Marigot Bay St Martin (1)

The castle above Marigot Bay, St Martin

Having checked into La Belle France at lunchtime on Saturday 14 December, we headed to the dinghy dock and walked up to the Super U, hoping to buy some baguette, pâté and cheese.  Most of the town was closed up and very quiet, including the Digicel shop where we had been hoping to buy a sim card, but the Super U was open, though to amended opening times due to the ‘situation sécuritaire’.  We stopped by Sea Wind on our return to BV to see if our friends Lars and Susan, whom we had not seen since we had left Georgetown (Bahamas) in April, had returned to their boat.  They had, and jolly good it was to see them both too.  Though we’ve kept in contact we had a lot to catch up on and they invited us across to Sea Wind for dinner.

Drinks on Innamorata II.  Left to right: Carol and Steve (Innamorata II), Helga and Johan (Arcadia)

But before that we had accepted an invitation from Steve and Carol to drinks on board Innamorata II.  Lars and Susan had been invited too, as well as Johan and Helga (Arcadia), whom we had met a couple of times in Deltaville over the summer but whom we had not really got to know.  It was great Deltaville catch up again hearing about Steve and Carol’s trip south and their plans for the rest of the winter as well as properly meeting Johan and Helga and learning about what they have done.

Drinks on Innamorata II.  Left to right: Susan and Lars (Sea Wind), Nicky and me

Sea Wind

We repaired aboard Sea Wind for dinner and talked late into the evening, hearing first-hand of Lars and Susan’s many adventures in America and also of some misadventures that had kept them up in Newport RI until well after most other cruisers had moved further south [Ed: a broken boom].  It was great to see them again and we were delighted that they hadn’t moved on from St Martin before we had arrived.

The next day (Sunday 15 December) Mark and Lisa invited us over to Wild Iris for coffee and a catch-up before they, Endless Summer and Innamorata II headed off on an overnight passage to the BVIs.  It’s always interesting hearing how other crews tackle long passages when there are several different routing options available.  Like Lars and Susan, Mark and Lisa had sailed to St Martin via Bermuda, though Lars and Susan had left the USA from Newport RI whereas Mark and Lisa left from Hampton or Norfolk VA.  But both couples, just like Lionel and Elsie on Ruby Tuesday, spoke of strong winds and, in particular, rough and confused seas on departure from Bermuda.  Whilst we would be interested in visiting the island, Nicky’s certainly keener on doing so heading north when (hopefully) the weather is better.

Snails for our starter.  Dinner on BV.  Left to right: Nicky, Helga (Arcadia), Lars and Susan (Sea Wind), Johan (Arcadia)

On our way back to BV we stopped off at Arcadia to hand on some information about the OCC and were invited over for drinks that evening.  We had a lovely couple of hours on board, so much so that we invited Helga and Johan back to BV to share dinner with us and Lars and Susan.  St Martin is a département of France and we had found proper garlic snails in the Super U.  But there were too many for us to eat without being properly piggy, so we had them as a starter for the 6 of us and then moved on to a variation of pasta puttanesca, a great store cupboard dish.  Johan and Helga have sailed in the South Atlantic and across to Antarctica, both places on Lars and Susan’s wish-list of cruising locations, so the conversation flowed for another full evening.

Marigot Bay, St Martin