We left Virgin Gorda of the BVI’s to make our 80-ish nautical mile passage to St. Martin, the northernmost island in the leeward chain. Since we plan our passages at about 5 knots per hour, that makes the trip to be an estimated 16 hours, hence a late day departure, sail through the night, to time arrival to be somewhere around first light the next day. We had a decent overnight sail and made it to Simpson Bay pretty much right at first light. Dropped the hook to wait for the 11 am bridge opening. We entered the very protected, but much maligned Simpson Bay through the gate opening. The bay is reputed to have dirty water and very poor holding (and that proved to be the case). “Poor holding” is referring to the condition of the sea bottom and how an anchor will hold and keep the boat where it’s supposed to be. We managed to drop the hook on a patch of sand rather than grass which meant we had relatively good holding which would come in pretty darn handy a couple of nights later.

That first night we enjoyed the views of the lights of the city from the cockpit, with the occasional jumbo jet buzzing over us to land at the nearby international airport. St. Martin is definitely the land o’ plenty, relative to the other islands in the leeward and windward chains. There are innumerable gourmet grocery stores and liquor “emporiums”. Given that it has an international airport, it is a major hub and a popular travel destination in the Eastern Caribbean. The island is half Dutch and half French, having been peacefully divvied up as such, and both sides of the island have a lot to offer to both cruisers and vacationers, including beautiful beaches, duty free shopping and french bordeau at under $6 / bottle, and 6 pound bags of gummy bears for $10 (we shared with our friends). Simpson Bay, where we spent our total of 8 nights, is on the Dutch (south) side of the island. From there we were able to take the dinghy across to the French side and not have to deal with checking in and out with Customs.

The Dutch side boasts that it is a duty free zone, so it is a popular shopping destination. They also readily deal in the US dollar (The Euros on the French side will leave a bigger hole in your pocket). We took a local bus into Phillipsburg, the major shopping area and checked it out. Nice beach front with loads of t-shirt vendors (meh). They also have their own mini rodeo drive with Cartier, Tiffiny, Gucci, you know the usuals. Not that we loaded up, since we don’t have much use for that stuff on board! Not when we can be purchasing shackles, fuel filters, propane canisters and solenoids, woo hoo!

So, one night we went to bed and awoke at about 1 am, to a bump, bump, bump noise, not that we don’t hear the odd bump, but this was a different bump. Up we go to investigate, and what do we see snagged on the bow sprit? A 45 foot catamaran that had dragged its anchor and drifted down right on top of us. Luckily it had gently bumped under the bow sprit, but it looked like a drive-in movie screen, right at the bow. The cat crew had not awakened, so while Guillaume went to the helm to start it up, I was on the bow sprit trying to wake up the crew (that would be me yelling). The first thing that we tried was letting out more rode, so we would drop back, but when we did, the catamaran moved with us, which meant they were still adrift (not caught with their own anchor), but what that also meant was that our anchor was holding both boats in place (it’s a 44 lb rocna). The cat owner, he’s up now, then motored forward to separate the boats as he brought in his rode. We were then on the lookout to make sure his loose anchor didn’t snag our rode and pull our anchor free. After the cat managed to get reset, we stayed up on watch for a bit to make sure our anchor hadn’t been loosened from the extra load. We chatted with the guy in the morning when he brought us a nice bottle of wine.

The next day, we were sitting in the cockpit and an airhorn went off (which usually means that a boat is dragging and about to hit something). We looked forward and there was a boat drifting sideways through the anchorage, heading right for Slow Waltz and our friends, White Gold II. The captain of the cat from the previous evening was sounding the horn and getting in his dinghy to come to the aid of the wayward boat whose crew was not aboard. Guillaume got into our dinghy to help corral the boat to safety before it hit another boat. The boat was heading straight for White Gold II now, so Guillaume picked up Hugh (our friend from WG II) and with the two dinghies, they were able to get a guy on board the wayward boat. Not much good with no keys in the ignition. In the meantime, the anchor of the dragging boat had caught the rode of WG II and had slid all the way up to the bow. So now WG II was holding both boats in place. They managed to get the anchor off and position it so that the boat was safely re-anchored. The crew of the dragging boat returned to the harbour later that day and then proceeded to search for their boat. Knock on wood, so far we have not returned to an anchorage to find our boat in a totally different place then where we left it, but hey, it could happen to us. Luckily, cruisers really help each other out, makes for good karma!