May 2019 - June 2019 - BVI to Bequia

We did some serious Island hopping from the BVI to the perceived safety of the Grenadines once more. This is a brief coverage of our “puddle jumping” :

 

Lunch guests @ the Marina in Marigot
Bay

Leaving the BVI we had a really tough sail for 2 days to St Martin. A unique island in that one side is French, St Martin and one side Dutch, St Maarten. In 1648 the Island was split in two, legend has it that the border was drawn after a walking race between a Dutchman heading South and a Frenchman heading North from Oyster Pond. 

Jet flying in to Princess Juliana airport
skimming heads as it goes

The Frenchman covered more distance, giving France 60% of the 90sq km island. The Dutch however got the salt ponds of the South which was a major business for them for a long time. The Dutch side also has the international Princess Juliana airport who’s runway’s close proximity to Maho beach makes it one of the 10 most dangerous airports in the world to land at.

Great coffee & brekkie stop on the way
to the Supermarket

Kim & I doing sun-
downers on Catching Up

We dropped anchor in Marigot Bay in Saint Martin, the French side. The absence of local taxation and free port status (duty free) encourages tourism and makes cruising here a breeze, a short walk to the local chandlery where one fills in a form on a computer and pays an obligatory couple of Euro’s for the use thereof and you have arrived. We didn’t realise this and cleared in with the harbour master who charged us overtime rates as it was a weekend – humpf. 

Lloyd & Dantelle created a cocktail menu
and made the most delicious cocktails

We finally caught up with Catching Up, a great fun family on their beautiful 50ft Knysna Catamaran who we have been following, literally, since they left Cape Town a couple of days before us. 

Introducing good old South African fare
to the rest of the world

Sundowners were such fun events and between us we even introduced Cally and John of “How Not to Sail a Boat” to boboetie and malva pudding. A sad occasion indeed when Catching Up left for Panama.

The U-Save supermarket is huge and well stocked but once more Google translate had to decipher as most stock comes from France. Cheese and baguettes however remain delicious in any language.

A monument celebrating the local market
is the only thing left of same market after
Irma, but reconstruction is underway

Painted on this partially sunken boat in
Simpson bay - "Life's too short to sink""

Dinghying through Simpson Bay was our best means of access to the Dutch side, the border between the two sides runs through the bay, no physical evidence, but the French sim card we bought and which doesn’t work on the Dutch side, knew exactly where the line was drawn. 

The temporary vendors market

The wounds and scars of Hurricane Irma are still visible in the many carcasses of broken and half sunken boats which litter Simspon bay and the structural damage visible all over on land. 

Titan, the Schenke agents were in St Maarten and we needed a new pressure gauge for our watermaker, this would take 3 weeks so we had time to explore and we made the most of it (to our amusement they also import and sell delicious borewors, dry wors, biltong and Mrs Balls chutney, you guessed it, South Africans).

We confirmed that the Yacht Club’s professed “Best Bloody Mary’s on the Island” were indeed so, found a rum distillery that made the most delicious ‘coffee chocolate rum’ and went to experience the excitement of the aeroplanes landing and taking off at Princess Juliana airport – they seem to almost skim onlookers heads as they come in to land from over the sea and the force of the jet blast from their exhausts when they take off is amazing, and dangerous, a lady was killed a few years ago when she was blown over and injured her head, we can attest to this first hand, we got sent rolling onto the sand whilst standing filming a smallish jet taking off and we picked sand out of our skin and hair for days!

Orient beach with it's temporary structure
and naked bodies

Ile Pinel

We took a little trip to Orient Beach and the gorgeous little island Ile Pinel at the northern side of St Martin, little did we realise that Orient Beach is the home of the famous nudist club/resort it was destroyed by Irma but the beach and a few shelters and lots of naked people are proof that you can’t keep a good thing down??

So many beautiful Iguana's, the green
ones are juniors

The ice-cream boat comes all the way
to the beach, another big plus

Disconcerting enough for us to re-anchor off Ile Pinel, a tourist mecca by day, with sunbathers lounging in deck chairs, sipping cocktails and being served food and the prettiest, pristine, iguana inhabited island after 17:00, the best place to take a bottle of wine and enjoy the sunset after a snorkel in the perfect turquoise water.

The streets of Philipsburg

We were collected and treated to an island tour and the most delicious braai by Nic and Uta Loubser, they sailed from South Africa many years ago and now live in a beautiful house just above Oyster Pond on St Maarten, what great stories and laughs.

Also been renovated since
Irma

Our last bit of exploration before departing St Martin was to meet Jessica in Philipsburg, she works on Cruise ships and this is where they dock. What an eye-opener, it was like having been transported to a different country, so many jewellery shops, pharmacies and souvenir shops, purely geared up for the tourists. 

We did visit the Yoda Guy movie exhibit, a small double story museum built by Nick Maley, a special effects designer who’s most famous invention was Yoda from Star Wars. A walk down Star Wars memory lane with the added bonus of meeting and chatting to Nick, wonderful. We had a great catch up with Jessica over lunch, then waved her on her way and 2 days later bade farewell to Saint Martin/Sint Maarten as we set sail to St Eustatius.

 

The slave road is a really steep way
to get to upper town, we struggled
with it, unladen.....

Newly renovated restaurant and curio shop
on the foreshore

The 25sq km Island of Sint Eustatius or Statia as its commonly known, became a Dutch possession and was known as the “Rock of Gold” in the 18^th century. Revenge pillaging by an English Admiral for a perceived insult to England after the firing of a salute to the new flag of an American ship, began the serious decline of the island, which today is an overseas municipality of the Netherlands, with ruins on the shore of a number of warehouses and Fort Oranje which is getting some much needed renovations. 

Transhipment plant

On the way there we passed a huge oil platform extending out to sea with many very large storage containers on land. Kevin discovered that it is known as a “transhipment plant” whereby ships from oil producing countries will offload into the containers and ships from countries that need oil will collect – no questions asked fuel supply, interestingly it is the second biggest port in the Netherlands, the biggest being Rotterdam, and most people don’t even know about it.

View of the bay from Upper Town

View of the bay from the Dive Shop

Lots of signs, makes sense, the trees all
look the same!

So many of these little hermit crabs
in the leaves, damn cute

The Island and its waters, which are a National Park, has Lower Town which consists of 2 dive operations, a couple of restaurants and small hotels and the marina. Due to its MPA status one can only dive with their dive operators, it is reputed to have some of the best dive sites of the Caribbean, one of the reasons we made the stop here was to collect something from one of the dive shops for a friend and we were going past and thought it would be a great experience to do a dive or two, but sadly at US$68 per

 dive this was just more than we could afford, together with anchoring, marine park fees, harbour duties and nature reserve taxes which were all fairly costly as well. 

Made it

That said, the waters in the bay were beautiful and teeming with rays and fish and we were at least able to snorkel some of the ruins, stunning.

Upper Town with the Fort and residential area was also the gateway to The Quill or Mazinga, a dormant volcano 600m high which we decided would be quite an experience to climb. 

Me too

What a view of Upper Town and the bay

It was on a day of sporadic rain and the volcano is covered with thousands of beautiful trees, so the carpet of leaves on the floor transformed into an ice-rink and the humidity made it like a greenhouse, quite a gruelling climb but the view from the top was tremendous. 

Looking into the crater

Welcome gin

Descending into the crater is discouraged when it’s raining as it’s dreadfully slippery, I don’t think we would have been able to do it anyway, we were pretty finished and still had to descend the steep and slippery downhill and to add insult to injury I read one of the information boards only to discover that we should be looking out for tarantulas that live under the leaves = very fast descent followed by stiff gins at the Gin House.

Blue writing - not good with a mouse, indicates slave path
on left, fort in the middle and Quill Volcano on right

We really enjoyed Statia and both agree that a return here to do at least one dive before leaving the Caribbean is a must.

 The hop to southern Guadeloupe was two days and right in the path of this sail was the Islands of St Kitts and Nevis. Discovered by Christopher Columbus St Kitts was known as the ‘Mother Island’ of the Lesser Antilles from where all the British and French colonists left to conquer the other islands. It was an associated State of the Commonwealth which eventually became an independent state in 1983.

Basseterre Bay

Whilst these were never on our radar they seemed a sensible break in our trip. We arrived and overnighted in Basseterre Bay as this is where formalities have to be done. The bay of less than clean water looks the same as any harbour, somehow they just seem to attract dirt and grime and poverty and there wasn’t much warm about the welcome by the authorities. 

@ Anchor in Whitehouse bay

We did a quick march through the shopping area where the cruise ships dock, it is becoming more and more evident that there is almost a false world created by these islands to cater to the tourists from the cruise ships, it definitely isn’t representative of the rest of the island.

 We couldn’t wait to get further down the island to Whitehouse bay, recommended in our cruising guide and it didn’t disappoint, in fact it made up for the disappointment we felt in Basseterre. 

The beautiful balcony at Salt Plage

The water in the bay turquoise clean and warm and a wonderful restaurant Salt Plage, who’s enigmatic manager was happy to supply wine and explanations for the green flash, a fun evening. Whitehouse bay is situated on the sea side of the Great Salt Pond, which houses Christophe Harbour, a marina for super yachts. Update here, we have been buddy boating with a few boats down south in the Grenadines, one of whom is Whiskey Jack housing Ken and Susan, on looking through the photos for the blog it was quite a surprise to find them in one of them, they were at Salt Plage the same night as us 5 months ago, what a small world.

Beautiful lush part of the island

There is the most interesting sounding 3 hour train trip around the island which I was so keen to do but sadly, once again it panders to Cruise ships, only takes place on the days the Cruise ship is in dock and the cost US$68, add to that the US$ 28 cost of the taxi into town as no busses come to Whitehouse bay and this trip was going to cost us US$100 per person – way out of our league. 

Pavilion Beach Club

So we settled for a bit of exploring, we walked to the very upmarket Christophe Harbour and mused through their speciality shops, they had a little foreign produce shop that also sold Mrs Balls chutney and one or two other South African items, then down to the Pavillion Beach Club, surrounded by some of the most beautiful properties, prime real estate at a prime price (I looked), for a drink and lunch, this part of the island is strikingly different and quite beautiful. Then it was time to get everything ready to get on the move again.

Nevis foreshore is at least more
welcoming than Basseterre bay

We walked the town a bit

We had cleared into St Kitts and were going to clear out of Nevis. In the 18^th century Nevis was a prosperous island, covered with plantations and fine houses and had remained British despite French attacks. It was known as the Queen of the Caribbean and was here that Horatio Nelson married the young island widow Frances Herbert Nisbet in 1787. Nevis was renowned, as far away as Europe for its hot sulphur springs, but sadly when the sugar plantations closed, so too did the island and it is now a lesser populated member of a federation with St Kitts since independence in 1983.

There is nowhere in the bay to anchor, one has to pick up a mooring ball and pay for 3 nights, no matter how many you actually intend to stay. Our visit here was brief, the few people we met in town, including the officials who handled our clearing out were far less than friendly or welcoming. 

Beach bar & restaurant at Pinneys beach

Beer makes it all better

We dinghied across to Pinneys beach some way out of town, had a walk and found a lovely, bustling bar/restaurant who’s owner seemed much happier and more welcoming. A footnote to this is a large number of cruisers we have spoken to since have nothing but good things to say about St Kitts and Nevis, so maybe, sometime, we’ll try again….

 

Anse du Fond bay - Terre de Haut

Clean, friendly, happy Island

The next day the anchor was up and we set sail once more, this time for Les Saintes, an archipelago of less than 15sq km, south of Guadeloupe, made up of 2 main and 3 smaller islands, that were discovered by Colombus on All Saints Day (1 November) 1493. 

Bright colours everywhere

The fork in main street

The biggest naval battle ever fought by the French and English in the Caribbean took place on 12 April 1972 off the Saintes, Admiral Rodney’s fleet defeated the French squadron and this marked the beginning of the era of British maritime supremacy. 

The Islands remain French however, Terre de Haut being the most populated and where we picked up a mooring ball in Anse du Fond bay. 

Pure bliss - coffee (but cup
could have been bigger), kitty
and sea

This was the doctor's rooms & residence
it was partially destroyed by hurricane
Maria. The doctor now lives in Bequia and
we visited him there, story in the next blog

Our friends on Catching Up had highly recommended coming here, a place not to be missed and they were so right. The town and in fact the entire Island of Terre de Haut was beautiful, clean, welcoming, helpful and just wonderful, the language is French and the cuisine French Creole, it felt like we had fallen down the rabbit hole and arrived in a different world.

Breakfast and coffee with a view

We hired a golf cart for the day and realised that after a number of months at sea Kevin’s driving skills were pretty rusty, add to that windy steep roads and the first 30 mins were pretty hair raising. 

Breakfast and coffee were at a seaside hotel, then a packet of chips snack shared with chickens and a kitty on a beach, lunch at a sweet local joint and ended with a lovely spot that served cold beers with a wonderful view over a fishing bay. 

Big comfy chairs with cold beer and
a great view over the bay

Dr Doolittle.....

Our last two days were spent in the bay of Anse sous le Vent off the Ilet a Cabrit where the snorkelling was the best we have done yet, so many eels, colourful fish and rich, healthy coral. Sad to have to leave here…

 But head south we must, so once more we were on our way, next stop Fort de France, Martinique. Also discovered by Colombus, it was named Madinina, meaning Island of Flowers. Martinique was a much sought after conquest by the French, Dutch and English, Napolean recovered the island in order to re-establish slavery here in 1802 but lost it again in 1809. By the end of the 17^th century sugar cane cultivation and the resultant slave labour was the main source of income, with the consequence that the vast majority of the population was of African stock.

Busy town

Street artwork everywhere and so colourful

Fort de France and the Bay

Mont Pelee erupted in 1902, killing 30 000 people and flattening the economic centre, irreversibly changing the social and economic situation of Martinique as the majority of the European population died in the eruption. Martinique is still a French Overseas Department, giving it advantages that raise its standard of living above that of neighbouring islands, benefitting us cruisers too as formalities here are quick, cheap and uncomplicated, supermarkets are well stocked with French fare (good wine and yummy cheese) and very reasonably priced, in fact we had quite a shopping list of goodies to buy for fellow cruisers we would meet up with in the Grenadines in a couple of weeks.

The beheaded Josephine

Everything happens at the park, here
they are practicing for a music &
dance festival 

On arrival much fan fare greeted us from the park across the street from the anchorage, it turned out there was a 3 day horse riding event taking place, different entertainment. The main aim was to stock up on groceries and find a pharmacy for script meds, which turned out well as I was able to get a 6 month supply of my script meds, without a script, cheaper than I was paying in South Africa, winner. We explored the museum, sadly all in French and no sub-titles but we got the gist, slavery was horrid. There is even a beheaded statue of Josephine in the park, it was originally erected in memory of her but when her involvement in the reinstatement of slavery was discovered, the statue was defaced, the head was chopped off and red paint poured over the neck, bit gruesome but you get the picture.

Electric bus, no conductor

Us @ top of Fort St Louis, Fort de France
stretching out behind

We treated ourselves to a visit to one of the shopping malls, amazing to ride on actual highways in 3 carriage electric busses, only to learn that costs are proportionate to the privilege of modernisation, a hair cut in the hairdresser in the mall was 3 times more expensive than here on Grenada! 

View of the bay from top of Fort St Louis

We did a tour of the Fort St Louis, a still active fort and home to the Caribbean arm of the French Navy, rendering some areas out of bounds, our tour guide was most informative and this was a real highlight.

That cake was yummy

Cally and John on their yacht “One O Six” (“How Not To Sail a Boat”) 

A little celebrating goes a long way

were anchored next to us and it was John’s birthday so Cally connived all sorts of plans so that she could bake him a cake on board our boat and get him across to surprise him, worked out well in the end, an evening of great laughs. 

A very crowded Le Marin bay

Entrepreneur of the year, this guy is
making & selling pizza's from a pizza
oven on his catamaran, whilst moored
in the marina 

Beautifully painted wall at the hospital

We realised there are so many bays and anchorages to be explored on Martinique but sadly time was marching on and we needed to go, so we sailed round to the very busy, overcrowded bay of Le Marin, reputed to be THE place to find anything boating. Not very nice water and a fair number of abandoned boats leave lots to be desired here, but we did find Leyna, all the way from Saldanha in South Africa and there was the advantage of a U-Save shop right on the waters edge, making provisioning a doddle. We look forward to returning to see what we missed here…

 St Lucia was our next stop, purely because in 2014 Kevin’s mom, sister Angie and kids came to visit us in Richards Bay and stayed down the road in St Lucia. They were looking for entertainment and I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t find the Rodney Bay mall with a movie theatre that I had seen on my Google search of St Lucia, only to discover that that St Lucia, with it’s Rodney Bay, is in the Caribbean and not in KZN, South Africa, so we had to find it.

Rodney Bay Marina

St Lucia, like Martinique to whom its history was often tied, changed hands many times between the British and the French, eventually remaining British whilst retaining the French presence, it became independent in 1979. The abolition of slavery saw a decline in St Lucia’s fortunes from agriculture and an African dominance of the population and whilst bananas, coca and coconuts have replaced the sugar cane, revenue from agriculture remains higher than tourism.

Rodney Bay Yacht Club

Rodney Bay Mall

View of the empty Rodney Bay anchorage
from the yacht club, had it all to ourselves

We anchored and completed formalities in the very pretty Rodney Bay, arriving on a Saturday cost us EC$30 (R150) for overtime, on top of the normal clearing in costs, we need to stop arriving at these Islands on a weekend! 

We set off on foot to find Rodney Bay Mall, chuckled when we did, then on to the yacht club for a drink and back. 

Hotel/resort in Marigot Bay

Festive beach bar in Marigot Bay

After a revisit to Immigration who were off sick the previous day and a quick sushi, we sailed to Marigot Bay. Here we found “Party of Five” an Island Spirit Catamaran like ours and a beautiful little bay with loads of greenery, birds, insects and painfully mozzies. This is such a picturesque setting, the beach bars are so bright and cheery and the water so inviting, we can understand what makes this such a popular destination.

Marigot Bay, so loved this sign

The next day we continued on to the Pitons, a world heritage site of two volcanic spires with a stunning shoreline and anchorage, for our 3^rd and last night on St Lucia.

The Pitons

Back in beguiling Bequia

Our friends the Booby's

The people in Bequia
are so special

And so, after a lovely sail, accompanied by friendly Brown Booby’s, we arrived back in Bequia, almost 3 months to the day since we left for the BVI. Now to get ourselves ready for our training charter with Tradewinds, but more about that in the next blog….

And still this stall remains....

Cheers all, for now