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Sint Maarten
By Alex | January 20, 2009
I’ve been queasy a fair few times on the boat. Usually as I’ve tended to stay below as we set off, slaving over a hot stove, feasting on the luscious aroma of meths vapour, selflessly struggling to keep my composure whilst trying to mash garlic and chop onions at forty five degrees (that’s the heel of the boat, not the temperature - that would be ridiculous) so as to ensure that the hungry crew are fed and mutiny kept at bay for the next little while. ‘They’ say ’tis best to stay on deck for the first few hours until you get accustomed to life at sea once again and this I did as we left the BVIs for St Maarten but beating into 25 knots of wind with an 8 foot swell was too much and after a while I was leaning over the side singing to the seven seas. That’s about it so far as the crossing is concerned - 90 miles, over night, into the wind - bring back the 2 hour sails around the BVIs!
We’d seen a few superyachts but this was mental - megayacht city. The amount of cash kicking ’round Simpson Bay was staggering - motor yachts that must have been over 200′, one with its own helicopter, dwarfed sailing yachts that made our boat look like a 1/50 scale model of a Fischer-Price ‘My first ever really really small toy boat’. Not that I ever maintained that I had a particularly big one but this was crazy.
We stayed for about five days. Ewan windsurfed a little, Duncan and I helped Duncan Snr (Ewan’s dad) rescue a boat whose anchor was dragging (that wasn’t so far from some of the $10,000,000 +++ boats), and Catherine insisted on helping us out with boat work even though she was on holiday - thanks Catherine. We hired cars and drove around the island taking in more beautiful beaches and feasting on good bread and cheese and $5 Orangina on the French side of the island. Duncan (Jr) and I took a moment to escape and partook of popcorn and aircon in the generic multiplex cinema whilst watching a particularly unmemorable film, but most importantly, we found where the party was at!
Christmas eve started out fairly quietly and we were all quite tired and not really in the party mood. After wandering ’round a few bars we were quite surprised at how quiet the place was considering the number of boats there and therefore the number of crew that must be about, not to mention the locals. There were lots of people at ‘Soggy Dollar’ and so we had a few beers and more for its medicinal and purported ‘mood lifting qualities’ I bit the taste bullet and purchased a round of tequila. This was enough to see Duncan and me to the dance floor and the night went from there. Dancing ’til the placed closed we moved on to ‘Bliss’ where the highlight was dancing in the pouring rain with a limited number of companions as most watched from the covered bar. From there we went to some kind of after club bar come club and danced until way after the sun came up. We wrote off Christmas Day and struggled through our festive meal apologising to the others for our poor conversational skills and sloped off back to bed at the earliest opportunity, but, we’d found the party.
A minor misreading of the bridge opening times (Simpson Bay is separated from the sea by a road bridge that opens at set times) meant that we had to stay an extra night to that which we’d planned before setting off for Antigua and our holiday with Geoff and Rick…
Coming soon - pictures of Sint Maarten
Topics: The Voyage - Leg 3 |