first group shrinks, that are preparing for a much longer voyage across the Atlantic to the Azores.  This trip could take two to three weeks and in crossing such a large body of water, this is a great place to get the rig checked and do all the prep work that is required, not to mention filling all the cupboards and bilges with food for the crew.

We spent our first week here in a whirlwind of social activity.  To put it in context, we arrived on April 24th, well over a week ago, and it was only last night on May 4th that we actually ate a dinner for just the two of us onboard - yikes!  At one point there were well over a dozen boats in the anchorage that we know and with everyone getting together to catch up, it meant that the round of social events from happy hour drinks, to dinner at a restaurant, to the dinghy drift a couple of nights ago almost needed an event planner to keep track of everything.

Time for a detox!

Now we have switched into the mode that we need to wind up our shopping, do some last groceries and finalize arrangements to get a bit of work done on the boat.  We have decided to add a wind generator for a little boost in power making ability and with it we are going to beef up the railing at the back of the boat as a safety feature.  To get this done we are going to be departing the Simpson Lagoon and moving down to the marina in Philipsburg - right beside the cruise ship docks for those that have been there.

With the winds gusting in the 25-30 knot range, we can't wait to get the wind generator installed.  This has been our beautiful view in the lagoon for the last 10 days.

So, in our final wanderings around the lagoon shops here are just a sampling of some of the fun sightings we have made.

Yes - that does say Chicken Paws... huh?

We know meat is expensive here, especially if it is not chicken or pork, but this just seemed outrageous.  Then we realized that the price was in Netherlands Antilles Florins at an exchange rate of 1.8 to the dollar.  Still outrageous!

Scotch always has such interesting names - still not sure I want to try either of these.  Are they any good?

Helping us navigate the market the other day, and then gracious hosts on their boat, we've enjoyed sharing the anchorage with Paul & Cheryl on Distant Shores.