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
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