A Stint in the Saints and Sints

1 island, 2 countries, 2 flags

It seems that as we head north we keep coming back to France. The French have maintained a strong presence in the Caribbean and their islands, The French Antilles, remain French territory, using the Euro and speaking French as an official language. They are financially supported by mainland France and European produce is readily available and reasonably priced (well except for St Barths where nothing is reasonably priced…), which means it is great place to provision. From Antigua we make the long hop east to St Barthelemy or St Barths as it is known, and from there it’s a short step across to St Martin/Sint Maarten (or SXM as it is known amongst cruisers – more on that later).

Sunset in St Barth's anchorage

​Got away from our Anchorage at Dickensen Bay (Antigua) just before 7am for the 73nm crossing, starting with 1 reef in the main and full genoa. Windspeed was up and down for the first half of the trip in terms of speed and angle. We had high teens initially but down as low as 10s, with angles shifting from 100 to 130! We had stowed the gennaker thinking it was always going to be too strong to use it but now of course we need it so we dig it out of the starboard hull again. Just as I am tightening the halyard, bang, down it comes narrowly avoiding Keith’s head. Fortunately it was not unfurled as it is a major problem to get this big sail back on board if it goes in the water. Seems that the shackle had opened up and is still at the top of the mast so fortunately we have not lost the halyard. Re-hoisted it on the kite halyard, which is a bit stretchier so it’s hard to get good luff tension, but it works. Once we had passed under a line of cumulonimbus the breeze settled into a steady 18kts AWS and came back into the 80s AWA. We were on the edge of the range for the gennaker and as we got closer to the island and the “compression zone” (where wind speeds get a little higher) we swapped to the genoa and could climb a little bit too. The anchorage of Gustavia is incredibly crowded with a lot of boats on mooring buoys and other boats anchored in between them. The wind is funnelling down the narrow bay as well, making manoeuvring tricky, particularly as we came in side on into the middle of the anchorage. We thread our way through the boats and head to the leeward end and find a spot almost at the back of the anchorage. There are some quite spectacular rocky islands behind us. It’s a very windy and rolly anchorage, we are moving around like being underway and its quite noisy. We see Ella of Stockholm on the AIS, we knew they were crossing from Barbuda today and had been watching them on the chart plotter. We radio them and direct them to a spot behind us. They settled in and invited us for a quick drink before a spectacular sunset. We will do check in formalities tomorrow. Quite a few squalls go through overnight and we are rocking and rolling. Also it seems to smell of diesel fumes and avgas here. Lovely spot – NOT! Oh and we have to pay for the privilege of anchoring here!

St Barths and Ile Forchue

We go into town around 9am the next morning and check-in is quick and easy, as we had already done the “paperwork” online. Looks like they are setting up for a regatta –St Barts Bucket of course! Quite a few big boats in town and some seriously expensive looking kit in the harbour. We wander around and see the sights of Gustavia, which are limited to a couple of forts, or monuments where forts used to be, a Swedish clocktower and old Swedish prison. The island used to belong to the Swedes and there is a Swedish embassy here too. We organise a car for tomorrow and spend the afternoon on the boat. The wind and movement is doing our heads in and we have another awful night’s sleep.

Swedish Clocktower

Head into town just after 9 and end up checking out of St Barths before picking up the car. We drive first to Anse Colombier, or the hill overlooking it, to check out tonight’s anchorage. There are quite a few boats here but still a few free moorings. We go down to Baie des Flamands on the northern coast, which is quite wild and empty with just a small beach. We pass the famous roundabout at the top of the airport runway, where the planes come in quite low and practically shave the top of your head. Wow! It looks like a difficult approach. The planes have to take a nose dive once they get over the crest to get down to the runway to land. We hop from bay to bay, but it’s a bit frustrating as there is little parking and cheek to jowl private property lines the shore here. The town of St Jean is at the other end of the runway, literally, with planes shaving your head as they take off. We tried to park at Lorient but kept missing the turn for the parking so drove over to the eastern side of the island and around the north east corner. The windward side of the island is of course pretty windy and the surf is rough, but there are a couple of sheltered bays, protected by reefs as well as a couple of saltwater lagoons, one of which smells pretty sulphurous. We make it around the headland before coming back and finding a park at Lorient. The graveyard here is quite colourful, full of freshly painted white headstones and crosses, decorated with plenty of plastic flowers and Lambi (conch) shells. The highlight though is the entertainer Johnny Holliday’s grave. Not sure of the significance of him being here but clearly this pilgrimage is in the French guide book, as a steady stream of tourists drop by. We find a little bakery for a quick bite and decide to take the car back early as we have seen the whole of this tiny island. As we are dropping the car at the airport we get to see a plane landing and another taking off on the steep runway.

Colourful Graves at Lorient

From Gustavia it’s a whole 2nm to Anse Colombier, on the NW end corner of the island. Apparently the bay used to be owned by the Rockefellers, and there is quite a big house at the top of the southern headland. This is the only other “anchorage” on the tiny island. We pick up a mooring ball, these are provided free of charge, which seems odd after having paid to anchor in Gustavia! Keith decides this is a good moment to try out a new technique of picking up a mooring buoy. Normally the buoys have a big steel ring that you put your mooring lines through and they can’t be lifted to reach them from the front of the boat, so we normally bring the stern of ITIKI alongside them and I put a line through from the back transom, walking the buoy forward as Keith reverses, lead the lines under the seagull striker and cleat both ends off at the front on the starboard side. Then we have to get the second, port side mooring line on somehow. This newly imagined technique involves taking two leader lines through the ring at the same time. These are joined to the mooring lines which are already attached at front of the boat. The leader lines are necessary because the mooring lines are not long enough to reach from the front to the back of the boat. What could possibly go wrong?! Well only everything. The lines are joined by knots, which of course get stuck on the loop of the mooring buoy. Then I get very confused about which line is which, which one I need to pull etc as they are both the same colour and there is literally rope going everywhere. In the end the whole technique wasn’t really necessary because the rope mooring line running through the buoy could be lifted easily and we could have picked it up from the front of the boat with a boat hook. Oh well, we did actually manage to test the technique in the end, but it could have been seriously ugly! There is no 3G connection though and I was supposed to have a call with Australia so Keith runs me ashore to see if I can get a signal if I walk up the hill and stand on one leg. At least I can send a message to cancel the call. We have already seen heaps of turtles in the bay here which is nice. The buoys mean that the sea grass, their staple diet, is protected from damage by anchors.

Mast top view of Anse Colombier

Safely attached to the mooring buoy

It’s gusty and bouncy overnight and we spin in all directions. Not a great night’s sleep so we are keen to move on. Even though we have checked out of St Barts yesterday and have already hand one extra sneaky night here, we decide to push our luck and have another. We head over to the tiny island of Ile Fourchue, a mere 3nm west of last night’s anchorage, arriving around 10am. By 11am most boats are gone but new ones start arriving. There are 10 mooring buoys and this time we just pick it up from the front of the boat – easy peasy. The buoys are put in by National Parks to protect the sea grass, and again are free of charge, which seems fair if you are obliged to use them. It is really lovely here and we immediately relax and enjoy watching the turtles. Ile Forchue is part of St Barths’ territory - it’s an uninhabited island, privately owned which is part of the marine sanctuary. We take the paddle boards ashore and walk up to the saddle between the two peaks of the island. We can see back to St Barths to the east and further west across to St Martin, as well as a few other small barren and rocky islands in between. It’s very dry, stony and barren place with plenty of cacti and some nesting frigate birds. It’s still pretty windy but not quite so gusty and jerky as we have had. At least the wind is holding us in a consistent direction and we finally have a decent night’s sleep.

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Stunning and barren - Ile Forchue

​You say Saint Martin and I say Sint Maarten – let’s just call the whole thing SXM
We would have been happy to stay at Ile Forchue another day, but we have checked out of St Barths and there is not much else to do so we set off after 11 for the 22nm step across to Marigot Bay in St Martin (FR).

Saint Martin in the North, Sint Maarten in the south

This island of SXM is divided into French and Dutch territory, with an open land border. They have their own flags, different official languages and different currencies. Arriving in a private vessel by sea both have entirely different procedures. The Dutch part of the island is in the South and therefore would have been a closer arrival point for us, but my eyes start to glaze over reading the entry requirements in terms of paperwork, bureaucracy, fees, advance notification, Covid testing and isolation etc. Pretty crazy when you can just drive across (in your car or dinghy) without any restrictions! French side check-in is free of charge and self-service at the computer in the chandlery. Guess where we are going?!

Along the Dutch coast

From Ile Forchue we have a really lovely downwind sail with the full main and Genoa and the wind and waves are coming from behind us. We arrive around 2:30pm and anchor in Marigot Bay, just north of the entrance to the lagoon, which lies between the French and Dutch sides. It is a good sandy bottom excellent good holding, a large anchorage which is very popular. There are extensive yacht services here, with numerous marinas and boatyards, chandleries and workshops etc so of course it is a popular place and the anchorage is very busy. It is also a great place to provision before heading to the Bahamas or BVIs. We head over to the Ile Marine Chandlery to check in and even though they don’t charge for the check in, it would be rare that any boatie would come out of a chandlery empty handed. A very smart business move putting that computer in as First Mate does the check in whilst Skipper goes browsing… Lo and behold! Keith finds the Whale Gulper sump pump that we need for our shower and at a very reasonable price. After that we took the dinghy into the lagoon and did a bit of reconnaissance on town and the supermarkets.

Street art in St Martin

It was very gusty and bouncy in the night and we were not sleeping so well. Looked at the track on the anchor alarm in the middle of the night and decided to get up and let some more chain out to dampen our movement and secure us better in the conditions. We possibly didn’t have as much chain out as we thought as Keith had serviced the windlass in Ile Fourchue and we hadn’t recalibrated the chain counter.

Low calorie dessert

Went ashore in the morning with a mission to do a supermarket run and find the “gas man” as we need to fill our gas bottle. Not really exactly sure what kind of gas we are going to get, but apparently there will be some butane in it. We ended up having lunch ashore at ArhAwak. Lovely mussels and Keith had goat curry. Oh and we had dessert too! Very naughty. When we got back there was a note on the swim ladder. I thought it was going to be from the guy behind us complaining that we were anchored too close. Turned out it was from a Canadian couple who have bought a Helia, sight unseen and lying in Columbia, who wanted to have a look around ours. We invited them over tomorrow afternoon.

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The next morning we drop off the gas bottle to get filled. It’s been such a drama the past couple of times, due to changing EU regulations that I am nervous when someone says “Yep, no problem!” We left it with the guy intending to pick it up on Monday and went for a walk up to Fort Louis. There is not much of it left, just a few walls and rusty cannons. Great views though and we can see Ella in the marina (Matts and Helena are back in Sweden for a couple of weeks). Decided to go back to the gas man and exchange our bottle instead of waiting for a refill. Tested it out when we got back and it seemed to work fine. Mark and Myra come to visit around 5ish and we showed them around ITIKI. They are a lovely couple who already have a Lagoon and decided it was time to upgrade. They have paid top dollar for the Helia but it has a lot of extras, including a full freezer by all accounts. They plan to have it moved to Panama and cruise north to central America.

Marigot Anchorage from Fort Louis

Re-entering the lagoon from the Dutch side

We do a supermarket run in the morning and then in the afternoon we took a RIB tour around the lagoon. There are plenty of hurricane wrecks on the French side, but the Dutch seem to have removed them from their side. It’s quite shallow inside the lagoon and although it is possible to anchor inside at various points, it puts you at the mercy of the opening times of the varying bridges at the entrances and across the middle. We went all the way though the causeway into Dutch-land and then out through the lifting bridge into Simpson Bay on the southern (Dutch) side. It’s a long bay with nice enough beaches and plenty of resorts line the shore. Not much in the way of charm but would have been a nice enough anchorage. As we were coming back into the lagoon in it was time for the lifting bridge to open so we went through after the last yacht. Everyone at the yacht club comes out on the balcony to watch. Great entertainment! Wayne and Barbie (SY Hope that we met in Ragusa, Sicily in 2018) came over for drinks in the evening. We have stayed in touch and as very experienced cruisers they have been very helpful with tips and advice. Team Hope have been in SXM since mid-November as they had issues with their bow thruster coming north from the ABCs and then got diesel bug which took out their engine! They have been up on the slips a couple of times, but touch wood, will soon be on their way again. Lovely to see them.

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​Tour de SXM “en voiture”

We pick up a car at 9am and head off on a tour of the island. We go south first and cross the open border into Sint Maarten. It’s a bit ironic that there are no checks considering the rigmarole you need to go through to check in if you arrive by boat. Anyway our first stop was at Maho Beach, right next to the airport. Planes come in quite low over the beach and when big jets take off, people stand by the fence and get blown over. It’s quite a tourist attraction. Not much action when we get there although one small plane did arrive and fly low overhead. At the airport we can see the dozens of private jets lined up. Check out this classic YouTube video below!

Oyster Pond on the windward coast

From there we headed north to take a look at Friars' Bay. It’s a small bay with a couple of beach bars and some watersports and the water looks lovely. A small but popular anchorage. We then took the winding and narrow road up to Pic Paradis, at 424m the highest point on the island. From here we had great views down to the east coast. There are some anchorages here, but protection is limited on the windward side, and it feels like it’s been blowing “dogs off chains” since forever. We descend down to Grand Case, stopping for a coffee and pastries along the way. It’s a nice wide bay with a long sandy beach. Quite a few holiday resorts and beach bars but with a really laid back feel. We walk along the beach for a bit and then along the “shopping strip” and decide to come and anchor here in ITIKI for a couple of days for a change of scenery. We also checked out Anse Marcel, a much smaller bay further north, but there is nothing here and it smells of rotting seaweed. Across to Cul de Sac, the lagoon was also a bit smelly too so we moved on. Stopped at a view point overlooking Oyster Pond at the same time as several busloads of cruise ship passengers, but they are slow moving creatures so we managed to get to the lookout and get our photos before too many of them spoiled the view. We crossed back into Dutch land again and the main town on this side, Philipsburg, where 3 cruise ships are currently anchored. It’s hot, noisy and very touristy, and we end up at a Peruvian restaurant to have burgers for lunch (managed to resist the Pisco Sours). The beach here is quite nice, long, white sand but lots of beach bars and loud music. Back from the beach the streets are lined with shops selling duty free and luxury goods. Our final stop (of course) is to the super large Carrefour supermarket. Its huge and at first seems really expensive, until we realise prices are in NAFs or North Antilles Florins (WTF!?) and not USD, which is the other currency used on this side of the fence! Not sure why they don’t just use Euros, I guess they want to differentiate themselves from the French! Grog was relatively cheap though and we end up with lots. Even found tahini, Branston pickle and Vegemite! We drop off the car and load up the dinghy with our booty!

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Colourful local boat at Grand Case

The next morning, after a final shore run, we head north in ITIKI for the 2nm journey to Grand Case, which looked like a nice spot when we were here by car. We only just remembered to empty the holding tanks along the way! We anchor in the NE corner but it turns out to be a poor choice. Holding is good but we spin around 360. The anchor keeps resetting but it’s pretty annoying bobbing around, so we move the next day closer to the centre of the bay. It’s still gusty but at least we were not doing donuts anymore. There is an airport here as well and the small planes come in quite low over the anchorage. We take the RIB ashore and have a long walk along the beach. It’s always lovely to sink your toes into sand.

Old and new bridle holding the anchor chain

​We have another restless night with rain squalls and strong gusts coming through the anchorage. Around 5:45am there is a loud bang and we realise the anchor bridle has gone, and the weight of the boat is being held on the windlass – not good for it! We have had numerous issues with the clip and shackle breaking and coming off but this time we head up front to see that the port line has completely snapped off close to the central knot. Wow! There was a tiny bit of chafe in the casing but that is major. We jury rig a line through the knot to our foredeck cleats to take the pressure off the windlass. We will need to head back to Marigot and get some materials to make a new bridle. I try to book a marina but it is too complicated, and we eventually anchor close to the lagoon entrance again, with our temporary bridle solution. We go ashore and do our Covid test for entering BVIs as we will be leaving shortly, then it’s over to our favourite chandlery to check-out of SXM and gather bridle materials. We have decided to put snubbers on the bridle and they have to be ordered in and picked up later today, along with a new clip. Keith does an amazing job putting it all together based on someone else’s design we found online. We are still at anchor in 20+kts with a temporary anchor bridle, so once everything is assembled, I steer the boat up onto the anchor to take the pressure off the temporary bridle, ensuring it does pull back onto the windlass. Finally Keith ties on the new bridle at the front of the boat and I attach it to the anchor chain. Now we have 2 bridles on the anchor chain and we end up in a bit of a tangle removing the temporary one, but finally we free the lines and we are on the new bridle alone. It’s quite a different experience. The laid line has more give in it than the old bridle and the snubbers dampen the snatch that normally occurs in the gusts. The lines don’t creak and strain like the plaited line. We don’t seem to swing from side to side as sharply as the snubbers dampen the movement. Very happy with the result and we sleep well, which was long overdue! We are off to the BVIs tomorrow and it will be an early start!