Saint Martin

We made it to Saint Martin Thursday night at around 9 pm.  It took us about 30 hours to make the crossing.  The first 70 miles weren’t bad and we had some pretty good wind but the last 20 miles took quite a long time.  At least this is our last overnight sail for a while.  The other islands down the chain are very close.  Since it was dark when we got in, we found a place to anchor quite  a ways out in Marigot bay because we didn’t want to go too far in not being familiar with the bay and all.  At least the moon was almost full so that helped quite a bit.  It was also too late to check into customs so we didn’t want to take the dogs off the boat and poor Max was ready to explode.  He still hasn’t figured out that it is ok to go potty at the front of the boat because we can just wash it off.  It was also pretty bumpy out so Lexie didn’t even want to go up front.  But once we stopped Max was able to jump in the water and relieve himself.  Friday morning we went over to Port Royale to check in, which is on the French side.  We heard it was a lot easier especially with the dogs on the French side.  Saint Martin has the easiest check in process.  It’s all computerized and you just fill out the form and print it out and pay $7.  The hardest part was it was in French so trying to figure out what they wanted was a bit tricky.  Then I told the lady we had two dogs and she couldn't quite figure out what I was trying to tell her.  She thought I was asking for two bags of ice.  But we finally got that straightened out and they didn’t even really care that we had dogs.  Saint Martin is a very dog friendly place.  There are dogs everywhere and they all belong to somebody because they have collars but there doesn’t seem to be a leash law here.  You can also take the dogs just about everywhere.  They even let them into the outside cafes, which is really nice.  

We will probably stick around Marigot bay for a few days because, of course, there are more things to fix.  I’m not sure why Wes doesn’t lose it sometimes with everything that seems to go wrong.  But at least he is able to fix it without too much trouble and expense.

We will then probably go around the island to some other bays but probably stay on the French side.  The island is actually split with half of it being French and half being Dutch.  We heard that is was split by a Frenchman taking a bottle of wine and a Dutchman taking a bottle of gin and they went in opposite directions and when they met again, that ended up being the dividing line.  It’s a bit difficult communicating because a lot of the French do not speak great english and I sure don’t speak French.  They have the greatest bakeries here with some really good pastries and bread so we better not stay too long or I won't be able to get my butt back on the boat.

The market where the locals sell their goods

Marigot Bay

The dinghy dock

The fish market

Another beautiful sunset over the bay