St Martin
Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Thu 14 Apr 2011 09:26
18:03.077N
63:05.94W
Thursday 14th April
2011
Distance run:103
nautical miles
We finally
slipped the lines just after midday yesterday. The hatches arrived Tuesday
afternoon, and the water inlet was fixed without the need for the boat to be
hauled. So we were at last able to take our leave of
Antigua.
There wasn't a lot
of wind about so it was a slow and gentle overnight passage to St Martin. We
sailed very gently past Nevis, St Kitts,St Eustatius and St Barts, and
arrived in St Martin around 1400 today. This island solved the problem of who it
belongs to by splitting itself in half, and we had been advised to enter and
clear in through the French side as the Dutch charges are high. So we made
our way round to Marigot Bay and dropped the anchor while we had a quick bite of
lunch and waited for the bridge into the lagoon to open. As we entered the bay
we passed Mirabella V,which in 2004 was the largest single masted sailing yacht
in the world. It is 247 feet long (we are 43') and has a retractable
keel that goes from 4 metres at its shortest to 10 metres fully
down. (Ours is 1.75 metres and unfortunately does not retract!). It
was anchored quite a long way out! It would cost $420,000 to charter it
for a week.
Mirabella
V
We toyed with the
idea of staying in the Bay as it was very pleasant, but decided to go on into
the lagoon where we would be better protected from any swell. This
proved to be a good decision financially as there are no anchoring charges in
the lagoon whereas there are in the Bay. We paid 5 euros to check in
but friends who arrived at the same time and decided to stay in the bay (we
bumped into them when clearing in) paid 35 euros- and they were only
staying one night!
As we crept slowly
into the lagoon and the depth gauge read zero water under the keel,however, we
began to have our doubts whether we had indeed made the right decision!
Especially as one of the first boats we saw only had the remains of its masts
visible above the water!
A sad and
sobering sight!
Fortunately we did
not touch bottom and found ourselves a spot with a good metre under the
keel in which to anchor. We were glad to be near the hill interestingly
called 'Witches Tit' as it meant we could find our way back to the boat when
venturing ashore in the dinghy!
Witches
Tit