St. Marten Vortex

We have no idea of time, except that it's not hurricane season, so I guess we're officially cruisers. I have a sense that it's been too long since we've posted to this blog, and I don't recall what or from where we posted. We've missed holidays and birthdays--Allie, our granddaugter, and Ben, our son--and hope they know we think, thank and talk of them on their special days.

We've been in St. Marten for something like 6 weeks. We've passed the official date of our papers, but won't bother to correct them. The French islands are very relaxed about paperwork--a good thing since we arrived without checking out of Antigua; it was too difficult to get to the office in Barbuda.

We ran out of beer in Barbuda, so finally had to sail to St. Marten, where every kind of boat product and service is available at duty-free prices. We had a long list of wants and needs. We hauled Act III for bottom cleaning and repainting. We bought a new gasoline generator, a 2,000 watt Honda, that fully satisfies our power needs--for the moment. Bill made several trips up the mast to repair wiring and replace anchor lights, and to begin troubleshooting the windicator that had stopped working over 6 months ago. It's not essential, but nice to have the wind speed and angle working together electronically with our autopilot so we can automatically steer by wind angle. He brought the unit down to start testing with his various meters, including his beloved multi-meter/oscilloscope that he keeps safely beside him when he sleeps. The Nexus windicator is an unusual make and model, and Bill expected he would have to send the unit to the Canadian manufacturer for rebuilding--the electronics were whacked.

We awoke insanely early on a Saturday morning to sell our old 1,000 watt generator at the monthly boat jumble. It was gone within an hour, but not before I had recognized our very same windicator offered for $12 at the table across from us. Aha! Someone had torn it off th their mast mount, but perhaps the circuit board could be installed in our old mount. After more days of testing and mast climbing and soldering, the new one went into place. It seemed to work, but showed the wind from the opposite side...more mast climbing to turn the circuit board around. Point is, it's easy to spend a lot of time on one island when you're insanely busy. (yeah, right.) Windicator now seems almost perfect: maybe one or two bizarre gremlins still at work in its microprossessing circuits.

We made a long weekend trip to Saba, a Dutch island about 20 miles east of St. Marten, with spectacular scuba diving. Saba is the tip of a mountain coming straight out of the ocean...no harbors or beaches, only some sketchy moorings off the concrete pier on the leeward coast. We left Act III safely in the St. Marten lagoon and took the fast ferry to Saba, because NE swells can make mooring "untenable"--a word we shudder to hear. Sea Saba dive center greeted us and stowed our gear aboard one of their boats, and we taxied to our lodge at the top of the island. The road, entirely built by hand, is a feat of engineering designed by a local who took a correspondence course in civil engineering, after a Dutch engineer came for a look and deemed a road impossible. It winds about 2000' up to the EcoLodge. (One may hike another 1,000' to the summit--the tallest point in the kingdom of the Netherlands.) The lodge consists of 10-12 uniquely painted cabins, separate and hidden from each other, and is largely self-sufficient. They collect rainwater, shower water is solar-heated, and the hottub of rainwater on our small porch took only 20 minutes to heat with an efficient propane heater. The dining room at the reception cabin is lit by candles only, and the owner/chef is a world-class chef. He grows many of the vegetables and all of the herbs they use. He and his friends took five years to build it, primarily because all the cisterns had to be dug with pick and shovel (not possible to get a back-hoe in without destroying the ecology). Each morning we hiked 5 minutes to the main road, took a taxi back down to the waterfront, and were pampered by the divemasters. In thirty minutes we went from 2000 feet above sea level to 100 feet below. The diving was indeed fabulous; we swam with sharks, barracuda and endangered hawksbill turtles. We made 5 dives over the course of 3 days and thoroughly enjoyed our vacation from ACT III. (We know friends, some of you might think that a "vacation" from a lovely boat anchored in paradise is not quite fair. Sorry.)

We finally provisioned and left St. Marten. First we backtracked a bit to Tintamarre, a small island off the NE coast of St. Martin, where we picked up a mooring and found ourselves at a small clothing optional beach where day-charters bring boatloads of naked folks to enjoy swimming and snorkeling for the day. Pretty funny. We planned to stay a day or two before heading to the BVI's, but we so enjoyed the beautiful island and having turtles and dolphins swimming around our boat that we lingered a few more days. Then the wind died completely and we lingered a few more days. After 10 days, winds picked up a bit and we pulled back into Marigot Bay and the lagoon--we had good friends to see again.

We're still here in St Martin, anchored in the lagoon right next to our good friend Nils, waiting for fair weather, so we can try to leave again. Hearing Nils' tale of international romance involving several countries, the internet, an Italian actress, story-book villas, and high adventure makes our stay here fun. See "Swedish Meatballs" post for details. (follows this post.) Pictures

Swedish Meatballs

We first met Nils (s/v Kairos) at the quiet anchorage in Barbuda , and quickly became fast friends.  Nils was one of the first Scandinavian base jumpers and a renowned filmer of base jumping, making IMAX films, which meant he had to jump with a heavy camera on his helmet.  That ultimately led to shoulder injuries and he had to quit jumping about 10 years ago.  He is divorced with 2 grown children, and has been sailing alone for 3 years.  We spent many hours visiting and when it came time to leave Barbuda, we bid our farewells and sailed off to different harbors in St. Marten.

A few days later Nils sailed in an anchored beside us in Marigot Bay,  and a couple of days after that, Curt (s/v Bellis) sailed in from St. Bart's.  He is another solo sailor from Sweden,  who Nils first met in the Canary Islands.  Curt was a dairy farmer; and has 3 grown children.  His first wife and love of his life, died very young, and his second marriage became intolerable.  He divorced, was offered a good sum for his farm and he decided to buy a boat and go sailing.  He also has been cruising for about 3 years.

The four of us became a team, sharing stories, and projects.  We fondly introduce them to our friends as the Swedish Meatballs, but they are far from that description.  They are bright, interesting, funny, sensitive people who have made our time here pass quickly.  Nils is  waiting here for a friend to join him to sail back to the Azores; Curt was waiting for his passport to be mailed here from the American Embassy in Sweden, as he plans to cruise the east coast of the states and needed a visa.  We were appalled at the hoops he had to jump through to get a cruising permit for our fair country, including a face-to-face meeting at the embassy.  Show up at 8:00 a.m., no sooner, no later.  He finally got his meeting 6 hours later.

When we first arrived here last month,  Nils began to contact a woman in Italy that a friend from Australia had insisted he should meet.  He had tried to connect with her, Cristiana, months ago, but she never responded to his overtures and he had dropped it.   But, he said,  seeing Bill and me together encouraged him to try again.  This time, she answered his phone call, intending to tell him she was-not-interested-in-a-relationship-thank-you-very-much.  But something clicked between them and they began a fast and furious long-distance relationship.  Nils spent hours  with his computer in the local bars talking on Skype, reported to us every day on how wonderful she seemed to be.  She was an actress in Germany before building her ecologically-efficient villa in Italy, so we were not surprised when her picture arrived:  she's drop dead gorgeous!   Next thing we knew, Nils was thinking of flying to Italy, and then he had a ticket.  He would leave his boat in St. Martin to fly to Italy for two weeks--he had to know if they were suited.   Bill and I felt like parents (with a fifty year old hopelessly romantic son) and  loved watching  the birth of this romance.  We hugged sad good-byes (again), and Curt dinghied Nils to the airport in early April.  Bellis and Act III would surely be gone to the British Virgin Islands by the time Nils returned.

We waited nearly a week for good weather to leave, then had no problem spending longer than expected at Tintamarre.  We can't swim off the boat in the lagoon where we anchor comfortably in St. Marten, so we spent many hours in the water at Tintamarre.  By then, we realized it would be only a few more days before Nils returned from Italy and if we went back to the lagoon, we could hear how the trip went.  Were they well-suited after all?

Nils was surprised to see us dinghy up to Kairos, and the huge grin on his face told us all we needed to know.  The trip went better than he even imagined, her villa has a nearby marina, she'll meet him in the Azores in 7 weeks, and then .... ahhh the stuff of fairytales.

Curt was also still here when we returned, but left within hours to head through the Bahamas on his way to the States.  I have a hunch we'll see him again in the northeast.   We'll provision again this week and expect to really arrive in the BVI's' soon.  We only have to be in position to head for Bermuda sometime in late May.