St Martin

We spent a little over a month in St Martin. We didn’t intend to...it just happened.  Somehow it seemed more like we ‘lived’ there rather than visited... probably because most of our there were consumed by the boat.

 

It started with customs.

We arrived , anchored and “put the boat to bed”...that is sail covers on and lashed, electronics off and screen covers on, lee cloth down and sea berth dismantled, v-berth cleared out, etc, etc.

Next we unpack the dinghy and wrestle the salty bag into a garbage bag so it doesn’t spread salt all over the quarter berth, inflate the dinghy, find the dinghy plug and install it, attach a painter (rope to tie the dinghy to the boat – I have no idea why they call it a painter), set up the hoist and lowered it into the water. After that came the outboard...attach it to the davit and lower it onto the dinghy...then the gas can, gas hose, paddles and bailer...attach all the parts, lock the outboard and gas can to the dinghy and make sure we’ve got the lock and chain (and keys) for locking the dinghy to the dock.

Now for us...collect the paperwork for clearing customs, money, camera, cell phone and load them into a dry bag. Then put on something somewhat presentable – or what we call “going to town” clothes – and don’t forget to throw some shoes (read flip-flops) into the dinghy but first you have to find where you stowed them four days ago...and lastly...don’t forget the garbage.

Now load ourselves and all the stuff into the dinghy, start the outboard and head to shore. The trick now is to try not to get soaked by the spray made as the dinghy hits the chop in the harbour while trying to reconcile where the guide book said the dinghy dock was to what we can see.

We were on the French side of St Martin, so we headed for the marina (always a good source of information) unloaded ourselves and our stuff, locked up the dinghy and headed down the dock. We found out where to dump the garbage and got directions to customs...and off we went. We dropped the garbage in the dumpsters and headed for the customs office at the ferry terminal.

The sign on the door said, “knock and wait”.

Hmmm...okay...so we knock...and waited. Nothing. Did we knock loud enough? What time is it? Are they open? Yep...3 PM and the door says they are open until 4 PM. Do we knock again? Knock harder? We don’t want to piss them off...so we wait unsure of what to do...shifting our weight from foot to foot, looking at each other hoping for some kind of a ‘sign’. Nothing. So we knock again – louder, harder, and more persistently. Silence. We wait. Then we think we see a bit of movement. Yes...yes someone is there. He’s unlocking the door. He sticks his head out and says, “my colleague is at an important meeting. You’ll have to come back tomorrow”.

What? Oh...okay...and in the meantime we are still under quarantine...can we go to town? “Sure” he says. “Enjoy yourselves, no worries...just be sure to come back in the morning”. And with the clunk of the deadbolt he’s gone again.

No point standing on the sidewalk looking bewildered. Might as well grab a beer somewhere and do a bit of exploring and then head back to the boat. Not a total loss but our main objective has not been accomplished. This one job has eaten up the afternoon and will consume the morning and by the time we explore a bit more, find a bank and buy a few groceries tomorrow afternoon will be shot too.

It seemed that every job, large or small, we tried to do while we were in St Martin went this way...which is how a week or two stretched into over a month. Not to say spending a month in St Martin was a bad thing...but it did have its pros and cons.

On the downside, there is a lot of theft. Almost daily there were reports of a stolen dinghy, outboard or bicycle...usually from a dock in town but there were occasions where items were stolen while the owners were ashore or dinghies that were liberated at night while they slept. Rarely was anything ever recovered or the thieves ever caught and the local authorities - underfunded and under staffed - seemed helpless to do anything about it. The constant refrain was ‘lock it or lose it’ but the unspoken subtext was lock it next to something that looks more enticing than what you have and hope the thieves take it instead of yours.

When cruise ships were in there were multiple groups of day trippers, in herds as big as 25, in dinghies or on sea-doos, each with 2 passengers flying through the anchorage single file out around the headland...and a few hours later back again...leaving wakes and cutting in front of anchored boats close enough to snag anchor rode and making navigating your dinghy through the already busy harbour even more of a challenge. But the day trippers were nothing compared to the private water taxies that ran big power boats between St Marten, Anguilla  and St Barts. Their wakes would send anything left on a flat surface flying.

On the plus side...St Martin is duty-free so it’s a shopper’s heaven. For us this meant boat parts and bits and provisioning rather than clothes and jewelry. There are hundreds of bars and restaurants, and especially on the French side there was a distinct European feel. It was easy to imagine the cafe you were sitting in was in France, not the Caribbean. There are buses to get you anywhere that’s too far to walk and beautiful beaches...and on the Dutch side, to celebrate Queen Beatrix’s birthday they had a Carnival – complete with the parade, costumes and incredibly loud music. There is also a fairly large cruising community so there were lots of opportunities to socialize.

What we considered the downside would not affect a ‘land-based’ visit to St Martin, but from a cruising point of view we were left with mixed feelings. We’ve been there and we’ve seen most of the highlights so next time around we may just give it a pass.