[Kate holds up a heart shaped stone she discovered on the beach during our early morning hike near Grand Fond with Meg and Eric.]

[New photo gallery uploaded: 4/11/2010: Hiking Near Grand Fond On St. Barth].

It seems like four weeks ago that Meg Greenhouse and Eric Willinghan arrived on St. Maarten for a one week visit with us aboard Myananda. That's not because Meg and Eric are boring or wickedly bad company; it's because they are so easy going and flexible that we managed to pack two weeks worth of sight seeing into only one week. There's so much to see and do on St. Maarten and St. Barth, one week is barely adequate, but we gave it a helluva try.

Over the last week the four of us visited Orient Beach on St. Maarten twice, ate awesome ribs and chicken at Lolo's in Grand Case, drove around the entire island of St. Maarten sightseeing, shopped at St. Jean, had dinner twice aboard Winds Aloft at the Simpson Bay Marina (the boat owned by our new cruising friends Casey and Laurilea Gibbs), and ate out at Top Carrot, the Piece of Cake geladerie, the Sucriere bakery, Jimbo's, and Skip Jack's (a great fresh fish restaurant). All that on St. Maarten.

This past Tuesday we decided to sail to St. Barth, so we cleared customs and at 9:00 a.m. headed from Simpson Bay Lagoon into blustery 20-25 knot southeast winds clocking 30 degrees off our port bow. We sailed close hauled on a fast reach that put us just a mile or so west of Gustavia, making it necessary to tack only once to get into port. We hit 7.7 knots and enjoyed an amazingly quick sail arriving at St. Barth in just over three hours. After clearing customs, we went directly to Shell Beach, a convenient and idyllic beach a short walk from the dinghy dock in the Port of Gustavia.

The next day we rented scooters and set out on a grand sight seeing tour of the island. This is one of our favorite things in the world to do. St. Barth is a small island with only about 8,500 residents. You can get all the way around in half a day, but we stretched this tour out with stops at Saline Beach, Governor's Beach, St. Jean, and Grand Frond on the southeast coast. You get to see some of the most magnificent and beautiful terrain in the world as you wind your way around the island's twisting and tortuously narrow roads. You compete for space with small trucks and cars zipping around as you go up and down steep inclines and switch backs. I guess it can be a bit intimidating if you're not used to driving a scooter with someone on the back.

While on St. Barth, we ate out four of our favorite places, a sushi place at the south end of Gustavia's harbor, a pizza place just off the docks, a creperie that serves up delicious crepes, and a patisserie that offers great coffee and pastries in the morning. Kate was happy, and I heard no complaints form Eric and Meg. We spent an amazing two and a half days on the island.

We decided to head back to St. Maarten, but we thought we'd squeeze in two more events: an early morning hike to a very remote and rocky stretch of wind swept beach west of Grand Fond, and a swimming stop in an idyllic anchorage off Ile Fourchue. The hike took us to one of the most remote and beautiful locations on St. Barth. I took a bunch of photos there which I hope to post later today. The scenery and landscape at this location are astoundingly beautiful.

After clearing customs and returning to the boat, we headed for St. Maarten, but the winds were so favorable (off our starboard quarter at 15 knots), we would have covered the 17 miles or so under three hours. That would have left us miserably bobbing and rolling around outside the bridge in Simpson Bay. Instead, we enjoyed a relaxing couple of hours swimming and laying around in the breezy sunshine in a protected cove off Ile Fourchue, a deserted island and marine park just north St. Barth. By breaking the day up into three events (hiking, swimming, and sailing), it seemed like we added another day to our week.

All good things must come to an end, so we motored into Simpson Bay when the bridge opened at 5:30 p.m. and soon found ourselves providing major entertainment at the marina as we attempted to back Myananda into a tight slip while fighting 15-20 knot head winds. Getting a 14' wide boat in a 16' slip with a very expensive Hinkley on one side and an unforgivingly hard and short concrete finger dock on the other is never easy, but the howling winds made it wickedly difficult and nearly impossible. We'd readied dock lines and fenders all around the boat. We complicated things by deciding to drop our Rocna (anchor) across the channel before backing in to help hold our bow into the wind.

Despite all our preparations, we were shoved around in the narrow marina channel like a toy boat in a squall. No fewer than three folks, including one marina employee, came out in dinghies to help push Myananda into alignment for our risky backing down maneuver. We had to abort at least twice before giving it one last try. Folks aboard the Hinkley were moving and placing fenders quickly to prevent damage as we nudged their boat while entering the slip. At least five people on the dock stood ready to take dock lines and assist. Dozens of other folks watched the circus from the cockpits of their own, safely secured boats already at dock. Adrenaline levels were elevated for some time during and after this thriller, but in the end, we made it safely into the slip without injury or damage to any person or boat, including Myananda. Eric and Meg were amazed by the whole thing and I think decided at that moment that buying a large sailboat is craziness best left to others.

It's Sunday evening, and Kate leaves with Sophie for Indy tomorrow afternoon. I'll be alone with Myananda, and it will be my job to get her ready for the passage back to the states. I'll have lots to do before I fly out Thursday to join my friend Norm on his Valiant 42 on Tortolla. He has two other crew members, and together we'll leave the BVI's on Thursday for a long voyage back to New York - via Bermuda. After we get Norm's boat, Michalka, to New York, we'll hop a plane back to St. Maarten and do the same trip again, this time aboard Myanada.

There should be lots of excitement over the next four weeks as I add 3,500 to 4,000 miles of open ocean sailing to my resume. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also feeling some measure of melancholy as our "3-5 month sabbatical" in the Caribbean comes to an end. We'll have to wait to find out where it will lead us!