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Diane's Diary1/22 Monday We are on the hook at Marigot Bay St. Martin by 9am so the passage took a little less than 7 days. Actually, we realized we were not going to make landfall before dark last evening so we slowed the boat down or we would have made it sooner. We could see the lights off Anguilla & St. Martin all night long. We are all tired & exhausted but need to clear into customs. Larry inflates the dinghy & puts the engine on the boat. The engine keeps stopping after a short while. Funny, we never had problems with the dinghy engine before. Larry dinghies over to clear into customs. I go too but wait at the dinghy dock. I speak to several other cruisers who give me the scoop on the town. We decide to dinghy over to the marina to take showers, as we are very low on water. I'm sure we all smell pretty bad after not showering for a week! Later, we found out we could have walked there quicker than taking the dinghy. We are still having problems with the engine so Larry said he will dinghy back himself & will pick us up at the dinghy dock. We wait & wait at the dock for him but he never comes. Finally, I ask another cruiser for help. He saw someone rowing & it turns out it was Larry. Anyway, since Larry was having problems with the engine, the other cruiser graciously picks us up at the dock & drives us back to Destiny. We had eaten lunch out (hamburgers & fries) as when we got to the marina for showers they were closed for lunch. Since we were more tired than hungry, we had a light dinner & went to bed early. 1/23 Tuesday Our crew will be with us until Thursday so today we all wanted to walk around town. A local told us to eat at a local restaurant -Enoch's so we did. Wonderful garlic shrimp, salad, plantains, rice, beans & avocado for $8 including tip. Excellent food. We walked to the supermarket & bought a few things. Everything is in French so it's difficult. Plus, I'm still tired from the passage. Also, all the measurements are metric. How much is 1kg of cheese? What kind of cheese is that? They don't speak English or at least don't want to so it's difficult to shop. Wonderful huge baguettes for .60, raisin Danish .60, croissants .75. No preservatives so they only keep for a day. I cooked penne ala vodka for the whole crew tonight. 1/24 Wednesday We rented a car with our crew today to explore the island. $44 split between the 4 of us so it cost $22 for us. Kirk drove since he speaks French & can read the signs. Near Oyster Pond we saw a sight that fears me most during this whole trip. A huge catamaran about 65-70 feet stuck up on the reefs! A salvage crew was trying to free her. The story we got was that the boat had crew ship passengers when it started taking on water. The captain beached her near the reefs in order to get the passengers off. When he got the passengers off, the ship rose so much it floated up over the reef into the shallow water. The boat was totaled - they were just trying to salvage the 2 engines valued at over $100,000. We stopped at all the tourist spots. We went to Budget Marine to get a few things. Ate lunch at Lagoonies - a cruiser hang out. They were very slow & the food was only fair. I was sorry we stopped there. We brought the car back at 3pm even though we had it until 5pm. I wanted to drive back to Grand Case as we had missed that but Kirk didn't want to drive there. Harleigh treated us all to dinner tonight. We went to a restaurant in the marina. I had fish but at $19 it was overpriced & was just OK. We went to another restaurant as there was a street carnival near the docks & we had dessert while listening to the music. 1/25 Thursday We move the boat closer up in the harbor because we are still having problems with the dinghy engine. Larry & I walked over to the Sandy Ground Bridge so we could stop at the dinghy engine dealer. He has a few suggestions for us to try. We go back & join Harleigh & Kirk for lunch at Enoch's. They leave at 1pm for the airport. Then it's back to the boat for us. 1/26 Friday We didn't even leave the boat today. We were both exhausted plus it was nice being back on our own. We are used to being on the boat ourselves most of the time so it was difficult having anyone, let alone strangers, with us. We hang out & take it easy. |