Mr Slappy Flies!!!!!
25 April 2014 | Marigot Bay, St Martin
Ange
Easter Sunday we relaxed, swam & snorkelled as we waited for the wind to subside. Still very strong with plenty of gusts blowing boats around the anchorage.
Monday we were all up early. Joy headed to Road Town to check out of the BVIs & then sail to St Croix and we upped anchor & headed straight to Christiansted. We had a lovely sail reaching in 18kts of wind making our destination at 1.30pm. St Croix is beautiful - much cleaner & greener than the other Caribbean islands & plenty of old beautiful buildings. It’s a shame we won’t have more time here. We had a swim & did chores while we waited for Joy to arrive then across to them for drinks & nibbles.
Tuesday morning we picked up Jeremy & Susie and went into Christiansted in search of a wifi cafe. This ended up being impossible. After much searching we found a cafe that did have wifi, but of course after sitting & ordering breakfast we found the wifi didn’t work. We ended up in a hotel foyer using their guest courtesy computer checking the weather for our crossing to St Martin/St Maarten. We checked out of the USVIs at customs & then back to Pannikin to get ready for our crossing. After Joy filled up with cheap diesel (the cheapest we’ve seen in a long time!) we left St Croix at around 2pm. The wind wasn’t coming from the S as predicted so after 3 hours we had only travelled 6 nautical miles. We made the decision to turn on the motor & headed straight to St Martin.
At 1am Wednesday the wind turned & we had a glorious, comfortable sail for the rest of the way doing 7-8 knots of speed. Lots of cruise ships all around us during the night. One was even setting off fireworks! We arrived into Marigot Bay, St Martin at 7.30am set the anchor & celebrated with pancakes for breakfast. We then went ashore, checked in & purchased yet another sim for internet. Steve also went to Shrimpy’s (local laundry, wifi cafe & second hand dealer – all in their house!) to check if they had any 2nd hand outboard motors, but Mike wasn’t there – probably a good thing! After a sleep & swim in the afternoon we went to Joy for dinner – lovely tuna Jeremy had caught during their crossing. An early night for all the weary sailors!
Thursday we were up early, pulling up anchor so the bow roller can be repaired & set our spare Danforth anchor in its place. Steve took the roller outfit to the welder & visited Shrimpy’s on the way back to drop off sheets & towels to be washed. They have 2 x Mercury 15hp and 1 x Yamaha 15 hp (very second hand) for sale - oh what do we do???? We had a very slow motor in Mr Slappy across to the Dutch side of the island where we had a wander, took more money from an ATM & gasp.... had McDonalds for lunch (the first time in 14 months we’ve stepped inside a “fast food” joint. A visit to the chandlery (Island Water World) to get toilet seat hinges (very exciting!) & also a general stroll through the aisles wishing for this that! On the way back to Pannikin we decided a new/old outboard would probably be no cheaper anywhere else. Steve spent a good hour going over the 3 outboards & finally decided on the newer Mercury motor. Across then to Budget Marine chandlery on the French side to get a few things & Mr Slappy will be ready to fly. We were quite the amusement for some local kids as we had no petrol in the tank & rowed across the channel to Budget Marine using Steve’s thongs as oars! Unfortunately the fitting from the petrol tank to the outboard hose was leaking so we tromped to the Yamaha shop close by & asked for a new fitting. This next part is really boring but I was totally blown away (Ange writing this.....). The cost was 11.46 euro for the fitting & I had that exact amount of change in my pocket!! I made all the sci-fi movie noises & said we should go & buy a lottery ticket & the guy serving us just cracked up – made his day! Back to Pannikin for a well deserved swim & relax before picking up the welding job & the laundry.
The new outboard was given its test run on the way back to Pannikin and at first we were disappointed as we couldn’t get it up on the plane, so Steve took it for a run solo and it flew along. We later found with both of us in it was just a matter of moving our body weight forward enough to get it going. Even to the point where Ange said “can you slow down you are going too fast.”
Thinking of all our servicemen & women today on ANZAC day.
After some grocery shopping we are heading north to a lovely bay called Grand Case where we are going to spend the next couple of days before heading south down the island chain – wind permitting.