Hurricane-hit Islands
08 February 2018 | Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten
We are now in our second badly-hit island from the September 2017 hurricanes. Sint Maarten/St Martin was the victim of hurricane Irma – they call it Irmageddon – and while perhaps the most shocking feature of hurricane Maria’s impact in Dominica was on the trees and vegetation of the island, here it is on the buildings, marinas and boats that were left to their fate.
However, first to conclude on our stay in Antigua. We anchored for a few days in Deep Bay, only a few miles north of Jolly Harbour, as we needed to run the watermaker and the sea is very silty in Mosquito Cove, Jolly Harbour. This was very nice and we climbed the hill to Fort Barrington for great views toward St Johns and round about.
Our old friend Tim, on ‘Mina 2’ was in Jolly Harbour undertaking major repairs to power systems on his boat and we spent quite a bit of time with him, including a trip to Shirley Heights for the Sunday BBQ and music. There were a few OCC gatherings too so altogether very enjoyable.
Nevertheless, we needed to press on and sailed overnight 2nd/3rd February to Sint Maarten with a beam reach in 12-18kts ENE – it was a delightful sail with almost a full moon and a friendly sea. As is usual, Norma was on watch for the squall that brought 26kts wind and rain. The 93nm took us 12.5 hours and we anchored in the bay to await the Lagoon bridge opening at 0930.
So, how is the island? Well, we can only comment on what we have seen which is around the lagoon on the Dutch side and the lagoon and Marigot on the French side. It appears that the Dutch side has done more in terms of recovery as the lagoon is clear of wrecks or they are well-marked whereas on the French side there are many more unrecovered wrecks. All the marinas sustained serious damage with boats (and we are talking multi-million £ motor yachts) having sunk in their berths. The yacht club beside the Simpson Bay bridge lost most of its deck, the dock for cruiser dinghies and the dock for club sailing dinghies. They are all being rebuilt but the sea removed a section of land where the deck was sited so that is much reduced in size. The club is busy though and we had a drink there on Sunday.
The main chandleries of Island Water World and Budget Marine in Cole Bay are stocked to the rafters and probably the best stocked in the whole of the Caribbean. People are running their businesses. Restaurants and bars are open: Lagoonies is busy with Happy Hour and Soggy Dollar is open albeit much of Palapa marina where it is located, was washed away. The supermarkets are generally well-stocked but it can still be a bit hit and miss.
Whilst many buildings are damaged also many are unscathed or not badly damaged. On the French side things are worse. We are told that most of the large hotels are not yet back in business and the most severe damage is on the east coast where beaches have been washed away and such as Maho Bay on the Dutch side, but we have not toured to see for ourselves.
We are here principally for more provisioning (food, wine and rum), to collect replacement anchor chain for that which we bought a year ago but a section of which quickly rusted, and to replace our gooseneck which was very badly worn after some 55,000nm. For the latter we had been carrying a spare but used FKG to carry out the work and they were excellent.
We had been recommended to lunch at Little Jerusalem run by Abraham, a lovely character, from Palestine – he has been in Sint Maarten for over 25 years – his kitchen is in a steel container which he chained down in preparation for Irma, and although he lost his awning covering the dining area, he was back in business three days after Irma passed.
It is a mixed picture but for cruisers, Simpson Bay Lagoon has normal bridge opening times, has a lot of space to anchor and you can get pretty much everything you need.
So, next we head for USVIs for the 2018 Elite Luxury Cruise when old friends (if you read our blog a year ago you would understand that we have known them for a long time but also that they really are incredibly old) Greg and Carol arrive for a couple of weeks cruising the Virgin Islands.
More photos in the Gallery.