Sailing to Sint Maarten

Pelican Island or what we called ‘Frog Rock’ (top left).  Hermitage Bay (top left and bottom)

Antigua slips away behind us

We had enjoyed the solitude and the views around ‘our’ beach in Five Island Harbour but we felt that we couldn’t leave the bay and head off for Sint Maarten without taking a quick peak at Hermitage Bay, the beach off which the half-dozen or so other yachts were anchored. So, having raised the anchor we motored around the corner for a drive-past photo shoot and then turned tail and set course to the northwest.

Heading towards the sunset

It’s about 90nm from Antigua to Sint Maarten and it’s always good to arrive in daylight if possible, so we had planned this to be an overnight passage. Charlotte was keen to stand a night watch but has done relatively few in the past. We therefore agreed that she would stand a full 4-hour watch but half would be with me and half with Nicky. It was a lovely evening for a sail and with a 12-knot easterly wind, BV made steady, if not spectacular, progress though with plenty of Sargasso weed still around the DuoGen kept getting clogged up, which was tedious. Charlotte came on deck at 2200 and had an hour watching some great phosphorescence before a nearly full moon rose and virtually turned night into day. Indeed, it was so bright that at the end of her watch, when the wind had shifted more to the southeast, Charlotte and I had sufficient light to easily pole out the genoa. Dawn broke at 0600 and the wind dropped away, so the final 3 hours of the passage were pretty much all under engine.

Approaching Sint Maarten

The benefit of arriving in daylight is that you can see to work your way into a busy anchorage and pick a good, sandy spot on which to drop your anchor. Simpson Bay was full of yachts when we arrived and the outer part of the anchorage was quite swelly and rolly which we didn’t fancy at all. However, we managed to find a BV-sized space tucked in amongst the moorings almost as shallow as we would have wanted to go – and it was out of the swell, a fact that Charlotte commented upon after we had been for drinks on another yacht.

Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten