Home for the holidays

We had mahi-mahi with our neighbor boat and said goodbye to my friend Etienne.

He likes to wear Crocs that have red for port and green for starboard.

I will be gone for a week while my boat is in St Martin

Drive around St Martin

Be, Etienne and I on a hill overlooking Cole Bay.

Marina Fort St Louis.

Marigot

Lunch at Bake de Grand Case

Swim at Anse Marcel

Bale aux Prunes

Tour of St Martin

Took a bunch of photos on a tour of the island starting with downtown Philipsburg.

Here is one of the beach.

Further around the coast on the French side at Bake de L'Embouchure, it was very windy.

We went to a restaurant where the cook had not turned up so Etienne helped in the kitchen.

Body Surfing in Orient Bay, St Martin (French side)

I have a very welcome guest staying with me at the moment.

Etienne, from France and I went body Surfing at Orient Bay and here is the video.

St Martin

Ben my neighbor from Anguilla, and I climbed the mountain on the other side of the lagoon and I took a photo with my boat in the center if you look closely. Then we walked all the way down to the St Martin Yacht club and watched the following boats exit out through the bridge.

Anguilla to Saint Martin

Well I made it here to the Dutch side of St Martin after an easy 4 hour reach down from Anguilla.

There are some very serious looking boats here in the harbor. The white one is supposedly owned by Steve Jobs.

Here's my track from Anguilla.

Sandy Island

There is an island a couple of miles off the coast that is good for snorkeling so Benjamin and I went out there using my dinghy and his outboard.
Take a look at the video

The weather is not looking too good over the next few days so I am off to St Martin.

Epic Ride

Today we rented bikes from Epic Ride just up the street from Road Bay and biked from one end of the island to the other.

This was Shoal Bay in the East and here is Shoal Bay in the west.

After biking 25 miles this afternoon, we were ready for our favorite beverage at the Sandbar on the beach with the proprietor, Darren Banks.

Wrecks

Started off the day trying to snorkel the wreck marked on the charts near where I am anchored .

Benjamin ,  my neighbor came with me but it was a bust as we couldn't locate any wreck, the water was cloudy and there was a jetski, which are illegal here, doing doughnuts near us.

There is no shortage of broken dreams to be found on the beach here.

However if you look hard enough, you will find them over the Rainbow .

Fixing my VHF antenna

My neighbor Benjamin, fixed the loose antenna cable to my Shakespeare whip antenna at the top of my mast and inspected all my rigging while he was at it.

It was so nice not having to climb up the mast for a change and i was so glad to have another pair of younger eyes checking that everything was fine.
We both walked to the grocery store afterwards at the top of the hill overlooking the harbor.

On the way I finally got to see a real live breadfruit tree.

Half built houses

All throughout the islands, and Anguilla is no exception, are houses, where the owner has run out of money to complete the home.

The story with this next 10 bedroom, single family home, is that the owner has just been arrested for money laundering.

Broken boomkin whisker stay

My new neighbor, Benjamin, noticed a problem with my boomkin whisker stay. A number of strands had broken. This is a major problem and I could lose my mast from this so I set about fixing it.

I had a spare forestay that I decided to cannibalize for the replacement.

I took the old stalock fitting and reused the cone.

Benjamin also noticed that my VHF antenna cable had parted from the antenna.

This will be another important job for another day

Flag Halyard

Well today, I finally got around to raising my flag Halyard. Up to now, I have always tied my flags to the starboard upper stay with cable ties.

First I had to climb the mast to my spreaders before I was able to raise the flag.

Much easier and better!

This morning I took 20 photos of all the serial numbers on my gear from various items of electronics through to my dinghy. I had heard a case of a cruiser who had some items stolen from his boat and the police recovered the items but then demanded that the cruiser furnish serial numbers before they would return the items to him.

So an Allied Seawind 30 named Crackertail pulled in behind me.

The Valley

So I set out from Road Bay this morning to visit The Valley, which is Anguilla's center of town, 3 miles up the street. I was going to catch a taxi but the driver said to start walking and someone will pick you up.

True to his word, I got offered a ride but not all the way and I was apprehensive about walking on such narrow roads. I needed a good work out though so I was glad for the exercise.

There were some great market stalls on the side of the road with real tomatoes.

Broodie sold me a refreshing coconut drink.

And this was what I had come to see. Not exactly a vibrant center but serviceable.

There was a library there, where I read about the 50 year anniversary of Anguilla's Revolution and of the deep financial recession it is currently in.

And to top it all off, I had a fish burger on the strip, a street with a half dozen eateries.