Amanda arrived back with plenty of presents - from new rudder bearings with mounts, to rash vests and lovely chocolates :) Great to be back to just the two of us!
Just before we left, Freddie and the rest of the Doppelbock crew arrived ready to head off to the Heineken regatta at St Maarten. That was our destination to but not for the racing - rather for the excellent duty-free shops that would allow us to get some of the chandlery that we needed. Our wind generator mast is supposedly there, as are a number of scuba bits I could do with.
So at 11am on Friday, we headed out from the marina, checked out with customs/immigration and headed to Deep Water bay. The hull needed a scrub from too many idle days in a marina. We had some lunch and banked some sleep, as well as spending 40 minutes cleaning the waterline which is always worst, despite the coppercoat. The rest of the hull fairs just fine.
At 6pm we headed NW from the bay towards St Maarten - a distance of 90 miles, meaning that we'd arrive the next morning with plenty of daylight. Well, that was the plan. As it happened, the wind was in the right direction and blowing 6s or 7s and we flew along averaging well over 8knots with 10knots regularly on the GPS. The moon rose behind us as we left and was our constant companion throughout the night. It was one of those magical nights. As we passed St Barts, we began to think about slowing down as we didn't want to arrive too early and be trying to pull into a crowded anchorage in the dark (remember - regatta weekend!). We ended up loitering outside the anchorage for 30mins until we could see our way in.. Just as well as many boats had no anchor light, or any light at all!
Once anchored, we caught up on some sleep before heading ashore to check in - a simple process here in St Maarten, though you do have to pay even to anchor in the bay! We headed over to Kim-Sha beach to see where the festivities would take place that evening (and boy did they, from 7pm until a 4am!) and get some lunch at the Bucannear Beach bar - which was very good. I dropped my scuba gear off at Ocean Explorers for a service, and signed up for a Nitrox course at the same time. We had a wander around and picked up a Chippie sim so we had connectivity on the boat. It should also work in other former Dutch territories like Saba and Surinam, both of interest to us! Then back to the boat.
I came down with a bad headache, so retired early. The festivities could be heard despite being nearly 1nm away, but it didn't disturb us - we slept very well, catching up from the previous night.
Sunday was to be a lazy day, washing and prepping for the week ahead. We have a number of jobs to achieve this week. Most important is collecting the wind generator mast and fitting it which may involve trying to find some help. Wielding a 2.7m pole with a 17kg wind generator on the end whilst drilling and securing it to the GRP is going to be tough. We also need to work out how to get more gas - possibly the easiest way is to get a new cylinder here, then refill one of our spares from that. We really need a spare so we can risk running one completely empty before refilling. There are a slew of other things to get - water filters ready for our journey up river in Guyana later in the year, a second bean bag as the one we have is very handy. We are also looking for a way to make a nice ladder for the dinghy, so help our guests get out from the water. Budget Marine and Island Water World - the two biggest chandleries here will be our new best friends! This is also a good place to stock up on food and drink before we head to the BVIs as things are expensive there. Finally, I need to complete my nitrox course and maybe fit in a couple of dives. We are going to be very busy this week indeed!
We plan to leave here on Saturday or Sunday, so we can be in the BVIs to meet Andrei and Alina next week.