St. Barthelemy (St. Bart's) 17*54.428N, 62*51.546W

St. Bart's Scenery


The St. Bart's Bucket Regatta











What a great weekend of sailing, snorkeling, sightseeing, and lusting after the boats of the ridiculously rich and richer. While we're waiting for a few things to complete, we decided to make a weekend trip over to St. Bart's which is a French Island and one of the very few that are pretty relaxed about checkin procedures. This weekend also happened to be the annual St. Bart's Bucket Regatta. All the sailboats in this regatta are a minimum of 100 ft in length and most have crews of 15 or more. We got to walk along the docks while the boats were between races and the sheer size and luxury of these vessels is simply staggering.

Although it wasn't always the case, today St. Bart's is largely a playground for the very rich and famous and the prices of everything can attest to that (2 coffees, 2 plain croissants, 1 small juice = $25). The island is beautiful and lush and not only are the streets and villages full of color and mystique, but so is the island's history. While it never had much to appeal to early settlers, the Island's strategic placement in the middle of the Lesser Antilles made it important enough to the British, French and Spanish to be viciously battled over. St. Bart's was also used in the late 1600's by pirates and smugglers who came to spend their ill-gotten fortunes. The most famous being Captain Montbars, a Frenchman that was so angered at what the Spanish had done to the native populations that he decided to avenge them and later became known as "Montbar The Exterminator". In the late 1700's, the island was given to Sweden in exchange for free port rights in Gothenburg and it remains a free port today, although in the mid 1800's the Swedes sold the island back to France. St. Barts also served a short stint as trading center during the American war of Independence when American rebels came here for supplies.

We sailed to St. Barts along side Impala (Patrik, Sofia and Kate) and met up with Tarka (Lindsay and Margy) in Gustavia, the Capital of St. Bart's and the Customs port of entry. This is also the port that the racing boats were using to dock at and start and end their races. The trip over was pretty rough as the path is to windward and we were beating right into the wind and waves. Wave height was only about 5-6 feet, but certainly enough to keep us all on deck and facing forward. Our second day on the island, we hired a tour guide to take us on a 3 hour tour of the island and it was worth every penny - there is so much that you simply can't see from the water or shoreline and our guide was born and raised in St. Bart's so there was very little she didn't know. I don't know if she does this with all her clients, but she even brought us to her home for a short visit and fed us beer and wine from her fridge! Now that's hospitality plus. During the tour, as we were driving down one of the many narrow cobblestone streets, we spotted a tortoise on the road in front of us and stopped to rescue it to the side - that was definitely one of the highlights for me. The following day, we decided to part from our small group and sailed around the northern tip of the island to a marine park called Anse Du Colombier. This was a spectacular snorkeling spot and the place where Olivia learned to actually use the snorkel and mask on her own. Once she realized that she could breathe comfortably with her snorkel and her face in the water, we could easily hear her squealing with delight under water when she saw all the colorful fish and coral heads.

The Anchorage at Anse du Columbier.







We're now back in St. Maarten and got notice yesterday that much of what we've been waiting for will be ready in the next few days so we will hopefully be on our way south by mid next week. Next Stop: Saba, St. Kitts and Nevis.



Patrik and Sofia with Olivia and Ron


Lindsay, Margy and Kate


Just hangin' around.

Kid Stuff...

Learning about marine life at Lagoonies Bar


Coloring with new friends



Creating a masterpiece


Ta Da!

One of the adjustments to being away from home has been to make sure that Miss Olivia has enough stimulation, activities and contact with other children. Once we figured out the cruisers' net here, there was no problem connecting with other kids. Olivia now looks forward to the flea markets each weekend where everyone comes with their kids to exchange supplies, parts and other necessities and to the kids gatherings each Friday where a different activity takes place. Last Friday was a get together at Lagoonies Bar and Grill for a lesson in sea life where all the kids had a blast listening to stories about marine life and coloring and painting, while the parents watch from the bar and socialize, check email, etc. This week it will be a treasure hunt on the beach...and with any luck, our last Friday in SXM.

Exploring the Flea Market with new buddies.


At the beach with Sami from Clementine


Surf's up!

Discovering St. Marten...18*02.872N, 63*05.868W

Wonderful Caribbean Band gets right into your core.


Elmo, Shrek, Diego and the young dancers groove to the beat of the band.


Beautiful Makaws at St. Marten Park


A day at the festival face painting and my first taste of cotton candy!

Since we've been here for almost 7 weeks (really??) I thought I should post some of what we've learned about this place. The Island of Sint Maarten/St. Martin is barely 7 miles in each direction or 37 square miles, but still boasts 38 white sandy beaches in two separate countries (France and Netherlands Antilles)separated by an invisible border almost through the middle of the island and each country is very unique from the other. For one thing, on the French side, everyone speaks French and there is not as much English spoken or understood as one might guess. On the Dutch side, I don't think I've heard anyone speak Dutch, but I've heard German, Swedish, Creole, Spanish, French, Swahili (sp?), English (with accents from England, U.S., Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Wales and a few others. Life on the Dutch side costs a fraction of what it does on the French side. Example: On the Dutch side, a beer, a diet coke and a juice will cost a total of $5 at most corner stores or beach bars. On the French side it's $18!! You would think that the island would flip right over because everyone would all rush over to the Dutch side for cheap beer, but apparently, the price of beer ($1) must be a well kept secret from the French because St. Marten is still floating upright.

Anyway, the story goes that the Dutch and the French were so civilized and courteous, that rather than fight over the island in the early days, they had a Frenchman walk in one direction with a bottle of wine and a Dutchman walk in the other direction with a flask of gin. Where they met became the boundary and the French ended up with slightly more because the gin was stronger than the wine.

The Island of St. Marten is now the duty free shopping mecca of the Caribbean since it has wholeheartedly embraced tourism. While it hosts about a million visitors annually by ship and by air, those people must all be shopping because it still amazes me how easy it is to find an entire pristine beach all to yourself on such a small land mass. The island is home to many yacht clubs, marinas and the two biggest chandleries in the Caribbean (both of which we have made substantial contributions to).

From our own experience, the people here whether locally grown or imported, are both friendly and honest. They respect other cultures as much as their own and value the economic boost that tourism brings. We had the privilege of attending the 4th annual Child Fest here this past weekend and what a huge testament that was to how the people here feel about children, families and how important their youth are to the future of their Island.

We have been at anchor in the lagoon for the past several weeks awaiting the completion of some repairs and some paperwork. We won't be able to check into many other countries without our Canadian boat papers, so we must have those before we leave. All of the little delays do get frustrating at times and we are itchy to move on and discover new places, but part of our committment at the start of this journey was to slow down and live in the moment as much as possible. We've had many lessons already about life on "Island Time" and are at least making great use of our time here and loving all the experiences and wonderful people we're meeting on the way.

I'm watching you!



Anyone see my turtle go by?



Stealing peanuts

Gold Medals, Good Friends

Re-posted from March 4/10...

We were delighted to have our good friends Louise and Janet spend the past 9 days with us! They arrived from Victoria just in time to enjoy the last part of the Olympic Games Caribbean style - and we made sure that St. Marten knew that Canada was in the house! It was so exciting to be able to enjoy both the men's' and women's' victories in hockey with a large contingent of Canadian fans that are here both as cruisers and for the Heineken Regatta that starts tomorrow. Olivia had her first taste of how crazy grownups in a bar can get. Louise and Janet fulfilled the required Exodo entry fee of 4 jars of Adams Peanut Butter and we had to laugh when they gave the jars to us - they were wrapped in such a way that we were surprised they didn't have the Drug Enforcement Agency all over them at the airport!


During our time with our guests, we rented a car and toured the island and poor Janet has a really swell sunburn to show for it. We also went for a day sail out the French side of St.Martin and up the coast to a beautiful bay called Grande Case to do a little snorkeling and also managed to get in a 3 day/2 night cruise to Anguilla (much calmer this time) and then on up to Tintamarre which is a small island off of St. Martin. At the island, we were treated to a great snorkel along side several sea turtles and spotted eagle rays, not to mention the colorful reef fish in between. We had Exodo sailing at 7.7 knots which is quite fast for this boat. On the way back from Tintamarre, we experienced a few more mechanical snags which have added to the list of things to do before we can begin our trip south. Captain Ron spent most of the trip back burried in the engine room tightening belts and adjusting settings. Just as we were entering back into the lagoon for the last bridge opening of the day, one of the belts on the engine finally gave way and we just barely limped back inside to the anchorage.

The 30th Annual Heineken Regatta begins today and runs through until Monday and has brought upwards of 30,000 additional people onto the small island of St. Marten. Every restaurant, beach bar, and refreshment outlet is now a cornucopia of languages and dialects from all over the world, but this weekend, they're all speaking the language of sailing! We hope to be able to take in some of the festivities and find some good places to see some of the races from.

Yes...we had a Trojan on the blog...

But it's all gone now. Thank you to those that emailed us to let us know. Funny thing is that we couldn't see it and weren't affected by it and anyone we know here in St. Marten was able to access the blog no problem. Our friends in Mexico, Canada and the US couldn't get to the blog for a few days or were re-directed to another site. The bug was harmless, but a pain in the butt. You might remember that cute little sunny flower clock on the side of the blog? That cute little bugger was sick, sick, sick. At first I thought it was one of the recent posts I had put on, so I saved the text, and deleted the post and any other widgets we had. Glad I saved the text, because it turned out to be fine. I will re-post that one in the next day or so and get all caught up. Thanks for checking in.

The rain is here, but that's O.K. because I've discovered Mangos...

Today is the first day in a long time that the rain has come. I think it's been a month or more since it rained here in St. Martin. At least it's been a long time where we come from....and it's a welcome change. I know that's a terrible thing to say when we came here looking so forward to get away from the rain, but it sure feels nice to be clean and not sweating like crazy and feel a cool breeze on our skin.

Embarrassing as it is, I have to admit that for the first time in my almost 39 years (plus a few), I've just discovered mango for the first time and I'm in love!! What a deliciously sticky, juicy suculent fruit!! I have a book by Ann Vanderhoof called "An Ambarrassment Of Mangos" (I highly recommend it for anyone interested in reading about another couple's cruising adventure) and there are so many great mango recipes in it that I now can't wait to try. I'm sure I will be soooo sick of Mango by the time we are finished this trip - but in the meantime, look out Mango Trees!.

I have also discovered Pressure Cooking. If you don't know what that is, a pressure cooker is a pot that has a tight sealing lid and cooks food much faster and healthier by using the pressure that builds up inside rather than releasing all the pressure and steam like conventional stove top cooking. We finally bought one a few weeks ago and I have only experimented with a few things. Last night I made bbq ribs in 7 minutes that were so 'fall off the bone' tender, they just melted in our mouths. Big thanks to Liz MacD for the book on pressure cooker recipes - it's already paying dividends. I know that it will continue to be a main source of cooking long after our cruising adventure is over.

Now that our mini vacation with our visitors from home is over until the next ones arrive, it's time to buckle back done and get stuff done. Ron has some more engine work and rigging to do and I have to get my nose into the GPS and Single Side Band manuals, learn sailmail, weather routing and figure out how to get out our GPS to communicate with our chart plotting system. So far they won't talk to each other and I'm beginning to think that it might be because we use windows 7 on our main computer. We still haven't got our radio and SSB licenses and can't do that until we get the boat registered and we can't do that until we get the de-registration papers and it's all on island time...

Olivia has really slid into this life very easily and loves life on the boat. She is quite happy to help out wherever she can and is starting to make more friends at the few social events we've been able to attend. There is a flea market at Lagoonie's Bar every Saturday and a cruisers breakfast at Turtle Pier every Sunday and she finds kids to play with at each one. We are going to get a "Kids" burgee to fly off the mast that lets other cruisers know we have a child on board and this is also a great way to get to know other cruisers with kids. Tomorrow, we're going to treat her (and us) to a trip to the local Zoological and Botanical Center and discover the various monkeys and other mammals that are indigenous to these parts.

Additional Photos

Captain Janet at the helm.


Val and Olivia get wiped out by a wave while Louise floats blissfully in the background.


Pretty Girl.


Cheeky girl.


Ron getting an Aloe Vera "foot" massage from a local. I'm not sure where she thinks his feet are but he doesn't seem to mind. Even Olivia is thinking "hey, that's not daddy's feet".


Baie Rouge (otherwise known as "Sunburn Beach" on the French side of St. Marten


Kite flying off the stern.


Ron Olivia and Louise


Treated to another stunning sunset.