Going Home

We awoke to a bay so calm we hardly knew we were on the water, a quick breakfast and we caught the first bridge opening into the lagoon at 8.30, we continued on over to the causeway bridge and went through to the French side and dropped the hook. Mike at Shrimpys is the “go to man” for anything you might need in St Martin or for that matter Sint Maarten as well he runs the cruisers net in the mornings on the radio and also an outboard repair shop. We had trouble with the Yamaha outboard in St Kitts getting it started so we thought we would drop off the Mercury and see if they could find a second hand Carby for it just in case the Yamaha problems came back, after a week we picked the Mercury up sans carb so it sits there on the motor bracket on the back of the boat now until we get to the states, we will see if we can find a carby there.
We had coffee at Sarafina’s in St Martin where we knew we could get WiFi, fresh baguettes and reasonable coffee but the barista has changed since we were last there and the coffee was awful. Perhaps 2 out of three aint bad.
Wednesday 1st Feb – Friday 3rd Feb
As we were planning on getting some work done on the boat in Sint Maarten we went back through the causeway bridge to get things sorted. Once settled we were straight to Lagoonies for drinks
We spent much of the next few days picking up stuff for the boat and stocking up for the next leg to the Virgin Islands. Our friend Mick flew in on Friday and this gave us an excuse to go back to Maho Beach and watch his plane come in.
Saturday 4th Feb
With Mick on board we were ready to say goodbye to Sint Maarten and head off to the Virgins. We checked out of Sint Maarten, did the 2 mile passage across the lagoon to St Martin and checked in (and out) ready to leave on Sunday night. Mezz was up front on the foredeck when we started to retrieve the anchor and took a spill. Luckily she bounced on the trampoline and didn’t do a hip but certainly hurt her foot. In the afternoon we fuelled and topped up the water tanks ready for the trip. As we wanted to arrive in Virgin Gorda in the BVI’s in good light we timed our departure for 10pm that night from Marigot Bay. Mick wasn’t feeling the best and Mezz still had a sore foot so we postponed our departure by a day. We headed to the Supermarche in St Martin for some fresh fruit and veg and picked up some elbow crutches for Mezz from the chemist and went back to the boat to rest for the upcoming overnight passage to the BVI’s