I have been getting hints from home that it is time for a new blog so here goes. We stayed in St. Maarten for a week happily having access to numerous QUALIFIED and available mechanics, electricians and two lovely large marine stores - all right outside our back door. We rented a car from the sketchiest car rental place on the island because it was within walking distance of the boat. The car looked like it had been broken into with a crowbar on several occasions. I made sure all the doors locked and the �'walk-around�', to check for damage, was very comical -it was difficult to keep a straight face. We toured around the island for a couple of days. St. Maarten is a very cruiser oriented place. We listened to the morning cruiser news on the VHF radio which was operated by a South African fellow named Shrimpy. We had quite a few friendly neighbours on the dock as well and had dinner out and spent a day on the beach with a couple from Santa Cruz on a couple of occasions. You could take the dinghy to several restaurants in the lagoon as many of them had dinghy docks out front (or is it the back, not sure). To enter and leave Simpson Bay Lagoon you needed to wait for the bridge to open. The times for leaving were 8:30, 10:30 and 4 pm so we didn�'t want to miss the morning one and not be able to leave until 4pm. There is a guy in a powerboat organizing the mad rush to the bridge and he lets you know when it is your turn to join the line of boats. We left St. Maarten at the 10:30 bridge opening on Feb. 17 and headed to St. Barts, land of the rich and famous. When you arrive at a new port/country you are required to hoist a yellow flag called the �"Q�" flag (as in quarantine). After you check in with the customs/immigration you then replace the yellow flag with the country flag. We arrived too late to check in on the 17th so we waited until the morning to check in. By the time we had checked in, had our café au lait and croissant and checked out a few stores, it was a few hours later and when we got back to our boat there was a fluorescent orange sticker on our boat that said, �"Present Yourself to the Port Authority�". (which we ignored because we had presented ourselves already) Nicest Port Authority personnel that we have ever met are here by the way. So now that we were legally in St. Barts we stayed another night anchored in the harbour along with the other 200 boats. It was so rolly polly here that I thought I w as going to roll right out of bed a night. It was time to find a calm beach bay and what a lovely beach it was - called Anse de Columbier on the North end of the island. We were very entertained by the goings on of one of the mega yachts anchored on the outskirts of the bay. The crew spent from 8 am to 5pm setting up and maintaining 3 shade tents, a table with a white tablecloth and chairs, beach beanbag chairs with umbrellas and a coffee table. There were towels carefully folded on each chair/beanbag (everything matching of course), several coolers, two standup paddle boards, two jet-propelled gizmos that pull you through the water. All this for eight people who showed up for one hour to have a glass of wine and/or champagne and leave. One poor (or lucky) guy sat on the beach all day straightening tablecloths and chasing and arranging beach towels all day. Heaven forbid that your towel or the tablecloth was not folded perfect. All this beach equipment was chauffeured in and out by their boat tender and crew which required several trips. Enough of VIP territory, we decided to sail or should I say beat our way to windward into 10 foot seas that seemed to get bigger as we went. It was a good thing that the water was warm as we were regularly covered by huge waves that went right over the boat and onto the captain. We sailed like this for 8 hours arriving at Nevis Island in the late afternoon. Nevis is described as being shaped like a coin and sure enough it is. There are no small bays to tuck into but never the less, off the lee shore it is very calm and we are on a mooring buoy off a very long and lovely beach shared by a large Four Seasons Resort that looks very plush. We haven�'t figured out how to get our dinghy to the beach yet as the beach is not very wide in depth and very steep. It would require pulling it up a very steep incline to secure it. Our cruising guide states that cruiseships do not go to Nevis but this must have changed because we went into the main town this morning and they were ferry ing in tourists off of a ship anchored a ways out off of the town. All the cruisers like us were banned from the dinghy dock so the cruise ship could bring in their patrons. This would have been fine except that we were sent over to the public ferry dock but they didn�'t seem to want us either. Us dinghy people were all crammed onto one bollard creating a spiderweb of lines, one on top of the other. One local told us we could not lock our dinghy to the dock but I think this is because he wanted to collect money for �'watching�' your dingy while we were in town. He managed to collect from one group. While I waited for Doug to go to customs, I was watching as the two cruiseship tenders motored non stop to and from the cruiseship. As one got close to the dock they would start playing loud (recorded) Caribbean-type music until they unloaded and the people made it all the way up the dock. Once they were gone the music was shut down until the next little boat full of tourists arrived and then it would start up again. I am not sure why they did this but it was interesting. While standing there, one dinghy with four adults and two big suitcases arrived. One of the passengers in the dingy had his shirt off while he unloaded the big suitcases and people. A very official lady wearing a very official neon yellow, nylon vest appeared and asked the man to put on a shirt. Talking to this group after the official left, the story was the man did not plan on going shirtless he was just trying to keep his shirt free of salt spray and sweat as he was about to start his journey back to London. He had a very clean, crisp white cotton shirt that he promptly put on. I think Nevis used to be a town that was �'cruiser-friendly�' but now it is cruise ship friendly. Cruise ships contribute a lot more income to the island than the private yachts. Too bad they have to make it so obvious. I had never thought about the huge footprint that Cruise ships leave in their wake. Next stop St. Kitts. Not sure when we will turn back as it is still being discussed and depends on the weather as well. I should mention that I have uploaded a number of pictures to the gallery section on our sailblogs main page. I will continue to add pictures when we have decent internet.