Marigot St Martin

Getting ready to leave the Lagoon

With all of our purchases of boat and diving bits completed on Wednesday, by Thursday 3 January we were ready to move on. We had a choice, either move promptly and use the 0800hrs bridge lift to get out of the Lagoon, or wait until the next bridge lift at 1000hrs.  We decided to go for the earlier option.

Waiting our turn in the queue to go through the Simpson Bay lift bridge (blue on the right, just ahead of the coastguard boat on the far right)

And we certainly weren’t alone in that thinking; there were lots of yachts on the move in the Lagoon ready 15 minutes before the lift time.  We all circled about and then lined up in order to zip out as soon as the bridge operator said that we were clear to move.

Anchored back in Simson Bay

Once through the lifting bridge we only went a short distance and anchored back in Simpson Bay.  This was to just be a short stop of a couple of hours to allow us to visit Customs and Immigration so that we could check out of the Dutch side of the island.

A good sail around the island

With the formalities completed and the anchoring fees paid we were clear to leave.  It was a good sailing wind and a beautiful day as we made our way clockwise around the island to sail the 13 miles to Marigot Bay on the French side of the island.

Top: light aircraft lining up on finals to the international airport. 
Middle:  Maho Beach on the undershoot to the runway at the airport. 
Bottom:  sequence showing the light aircraft on short finals

Our route took us past Maho Bay and the approach to the runway of the island’s international airport, the Princess Julianna Airport.  The runway starts just beyond the beach and so a good game for visitors to the beach is to hang onto the fence as the big jets arrive.  We watched a small passenger plane make its approach (pictured in the sequence above) but if you can imagine that aircraft being a large passenger jet you can see just how low the aircraft are as they cross the beach.

Anchored in Marigot Bay

The Marigot Bay anchorage was quite busy when we dropped our anchor in the lovely turquoise water at 1400hrs. We had been slightly concerned that the anchorage would be very rolly with swell like the one at Simpson Bay. As it happened it was a much nicer anchorage and we were very comfortable there.

The view of Marigot town and Fort Louis (on top of the hill just left of centre) from the anchorage

We had 2 reasons for visiting this side of the island.  Firstly, there is a good French Super-U supermarket a short distance from the quay. Nicky had visited it by bus from the Dutch side when trying to sort out the problem with our Antiguan Digicel sim card but, with a big stock up of our food lockers planned, we really didn’t fancy lugging all of those provisions back to BV by bus.  Our second reason for visiting St Martin (vice Sint Maarten) was to dive a couple of sites that had been recommended to us (more of that in a later blog).

However, before all that could start, the afternoon’s priority was to complete the arrivals formalities.  We checked our pilot book and worked out the location of a marina office at which we could check in but when we took the dinghy ashore we found the marina and the office still closed after being damaged by Hurricane Irma.  In fact looking around the immediate area around the port and on the Lagoon side it was clear that the rebuild was quite a bit behind what had been achieved on the Dutch side of the island.  Having failed to find a place to check in at, we walked up to the Island Water World chandlery to find out the timings for getting one of our propane bottles filled and to buy a courtesy ensign for further down route.  It turned out that they also had a check-in computer in the shop, so we were able to complete the arrivals formalities there which was very convenient.  We also found a really good boulangerie close to the main town quay and hatched a plan to buy some proper fresh bread in the morning for breakfast.

Dinghy and ferry dock

And so we settled into life anchored on the French side of the island. Somehow our brief stop in Marigot Bay turned out to be a 5 day affair.  We tinkered with a few small maintenance jobs.  Tried out various wines to decide which we’d buy more of, and generally enjoyed great pâté, cheeses and bread.

Conscious that were intending to move onto areas where food would not be so readily available, Nicky spent quite a bit of time coming up with a plan on what store cupboard items we needed to buy in bulk.  The town ferry quay, pictured above, became a regular dinghy stop-off point for us as we started to gather in those stores.

Fort Louis

We had intended to climb up to see Fort Louis which dates from 1765 but somehow we ran out of time.  One of the reasons for that was that we were getting a little concerned about the amount of stuff that we had [Ed: have!] collected on BV.  With some new diving gear that we had bought ‘for Christmas’ and an every growing store cupboard pile that we hoped would last us for the next 3 months [Ed: but that pile will be eaten!], BV was starting to look a little low on her lines. More to the point, we knew that we would need to fit Charlotte on board with us (and the store cupboard food) when we reach Cuba in Feb.  Fortunately there was a possible solution.  Almost as soon as we had anchored in the bay, a dinghy turned up with a flyer advertising a yachting jumble sale which would take place on Saturday at the Time Out Boatyard, one of the local yards.  Almost perfect timing for us.

The Time Out boat jumble

The jumble sale turned out to be a success for us and we got rid of lots of little things that we have been carrying around but not using.  However, we really wanted to sell the large double genoa that we had on board; that would make the most significant improvement on space in the aft cabin and on weight on board.  Unfortunately, despite having a couple of phone numbers left by interested parties, the sail was about the only thing that we didn’t sell and so we lugged it back to BV just after lunch.

However, that evening our phone rang from one of those interested in the sail and we spent the next morning delivering the sail to a nearby yacht so that the potential buyer could check that it fitted.  It did and so with that sale completed we were clear to leave Marigot Bay and explore some of the other anchorages around the French side of the island……….. but only after buying in some lovely fresh baguettes from the boulangerie first thing on Monday morning.

Marigot Bay, Saint Martin