Cruising to Far-Away Places -- Mostly Warm!

When you sail from the BVI to St. Martin, the wind is always on the nose. But this time we lucked out and had very little wind...under 10 knots... So we motored most of the way. Very slowly. We left Virgin Gorda about 3:30pm on Wednesday under sail...a dolphin swam up to give us a send-off. We sailed about two hours before the wind totally died and we began to motor. There were actually lobster pots...on toggles, no less... On the bank off Virgin Gorda, so we were glad to be into deeper water before nightfall. Tried fishing...no luck.

My watch from midnight to 5am was exquisite...full moon...absolutely flat seas. Too bad we weren't sailing. I'm listening to an Anna Quinlan book on my IPod. We slowed to less than 5 knots to try to time our entry into the Marina Fort Louis at daybreak. The marina is on the French side of the island.

Tom and Sue Maynes from Booth Bay have been staying at a condo on the Dutch side for a week and will join us on the boat for a week starting tomorrow. They took us on a circumnavigation of the island today. The highlight was a visit to a Butterfly Farm. Never been to one of those before. The owners were British cruisers who ended up boat-less on St Martin and set up a Butterfly Farm. It is a small operation, somewhat like a screened-in aviary in a zoo. Lots of butterflies and moths feasting on their favorite plants, n ll stages of development. Fascinating.

The eastern side of the island with its wide white beaches, marine reserves, and coral-lined anchorages is much less developed than the lagoon and western areas (where we had only been before). We have never thought of the island as a place to return to, but some of those anchorages on the other side looked intriguing.