Simpson Bay Sint Maarten (Part 1)

The entrance channel into the Simpson Bay lagoon, the Customs dock just to the left of the picture

With lots to do in Sint Maarten, we wasted no time in getting the dinghy in the water and heading in to clear Customs and Immigration. The Customs dock is in the entrance channel into the Simpson Bay lagoon, just on the seaward side of the lifting bridge. It was much busier than we had expected, not with dinghies but with powerful motorboat taxis from Anguilla. It seems that visitors to Anguilla who are flying into and out of the islands from Sint Maarten airport are collected from and dropped off at Sint Maarten at this dock, with many of them clearing Customs and/or Immigration in the office at the dock too. Happily, Nicky managed to get through the bureaucracy in a small gap in the traffic of Anguillan visitors, whilst I stayed with the dinghy to try to keep it clear of all the to-ing and fro-ing motorboats.

Paperwork complete we headed into the lagoon to find Budget Marine. Inside, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma was obvious. We found the sheer number of destroyed and sunken boats quite incredible and the fact that there were still so many wrecked vessels in the lagoon just proved to us how bad the devastation had been. Whole areas of the IGY Simpson Bay Marina were still utterly destroyed. Huge fishing boats were washed up on the shore and, of course, the damage to many, many buildings was still evident.

(Bottom) some of these boats wrecked on the shore close to the airport were still homes to their owners

Budget Marine Warehouse tucked in the corner of The Lagoon. “GET  A   E” were the only letters left on the side of it but the building survived the hurricane

Quite amazed by all we could see and nursing the outboard along all the while, we eventually arrived at Budget Marine. Rex, my contact at the store, arranged for the solar panels and associated bits and the new Tohatsu outboard to be brought out from the warehouse where they had been put aside for us, and we whiled away the time peering around the chandlery finding more things that we needed [Ed: or should that read ‘needed’?]. Getting back to BV with the solar panels balanced on top of the large outboard motor box was interesting. Back aboard BV, I was like a kid in a toy shop: a new outboard to get going and all the bits (bar the stainless steel pipe) for the solar panel project; it was almost difficult knowing which to start work on first! But of course, it had to be the outboard and it didn’t take too long to get it filled with oil and fuel, a temporary lifting harness sorted out and then the new engine fitted to the dinghy. Over the next few days in Sint Maarten we did so much running around in the dinghy that we completed the engine’s initial run-in period. Though we couldn’t operate it at full revs for 10 hours, we were still able to use enough power to prove that the 9.8HP 2-stroke had definitely been the right choice. And, at a kilo lighter than our wheezy old 5HP 4-stroke (and that’s wheezy before it had its unfortunate impeller shredding incident) it is slight easier to lift off its stowage, what’s not to like? [Ed: the price tag?  Only jesting, it was a duty-free bargain!] Our only slight difficulty was what to do with the old engine? It seemed a crying shame to just throw it away – someone out there could surely use it, if just for spare parts and we had plenty of those too! In the end, we sold it for a song to an outboard mechanic we tracked down. He’ll get it running again and flog it on at a profit, and we’ve received something for it and know that somehow it’ll be useful to someone again.

As soon as the outboard was on and running we gave Charlotte some tuition in using it so that she could run herself (and us) to and from the shore at will. That proved to be very helpful for us because we could tick off the jobs that needed doing more quickly whilst she had the fun of whizzing about in the dinghy.

Non-standard trawler parking next to the Snoopy Bar

During her explorations ashore, Charlotte rather liked the Snoopy Bar as a place to relax and catch up on email and internet admin. Like most of the buildings in the area it had taken a pounding during the hurricane and there was even a large trawler washed up high and dry right next to the bar. However, enough of the Snoopy Bar had been rebuilt for it to be functional and it ended up being a regular stop off for all of us for access to the internet.

Socially, we had a surprisingly busy time during our stay in Sint Maarten. On the morning of our first day on the island Nicky bumped into Anne Lloyd in Budget Marine who invited us over to their Halberg Rassey, Sophia, that evening. Anne and Jonathon are Roving Rear Commodores for the OCC and had just completed their circumnavigation so it was a fascinating evening hearing about their experiences. Also on board were Agnes and Brian from Bragand another couple who left the anchorage the next day and whose names I now forget; many apologies. In my defence, this blog post was written 8 weeks after the event.

The new chain on board and ready to stow

Don and Anne from Salty Pauseare one of the lovely couples that we met whilst we were getting our dinghy repaired at Martinique. They have a duplex apartment at the furthest north point of Sint Maarten and they had told us that they would be very upset if we didn’t get in touch when we anchored off. We duly did and the support that they gave us during our stay was fabulous. Salty Pausewas on a mooring on the French side of the island (of which more later) and Don moored their small RIB as a runabout relatively close to the entrance to Simpson Bay lagoon. On hearing that we had some anchor chain to pick up, he immediately came over to help move it onto BV, which took most of Thu morning to achieve. Job complete, he shot off at top speed shouting, “Oh, and bring some steaks for the grill, you’re coming round for dinner tonight.”

Views of hurricane damage from Don and Anne’s apartment. The neighbouring block (top left) had shifted on its foundations, had to be evacuated and was still empty

Armed with steaks and wine, we whizzed ashore at the allotted time, to be collected by Don for the short drive to their apartment. Being on the top floors of their building they have great views from their balcony and upper terrace and from these vantage points it was easy to see how many roofs had been damaged and how slowly, in places, the recovery work was going. Though their building looked in good shape Anne and Don explained that it had sustained a reasonable amount of damage, and their upper floor studio area had been wrecked. However, they had taken advantage of the situation and were in the process of a remodel to convert it into a proper, separate studio apartment which they hope to rent out long term, perhaps to a student at the medical school.

Apartment tour complete, we enjoyed the fabulous sunset views from their living room balcony and upper terrace over sundowners and took welcome advantage of their kind offer of the use of the shower (unlimited hot water – Charlotte was delighted!). We were also offered beds for the night, a lift to get our gas bottle refilled and Anne told Nicky that she had to bring the laundry round to get that done. They were incredibly generous hosts to us, a role that I’m not sure we will ever be able to repay to them, and such fun company too. Oh, and being Americans they know how to barbecue and, boy, was it good!

Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten