GHOST

So we finally pulled ourselves away from Falmouth Harbour after another couple of boozy nights with Boundless - we definitely could have stayed for longer and are looking forward to heading back to Antigua to meet Kat's parents in early Feb. We set off overnight heading to St Martin as the trip is around 100nm so a bit too much for a day sail here where the sun sets at 6pm. Annoyingly (and pretty much for the first time in the Caribbean) we had to motor half the way due to fluky wind and we arrived at around 8am, dropping the anchor as we waited for the bridge to the lagoon to open.

Apparently St Martin is the smallest land area shared by two different countries - St Martin is the northernmost French half, and St Martaan is the Netherlands Antilles half. The bad news was that due to our draft we had to enter the lagoon from the Dutch side, which meant you have to pay US$70 compared to free entry on the French side!!! It is however a customs-free island so we'll have to make up the fees in savings on purchases!

The lagoon is surrounded by the Dutch town on one side with various chandleries where you get to pay in Guilders or US$ and the French town on the other, where you pay in EUR or US$, so it's a very schizophrenic place, and you spend most of the time trying to figure out what currency you are working in and how to bring it back to £!

The lagoon is actually very big and there are lots of long term live aboards here with a 7.30am daily radio net to keep in touch, buy and sell stuff and generally chat. The water however is pretty murky so no good for swimming, and it's generally very shallow as we found out by grounding as we attempted to anchor! Last night we joined Meander and made the most of the yachties weekly drinks party with US$1 beers and US$3 burgers and ribs (which were SOOOO good). Yum.

Today we are going to head into the main town on the island and look around and stock up on duty free stuff, in the meantime we'll watch all the superyachts trying to fit through the 17m wide bridge (lots of scrapes apparently) and there is also the famous Sunset Bar where you get your beer at sunset and sit under the runway as the jets land just above your head.... well it is one of the island's highlights apparently!!!! It's definitely a slightly a strange place....