St. Maarten Reunion of Good Friends

The month of January went by very quickly as we reunited with many good friends, some from the States and several right here in St. Maarten.  We have been timeshare owners here in St. Maarten now for 20 years, so we have made some good friends each time we returned.  We spent a day with Butch and Debbie who were here on vacation from their home in Pennsylvania.  We met them last year on their first visit to St. Maarten and will see them again next year when they return.  Dwayne is our dear friend who we met here in St. Maarten back in 2007 and we have remained friends ever since.  Dwayne is our go to guy for anything we need or want and is so helpful.  Dwayne and Neil are great people and lots of fun.  We will be spending a lot more time with them while on the island.

Our very good sailing buddies from Michigan, Doug and Jean, arrived in St. Maarten to spend a week with us at Oyster Bay Beach Resort.  We had the best time showing them around the island, as they have never been here before.  It was so good to see old friends!  They said they loved the island so much, they want to return again.  (Must have been the great tour guides they had!!). Capt. Alan and Capt. Colleen have been our friends since 2007 when we first took their snorkeling tour, which was the best snorkeling three island tour ever!  They took us out on their boat recently and we stopped at Tintamarre Island and Pinel Island.  There will be many more get togethers for us.

We are finding many different places to meet other cruisers and sailors.  One such place is Lagoonies, a bar with a great happy hour and restaurant.  Many places on the water host events, seminars, flea markets, live music and special happenings.  There is much to do here, including Harmony Night in Grand Case with a marching band and Mardi Gras dancers marching down the main street to great drum beats.

St. Maarten Passage in January 2017

We prepared Silent Dream for the overnight passage to St. Maarten on January 5, 2017.  Preparations for a long passage include checking many weather apps and subscriptions, topping up on fuel, water, food, stowing away all items below deck that might move, securing all items on the top deck, planning and mapping out a route to our destination, preparing food that is easily accessible during the trip, laying out all safety gear and clothing that might be needed, and finally, checking out with customs and immigration and paying the fees.  So far, this has been the most inexpensive fee checkout here in the British Virgin Islands, a total of $0.75!  Yes, that was 75 cents, US Dollars!

We departed Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands early afternoon on January 5th for the 90 mile crossing.  This should have been about an 18-20 hour passage, and we wanted to arrive in the early morning in St. Maarten.  We had been waiting for a weather window and now the Christmas Winds are prevailing out of the east at usually 20-30 knots.  We had a somewhat rough passage, but not the worst, with winds 11-20 knots, and 4-8 foot waves, all on our nose.  Silent Dream is no longer waterproof, with her fairly new custom windows, so when the waves washed over the bow, we had water coming into the salon.  We do miss the fresh water of the Great Lakes for this reason.  Salt water never dries and is sticky and if not cleaned soon causes mold to grow.  We knew we were in for a long cleanup process with the salt water in the salon. 

It took us just over 21 hours before we arrived at the bridge entrance to the Simpson Bay Lagoon in St. Maarten.  The bridge has specific openings for incoming and outgoing boats and we just missed the 9:30 am incoming bridge opening.  We waited two hours for the next 11:30 am opening.  We had previously decided to stay at the Simpson Bay Marina for a while since we will be using our timeshare on the island and needed a safe and secure place to keep our boat.  We were guided in through the bridge by a tender from the marina to our slip.  How wonderful to have fresh water without hauling it five gallons at a time and unlimited power regardless of the sun and clouds.  We passed by the numerous megayachts here now for high season.  Many of you probably have never seen such huge megayachts up close and believe us, they are enormous! 

We are settling in here in St. Maarten, one of our most favorite islands visited by us for many years.  We have several friends here and will be seeing all of them shortly.  We also have friends from the States who have decided to visit us as well.  But for now, it’s time to clean and clean and clean!!