Lagooning in Sint Maarten

We arrived in St. Martin after a long overnight motor into the wind and waves. We anchored in Simpson Bay, outside of the lagoon and decided to hang out there until Seana arrived. We had some pretty posh neighbors with Eclipse, a 163-meter giga-yacht, which is too large to make it through the bridge into the lagoon. However, the conditions were getting windier and windier and the anchorage, although protected, started getting pretty rolly. The day of Seana’s arrival came with the crushing news that her trip would have to be postponed. It was a sad day for us, but we decided to move into the lagoon for a gentler anchorage.

Eclipse (super-yacht or mega-yacht or giga-yacht?)

It is always fun going though the Simpson Bay bridge: circling with vessels large and small and waving to the audience at the Yacht Club. Now we’d have a few more days to enjoy the things that make Simpson Bay Lagoon a great anchorage: the large cruiser community, $1 beers, super marine stores, boat parts galore, wonderful grocery stores, 747s buzzing the anchorage, and watching the world’s largest superyachts maneuver in and out of the lagoon.  We enjoy listening every Mon-Sat morning to the 7:30am cruiser net hosted by Shimpy. I joked that I could barely make it to our 7:30 work meeting at McMurdo Station, but somehow I wake up voluntarily for the net every day. One of the things we don’t like in the lagoon is that folks go full throttle in their dinghies, planing straight through the anchorage. We don’t like it because it is loud, and rocks the boat, and makes us very jealous.  Reinhart has already gone by the Yamaha dealer to see if we could buy a new engine. The prices are excellent here, but the wait time is long, and we’d probably be better off waiting for the boat show next year. 

Sailing Yachts inside the Lagoon

A few windy days passed and it was time for Cara to visit. We were so thrilled when she arrived, we could barely contain our excitement! (If we haven’t mentioned it, we love having friends and family visit).  We had thought up all kinds of plans, which had whittled down a bit due to the strong winds that prohibited us from visiting several anchorages and nearby islands. We ended up spending a couple more nights in the lagoon. We visited the beachy Dutch city of Cole Bay where all of our happy hour haunts and marine stores are located. The following day we visited Marigot, a chic town on the French side.  We arrived soaking wet, from the windward dinghy ride, but enjoyed our day walking around the little shops and cafes. 

Gustavia's inner harbor

Weather be damned, we decided to make the 15 nm trip to St. Barthelemy. We can take anything for 3 hours, right? Well, the winds were even stronger and waves more confused than forecasted and the trip ended up being 5 hours of misery. We anchored outside of the full Gustavia harbor, once again with the mega yacht neighbors that couldn’t make it into the Harbor, boats like “Eclipse”, “A”, and the “Rising Sun”, amongst others. The trip was absolutely worth it for all three of us as we strolled the cobblestone streets. Gustavia is spotlessly clean, casually elegant, and breathtakingly beautiful. We noticed that outside of the island, everyone refers to it as St. Barts, but on the island, they say St. Barth; remember that when you want to sound like the sort of moneyed individual that spends their winters there.  We took another magical stroll after sunset and Cara treated us to a wonderful dinner. The next day we came back into the city to check out more of the shops and visit the weather station and lighthouse on the hill with beautiful views. From there we also had an interesting angle for viewing the planes landing at Barth’s infamous airfield –it looked like they were flying directly into the hill over the airport. 

Those unrelenting winds made Gustavia’s outer anchorage a bit rolly, so we had a lovely sail that afternoon to Anse du Colombier, where we picked up a park mooring. Colombier is a beautiful anchorage with a long curve of hill-backed beach and clear turquoise water.  We finally got in some swimming, beach combing, and grilled out that night.  The next day we headed back to St. Martin with a much more favorable point of sail.  We entered the lagoon with the 5 o’clock bridge, waved to the happy hour patrons at the Yacht Club, and joined them by 6pm, for our own drinks and free wifi. 

The next day was a bit sad for all of us, as it was Cara’s departure date. We made the best of it by dinghying to the airport for check-in and then heading to Maho Beach (aka Jet Blast Beach) to watch the jets land low over the sand and take-off blasting the beach goers.  We noticed the pilots of American companies are careful not to blast folks too generously, but the pilots of the larger island airlines really blast the beach, knocking people off their feet and sending all kinds of hats, shirts, and toys into the water.  We got Cara back to the airport on time, and headed back to the boat, unsure of what to do with ourselves. The winds were still a bit strong for some of our favorite nearby anchorages, so we decided to stay in the lagoon through the weekend.  We finally got our tax information uploaded to our accountant, and purchased a few more supplies for boat maintenance/improvements/upgrades.  Reinhart’s birthday was Sunday, and we celebrated with a Rum cake for breakfast, a long walk on one of St. Martin’s extensive beaches, and ice cream in the afternoon, of course! 

It is really handy to do boat maintenance and improvements while anchored in the lagoon since we can run to the store for supplies or to a bar for research-wifi at any time. However, the lagoon is city life, and we are longing for the peaceful anchorages we had in the Virgins. We checked-out of the Dutch side this morning, headed out the bridge, and sailed around the west side of the island.  We’ve anchored in the lovely town of Marigot on the French side (just above the lagoon).  The water is bright and clear here, so we can clean off the lagoon growth from the hull.  In the next week or two we’ll visit some of the French side anchorages and then on to St. Barth and maybe further (Statia, Saba, Kitts, Nevis) in search of clear water in which to swim and snorkel and lovely trails to hike. 

Rockhopper Anchorages:

18°01.915N 063°05.839W; Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten; 16-20Mar16

18°02.421N 063°05.656W; Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten; 21-26Mar16

17°53.997N 062°51.407W; Gustavia Outer Harbor, St. Barth 27Mar16

17°55.492N 062°52.174W; Anse du Colombier mooring, St. Barth 28Mar16

18°02.403N 063°05.694W; Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten; 29Mar-04Apr

18°04.059N 063°05.565W; Marigot, St. Martin; 05Apr16