CURRENT LOCATION: Anchored in Baie de Grand Case between the town dock and Rocher Créole
18 06.408' N, 063 03.346' W

There is certainly no lack of fine dining on the island of St. Martin. In fact, it could be argued that St. Martin is the gastronomic capitol of the Caribbean. If so, then Grand Case is the concentrated epicenter of that gustatory reputation.

Of course, my experience here is different than my land-based vacation back in 2001. Back then, I had a job and it was, after all, vacation. Lobster dinners with bottles of wine brought to the table followed by an after dinner martini and a cuban cigar were pretty much the nightly norm. I cannot say that money was no object, but I was not counting my pennies at that time.

Cruising a destination is not the same as taking a vacation at that destination. Sheryl and I are counting our pennies. So, rather than a sit down dinner to celebrate our introduction to Grand Case, we settled upon a beach bar for drinks and an appetizer; then drifted over to an open air grill-type restaurant where we enjoyed a light lunch. Mine consisted of christophene (a type of squash found in the Caribbean) stuffed with a delightful slurry of chicken, breadcrumbs, and spices. It was absolutely delicious and only cost $5. See the lead photo for a visual.

One of the keys to saving money on St. Martin is to keep a lookout for places which eschew the current exchange rate and treat American dollars the same as Euros. This factor made our beach bar bill more expensive than our lunch. The beach bar took our 15 Euro check and required a $20-bill to cover the tab; while the open air grill offered this fantastic equal exchange deal and we were out of there for less than a single Andrew Jackson.

Despite the flukey winds here in Grand Case, our anchor has held well and new arrivals have continued to give us enough breathing room to spin around in the random patterns these winds see fit to push our home. Docking the dinghy, though, is not quite as straightforward as we might have hoped.

There is a public dock for dinghy use (no charge); however, the current swell made it worrisome to leave Patience there. We tried tossing out our folding grappling hook stern anchor, but it just wouldn't grip. Without something to keep it off the dock, the bow quickly swung under the concrete dock and was repeatedly squashed by the rising and falling swell. Instead of leaving our precious inflatable in these dire circumstances, we decided to beach our dinghy.



This is not a bad way to secure our tender; however, it does involve a lot more sand and salty legs than a nice dry landing at a dock. Perhaps next time we will try our much heavier danforth anchor (theoretically to be used on the big boat as a lunch hook) as a stern anchor. If anything will get a grip in the sand, that should.