Another Milestone Reached - 3 months out!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to us!!!  Three months ago today we left our boat slip in Boca Raton, FL and headed out on this awesome adventure.  It’s strange.  Even though this is now our reality and we’ve settled into the routine of our sailing life, it still seems so temporary to me at times.  I guess we’ve just wanted this life for so long, having it a reality seems a little unreal.  We are grateful for every day of this amazing life we get to experience!

Last night, before the winds picked up, Larry had taken down our mainsail and packaged it up to transport to shore.  We’re glad he did.  This morning, the winds howled at about 30 knots and it would have made the job considerably more difficult. 

See our bare boom … no sail L

We took the sail to St. Maarten Sails.  At first, it seemed like they wouldn’t have time to do the repair.  They were busy even though this is the slow season.  Their first estimate of time was 3-weeks.  OUCH!!!  There is no way we can hang around here for 3-weeks.  We really need to head south out of the major hurricane area before we end up regretting it.  We told them, if it couldn’t be done within the week, we’d have to look elsewhere.  The guy said if he could get it done today or tomorrow, he would do so.  Otherwise, he had a large job coming in tomorrow afternoon and his entire week would be spent on that job.  We left the sail with him in hopes that it will be done.  We will check back tomorrow.  The ‘informal’ quote for the repair is $250.  We’re a little nervous because we’re taking their word on that amount.  Don’t know what we’ll do if it turns out to be too much more.  It is in really rough shape.  The material itself is breaking down … thus the reason for all the fixes that need to be done.  They are only fixing the area where it shredded.  We will probably have further issues in other areas of the sail.  Sooner, rather than later, we will need to replace it completely … soooo, we don’t want to spend too much money on a basic bandaid!

The sail place is directly across the street from Island Water World so we’d left our dinghy at their dock and simply carried the sail across the street.  There are a couple of neat boating stores here, similar to West Marine.  They are Island Water World and Budget Marine.  We checked them both out and spent a couple hundred dollars on various necessities.  We bought a second anchor for the dinghy.  We’ve found that a lot of times, we need to anchor the dinghy on shore.  It would be much better if we could also drop a stern anchor to hold the dinghy off the beach.  Otherwise, the surf just pushes it up onto the sand.  If there are other boats around, we are afraid our little boat will get punctured/torn just like that dinghy in the Bahamas.  It was a lesson well learned at someone else’s expense.

We also bought two charts for the islands and coast of Venezuela.  We don’t have paper charts for that area so these will help supplement our electronic charts.  We also bought a book of cruising Panama.  It was expensive but seems to have a lot of information on the coastlines and canal crossing.  As I was flipping through the book today, I was getting more excited about this area.  There are hundreds of tiny islands offshore the eastern coast that we could spend months exploring! 

We also bought a new US Flag.  The one we bought just before we left Fort Lauderdale is now shredded from the excessive winds L

At Budget Marine we bought some shock cord (bungee material) that we will use to install the lee clothes that I’d made.  We tried attaching the first one with simple string but it doesn’t seem to hold it tight and it flaps a lot in the wind.  We’re hoping the shock cord will be a better answer.

We went to Lagoonies Restaurant/Bar for Happy Hour.  Presidente beers were $1 each but it turned out it was only between 5-6pm.  Between 6-7 (still Happy Hour), the beer were $2 each.   They had seafood croquettes for $1/each so we got two.  Unfortunately, they were very creamy and Larry tasted them but couldn’t eat his.  We ordered a deviled egg appetizer that had tuna mixed with the egg.  Very different!  Our total bill (including tip) was $18 … not too bad for dinner/drinks and internet.

 

 The main reason we went there was to see about their internet.  We’re sitting not far off their dock and occasionally we can pick up their signal.  We just needed their password.  Unfortunately, it barely worked in the restaurant so I’m sure we won’t be able to get it on the boat!  At least I was able to upload some pictures to Facebook.

Simpson Bay, St. Maarten

(N18°02.108/W63.05.289)

Well over 1000 miles of motoring hard into the wind and we’ve finally made that slight turn … from east/southeast to mostly south!  From here, we are hoping it will be a LOT more sailing.  Finally, today we got to experience that serenity that envelopes your entire being when you raise the sails and shut off the engine … and then there is silence!  With our mainsail out of use, we sailed with only the mizzen and head sail.  It was about a 20-ish mile trip from Road Bay, Anguilla to Simpson Bay, St Maarten.  The two islands are only about 5 miles apart but we had to go down the north coast of Anguilla, cross the channel between the islands and then up the south coast of St. Maarten.  We kept our fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be a repeat of our previous trip (between BVI and Anguilla).  We left Anguilla at 9:15am. The winds AND current were in our favor for a change.  We were doing between 6-7 knots along the north coast of Anguilla.  As we rounded the point, we were headed a little more into the wind so our speed dropped to about 5 knots.  The sailing was awesome … and very comfortable!  Too bad all days can’t be like today!  But for the next couple of months, we will be heading south so we’re hoping we’ll experience lots of awesome sailing!

As we rounded the point of St Maarten, the inevitable happened.  We were headed directly into the wind again.  So … the remainder of the trip was a motor-sail.  We only averaged about 4 knots doing the south coast of St. Maarten but it was calm and pleasant.

We arrived about 1pm.  There is a bay just off the town.  It had good holding and several boats were anchored.  But our objective was to go into Simpson Bay Lagoon.  There is a lift bridge that only opens 3 times a day (twice in the morning and once at 5:30pm).  Since we missed the morning openings, we anchored and waited until the evening opening.  Larry went ashore and cleared customs while we waited.  It cost a total of $41 US ($20 for the boat and $21 for the Simpson Bay Port Authority).  Whether you have them raise the bridge and you go into the sheltered lagoon OR if you stay anchored outside the lagoon in the bay, you still MUST pay the $21 fee.  They’ve got quite a racket going. We figured since we had to pay the fee either way, we would prefer the shelter of the lagoon and the closer proximity to shops/restaurants/bars/etc.

 

At 5:15pm, we raised the anchor and headed to the channel to wait for the bridge opening.  If we missed this opening, it would mean spending the night in the bay, which wouldn’t be disastrous, but we much preferred the sheltered lagoon.  There was one other sailboat and one powerboat waiting with us. 

 

Inside the lagoon, it was a little disappointing.  It’s funny.  Most anchorages on the charts seem so small and unprotected but when you get to them, they are actually really nice anchorages.  This place was the opposite.  The lagoon looks large on the charts but once inside, it seemed rather small.  Oh well, we found a nice spot to anchor before the evening winds picked up and the rains came in. 

For dinner, we had burgers made from the ground Filet Mignon that we’d bought before we left.  I had used one of those vacuum sealing machines to package the meat and it kept it very fresh.  No freezer burn even after all this time.  We had the burgers on homemade English Muffins.  They were VERY yummy!

Beach Stoll in Anguilla

What a pleasant day.  After the long bike ride yesterday, we decided to take it a little easier today.  We headed ashore and took a nice, long walk on the beach.  After our walk, we went for a nice swim from the beach and relaxed in the water for a couple of hours.  It was really quite refreshing.