Day One

We flew out to Sint Maarten on Friday ready for our 14 day tour. We spent the first night on land at The Flamingo Beach Resort in Simpson Bay (except Tracy who flew on Saturday). We all managed to get up fairly early Saturday morning (given that we were all still on Pacific Time) but the taxi was slow to arrive and there was a surprising amount of traffic between Simpson Bay and Oyster Pond (Moorings base). Consequently David and Jimi were late to the captain's meeting. Fortunately, the woman running the meeting was good natured about it and went back over most of the material we had missed.

She thought our overall trip itinerary would work and had a number of comments about where we should anchor, what areas to avoid, where to get water, etc. While David and Jimi were stuck in the meeting, the rest of the families found breakfast at a nice place named Captain Oliver's, and a pool for the kids to swim in (though it was never quite clear whether the pool was intended to be reserved for hotel guests...). The pool opened into the restaurant with a glass wall which made the kids look like dolphins in a zoo exhibit.

The Moorings gave us a boat called “Retirement Fun”. It didn't take very long for our boat to be ready, but they didn't have any kayaks to rent us this year. To get out of the Mooring's there was a tricky reef, so the Mooring's staff helped us get out. David and Jimi forgot to clear out of customs on the French side of the island and didn't remember until we were past Molly Beday rock ('Molly Beday' appears to be an Anglicization of the French 'Mal Aborder' which roughly translates as 'bad deal'). After a radio discussion with the Moorings we decided to go back – which ended up costing us an hour or two. We finally got to Simpson Bay around 5pm. It was a nice calm anchorage, so everyone could adjust to staying on the boat. Jimi and the girls investigated the hotels around the bay looking for a good place to pick up Tracy. We decided that he best meeting spot would be at Ciao – a little bar and restaurant at the Pelican resort. We sent a text message to Tracy's cell phone which she was successfully able to retrieve on landing. All was good except her plane was early, and she got to the restaurant before us and didn't know if she was at the right place. We found each other pretty quickly though, had a rum punch, and headed back to the boat. Quiche for dinner. Tracy complained that the boat was moving.

Day Two

In the morning, David went to shore to clear in and out of the Dutch side of the island (we soon got tired of all the clearing in and out but it's a fact of life in the Leeward Islands where each island is a different country – and St. Martin is actually two different countries). He and Patti walked back over to the Flamingo to look for David's leatherman tool, which he had left in the hotel room the first night, but they could not find it.

We sailed around the leeward side of St. Martin to Marigot – the capital of the French side. Tracy, Patti, and the girls took the dinghy ashore to go shopping. They had a hard time finding the store that the sailing guide recommended, and when they did it wasn't in a great part of town. Patti and Tracy weren't very happy. The gate was closed on the main path to the store, and they had to go through someone's garage. The selection was not all that great but they did bring back ice cream!

After that we had a short, quiet sail to Grand Case. Dinner was at L'Escapade. It was extremely good, as usual. L'Escapade is Tracy and Jimi's favorite restaurant in St. Martin and going there has become somewhat of a tradition on trips to St. Martin. We did some swimming by the boat but it was too dark for real snorkeling. The anchorage was calm but very warm. It was hot for sleeping, even with the hatches open. It was great to be back in Grand Case, though.

Day Three

The third day of the trip we had breakfast at the Grand Case Beach Club. It reminded us of the past summer when Tracy, Jimi, Kaylynn, and Alyssa had stayed there for a week. All the same staff were there and the place didn't seem to have changed at all. They would not let us tie up to the resort dock though because they needed it for their ski boat. We did manage to use the hotel's wireless to reserve a hotel for the last night of the trip. Everyone was a bit grumpy and hot, so we decided to skip snorkeling at Creole Rock and sail straight to St. Barts.

It was a easy 2-3 hour motor sail with moderate to low waves. Everyone enjoyed getting out on the water (except perhaps Tracy who didn't like the waves). We anchored at Anse de Colombier on the north end of St. Barts. The snorkeling was great. Everyone was pretty tired, and Patti cooked a very good salmon for dinner. The weather was still uncomfortably warm. The harbor is surrounded by a high ridge that blocks the wind.

Because of that, however, it was a very quiet anchorage. Two of the other boats in the harbor appeared to be some sort of summer camp – all kids with no one seeming to be over about 20. There was also a very impressive mega-yacht. It would have been a good place for night diving if we had good lights. The mega-yacht seemed to have night diving lights on their stern that turned the water into a bright blue.

Day Four

After a quick breakfast, Kaylynn, Alyssa, and Jimi took the dinghy ashore for a short hike up the hill. It was hot at first, but cooled down nicely once they climbed over the ridge that surrounds the harbor. There were great views both over to the windward side of the island and back down into the harbor. They took lots of pictures. Jimi had one of the 2-way radios in his pocket. It got wet while beaching the dingy and stopped working – after that we carried them in zip lock bags.

After breakfast we moved the boat down to Gustavia – the capital of St. Barts. It was an easy motor sail down but on arrival there was much confusion over were they wanted us to dock.

We finally tied up to the starboard side of the guest docks near immigration. We cleared immigration and customs into St. Barts and filled our water tanks (but we were not able to hook up to shore power because there was something wrong with their outlets at the docks). The port authority told us we didn't need to switch to stern-to docking. This saved us some work but we did beat up our bumpers all night. It was noisy for sleeping, especially on the starboard side.

There was a nice little grocery store a short walk from the boat and we made a number of trips for various missing items – including Red Bull for Tracy. Patti made very nice tuna steaks for dinner. The adults took the opportunity to go to a local bar for a rum punch. Great fun.

Gustavia was a great port for groceries, restaurants, bars, and just about anything. The shops, however, were expensive – lots of designer clothes, jewelery, watches and the like. It was one of the kid's favorite places though, especially because it had showers.

Day Five

This was our first long sail so we left Gustavia around 8 AM. David did a nice tight turn out from between two yachts moored stern-to (one in front of us and one behind). The first part of the sail was a quiet passage along the lee side of St. Barths. Once we cleared the end of the island we had moderate waves. We sailed about 5 hours down to St. Kitts, and then along the windward side of the island and through the 'narrows' which separate St. Kitts from Nevis. Navigating the narrows by GPS is easy, but by dead reconning it might have been trickier. St. Kitts and Nevins are beautiful. The tall central mountains are almost always covered in cloud but are green all the way down to the water. We took a lot of pictures.

We anchored at a nice anchorage on Nevis just north of the capital Charlestown. There were lots and lots of moorings, and very few boats. We were just south of The Four Seasons (which was closed). It was a tricky mooring to pick up but we finally got it. We had a very pretty view of the Nevis volcano (inactive) with a rainbow just before sunset. A shore party went to Sunshine's bar. It looked like a reasonable place but the local crowd was dodgy and Patti and Tracy did not like it very much. While they were all on shore the dingy started drifting down into the waves. Jimi was watching from the boat wondering if he was going to have to go swimming to rescue it. Fortunately David and Alyssa noticed it bouncing and pulled it further up onto the shore. The snorkeling was not exciting, but it was said to be better by the break waters in front of the Four Seasons. Patti made a great spaghetti sauce. Everyone was tired after the 6 hour sail.


There was a rain storm just before dinner and everyone took a quick free shower (by this point in the trip we were starting to appreciate how quickly our fresh-water tanks were depleted by 8 showers....).

Day Six

This was a quiet day after the long sail of the day before. We motored down to Charlestown (all of about a mile) and picked up a mooring. We cleared customs and did some shopping. It was a depressing town. The people are nice but the poverty is obvious. There were three steps for clearing customs which took awhile. There was a small book store with novels and text books. It seemed to be the main source of literature for the island. Everything was sold in Caribbean dollars (unlike St. Barts where everything was in Euros – we all ended the trip with three currencies in our wallets).

We took a tour around the island with David Watusi who is 6'6” and writes Caribbean music when not driving his cab.

There were lots of ruins from sugar plantations and we got cool pictures of the old buildings and sugar presses.

The island economy is not doing well. David W. told us about the recent changes on the island (Four Seasons closing and scheduled flights from the US ending).


He took us to a beautiful restored plantation (now an upscale hotel) for lunch. It was expensive but very good. Once we got back to Charlestown Patti and David took a walk to an old slave market but there was not much left to see.

After we returned to the boat, we moved back to the mooring near Sunshine's to get Wifi to check the weather, email, etc. Kaylynn and Paula did a great job picking up the recalcitrant mooring. David played guitar after dinner and everyone sang. We went to bed early in preparation for a long sail the next day.

Day Seven

This was our longest sail starting at 5:15am. The sun was not up yet but there was plenty of light to drop the mooring and motor south. The waves were calm for the first 20 minutes while we were in the lee of Nevis but they pick up considerably once we passed the south end of the island. The wind was from the ESE which put us too close to the wind to sail and gave us a fairly uncomfortable powered ride down to Redonda. Redonda is basically a very large rock – 1 mile long and 1000 feet tall but completely uninhabited.

Once we cleared the end of Redonda we were able to bear off slightly and make slightly better time to Montserrat. We managed 8 knots when we headed slightly off the wind (still motor sailing though). As with many of our off-shore passages David and Jimi took turns on the wheel, Alyssa read, Kaylynn sat on the top deck and either read or watched the waves, Patti either slept or read, and Tracy, Paula, and Pamela slept as much as possible to avoid sea-sickness appearing only when we made it into a quiet harbor).

Montserrat has the most active volcano in the Caribbean. We were advised by the Moorings to stay upwind of the island, and not to put into any harbor. The issue is not so much safety, though that can be a concern, as avoiding getting the boat covered in ash. As we passed the island we could see smoke coming off the lava flows but most of the volcano was under cloud. It was hazy for most of the sail. We were upwind of Montserrat but we still wondered if the haze was caused by the volcano.

Just after we passed Montserrat something caught in the starboard propeller and we shut down both engines for fear of damaging them. We were able to bear off the wind but were still close hauled. We made about 6.5 knots which put us later into Guadeloupe than we had planned.

We anchored at Deshaies – a pretty little harbor on the north east coast. There was enough light left to anchor but not enough to dive the anchor, so we had to trust it would hold. It was a very pretty island and picturesque small village. In the fading light David and Jimi put on snorkeling masks and pulled a broken milk jug, some old underwear, and about two feet of line out of the starboard propeller (most likely the remains of the mark for a fish trap).

Day Eight

First thing in the morning we took the dinghy in to clear customs. Guadeloupe is large enough, and has enough rain fall, that it has a number of small rivers – one of which comes into the ocean in Deshaies harbor. We ended up tying the dingy to a small public dock on the bank of the river. There were a number of crabs by the dock (which amused the girls later in the day). David cleared customs and immigration while Jimi found a rental car and negotiated the contract in a mixture of French and English. It was a “mini bus” that was huge. It seated 9 people and ran on diesel. There were lots of windows which made it great for touring the island. We made a two hour drive down the west coast. There were lots of great views, but also lots of little town and local traffic so it was slow driving. The island was more developed than Nevis but it still had a very Caribbean and French feel to it.

At one point we stopped for drinks and snacks. Everyone picked out what they wanted and then we tried to pay. It turned out they took only Euros and their machines couldn't read our credit cards. We managed to find 10 euros that Paula happened to have received in change in St. Barts. The woman at the store was very nice and took it, even though the bill was 20 euros. ... Then we had to get gas. Fortunately we found a Texaco station that took US credit cards.




We drove to the south end of the island and hiked to the Carbet waterfalls. The walk was through a rain forest that could have been out of Jurassic Park. There were 20 foot fern trees! At one point, a 2½ foot green lizard fell from a tree right in front of Patti – she screamed. It ran away too fast for a photo however.

The waterfall was impressive – not something you expect to find on a Caribbean island. The plaque claimed that Christopher Columbus saw the falls from the ocean and was convinced to stop at Guadeloupe for fresh water.

It started to rain on our way back and we got drenched. Fortunately the French had paved the entire path so there was no mud to walk through. Kaylynn ditched her shoes and walked back barefoot. We were worried about David's camera since he did not have a case for it (the other cameras were smaller and fit in zip lock bags). However it survived the ordeal.

After driving back to Deshaies we split up by age – the kids made dinner on the boat while the adults went out for dinner on shore. They found a fairly good local place (which served very fresh grilled fish with the head still attached). Jimi left the rental car keys on the boat and had to dinghy back to get them. After all this back and forth to the boat everyone was getting very adept at tying up to the river bank and avoiding the crabs. There was a local band playing in the park, in town but we were too tired to hang around long.