Marigot Bay St Martin (2)

Heavy rain… no quite what you sail to the Caribbean to experience

Monday signalled the start of our working [Ed: and spending!!] week and the weather came out in sympathy with torrential rain first thing.  When it had cleared somewhat, we went ashore and joined the queue at the Digicel shop, coming away the happy owners of a new sim card loaded with a ridiculously large amount of data for a relatively small outlay.  Many thanks to Digicel’s Christmas offers and to St Martin being a part of France!

Happily, by late morning the worst of the rain had gone through so from France we went international and whizzed across the lagoon in the dinghy to Dutch Sint Maarten.  Here we spent a small fortune in Budget Marine and Island Water World (even with the 10-15% discounts we were offered) and returned, significantly more slowly, laden down with new ‘bits’ for the boat, notably 4 new AGM batteries for our domestic battery bank.

Susan had invited us for a homemade pizza dinner so we spent the evening with them again, with much of the discussion centred on Lars’ modification to their dinghy – an extension to the aluminium floor, almost like trim tabs, with the aim of making it easier to get the dinghy up on the plane.

The old batteries

I spent Tuesday morning fitting the new domestic batteries and then disposing of the old ones at ‘Shrimpy’s’ where a chap would pick them up and recycle them.  The old ones were still working reasonably well but the morning voltage was quite significantly down on what we were used to and we were concerned that this was signalling the beginning of the end.  Given their age and the ease and relative cost of replacing them here rather than, say, in the Honduran Bay Islands, we had decided to bite the bullet.

And the next car goes up in smoke

Batteries fitted I could sit in the cockpit and watch the nearby protests, marching and car-burning which Nicky missed as she had accompanied Lars and Susan to the new Carrefour supermarket, just on the Dutch side of the border.  She came back with plenty of Christmas goodies, having missed all the excitement of a large, loud protest march accompanied by more car-burning.  We looked at some secondhand dive kit in the afternoon but assessed that the seller was just trying to make a quick buck by buying up and selling on old kit rather than a genuine cruiser selling on kit he was replacing or no longer needed.

We spent the evening back on Sea Wind, this time with a Swiss friend of Lars and Susan, a chap called Alex, and his lodger for a couple of days.  Alex had met Lars and Susan in Maine and had sailed south to the Caribbean as a part of the Salty Dawgs rally.  Unfortunately, during that passage he had ended up with seawater entering the engine exhaust system, which resulted in hydraulic lock, bent piston rods etc.  So his Amel 54 was alongside at one of the marinas on the Dutch side whilst he argued the case with his insurance company for re-engining the boat with a Beta Marine engine; his insurers wanted to replace the written off engine with a new version of the same – cheaper for them to buy but, given the cost of spares, far more expensive for Alex to maintain.  The reason for the get-together was to eat traditional Swedish meatballs – perhaps the only dish that Susan lets Lars prepare.  Alex had eaten them in Maine and had been so enthusiastic about them that they felt they should cheer him up with another serving in his hour of need [Ed: engine failure induced depression?].  So we had delicious meatballs [Ed: far better than IKEA’s!] along with Swedish pickled cabbage and other traditional side dishes.  A lovely evening.

Marigot Bay, St Martin