St. Maarten in March 2017

March was a busy month here in St. Maarten.  Our goal was to complete two major maintenance projects on the boat – varnish the exterior teak and paint all the non-skid surfaces on the deck of the boat.  Chuck worked very hard on both projects and I helped when needed.  The teak now has 10 coats of varnish and looks great!  The non-skid was a light grey color and was very hot to walk on with the sun beating on the deck all day.  We painted half of the boat white and when compared to the grey side, we understand now why the deck was so hot; the grey was darker than we thought.  The entire deck and cockpit is now white and makes the boat look newer and it’s cooler, too.

In our spare time around all the varnishing and painting, we played and spent time with friends.  St. Patrick’s Day was spent with our friend, Neil, and started with a traditional dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Toppers, followed by bar hopping to Rhythm ‘n Blues, Lagoonies, and Fat Turtle.   We discovered a unique group, (two brothers and one female) called Synergy from South Carolina, classical violins fused with modern rock.  They played at several venues while here in St. Maarten including the Pink Iguana and Red Piano.  We have friends over for dinner to our boat, where we play cards and games and then go to their house for more of the same, having a good time with Dwayne and Neil, Capt. Alan and Capt. Colleen, and Capt. Neil.  We were very lucky to spend some time with our friends from Vancouver, Errol and Renay, lovely couple we met here in SXM in 2013.  We have met many tourists while here and spent evenings with them in many of the local establishments, what fun to hear their stories!   We love spending days at the beach and even go to the local movie theatre for all the latest movies and only $5.75 for a ticket.  We also took a cruise to Anguilla with a tour of the island.

One of the rewarding activities we have done is to listen to the local radio station, Island 92. In the morning they often give away many things for free, just call in.  Well, it appears that people don’t call in to win, because we have won four times in the past month!  We won a $20 ticket to the UB40 concert, $50 at the Dinghy Dock, $20 at Pizza Galley, and a $12 appetizer at the Dinghy Dock.  Wow, it pays to listen to the radio!

St. Maarten 37th Heineken Regatta

The 37th St. Maarten Heineken Regatta was held the beginning of March, 2017 and is a yacht race attended by over 35 different countries.  The motto “Serious Fun” is represented by two sides of sailing in the Caribbean: racing and parties.  We can attest that both sides were accomplished and successful.  Both of us have attended the Heineken Regatta in the past, but this time we decided to volunteer and work at the Regatta.  Chuck was a water taxi driver for all the race participants and ferried the racers to and from their boats in Simpson Bay and the Lagoon.  Both of us worked “Volunteer Care” and served all the volunteers refreshments which were free to all volunteers.  We also took an all day cruise aboard a catamaran and were out on the water on one of the race days with the racing yachts.

Now to the party side – every night there were huge parties on several parts of the island with great entertainment.  The final night is always the best and this year UB40 was the star performer on Simpson Bay Beach.  Wow, what an evening!  The only bad part was that UB40 didn’t start until midnight, so we had to get our late night party hats on!   Every day there is a Serious Fun Bridge Show as each boat passes through the open bridge and is judged by their costumes, antics and originality.  Now this is Serious Fun!

We have over 500 pictures and numerous videos and it was very hard to pick the best ones for our blog.  We give credit for many of these pictures to other photographers and our friend, Side Kick Photography.  We hope you enjoy them!