Hi Everyone,
Ieva & I had a good trip from Antigua to St.Martin with intermediate stops in Nevis & St. Barts (except for the boat troubles). We had a good flight down to Antigua, we live in Toronto and Air Canada has a non-stop flight to Antigua and we even managed to get
a sale fare for the one-way, different story on the way back from St. Martin.
We stayed overnight at the Copper and Lumber Store Hotel in Nelson's Dockyard, definitely a fine and unique place! There were very few boats and people in the area, except for the British Tourists arriving by bus from the cruise ships. It appears when the season ends, everyone leaves.
As Chuteman had previously mentioned, there was just a couple of small stores to provision from, so knowing that we
brought a few things from home, purchased a few basics from the store over in Falmouth Harbour and saved our major provisioning for Jolly Harbour (Epicurian Supermarket). It was an excellent store!
Since there was only two of us we chartered the smallest boat SunSail had, which was a Beneteau 373. It seemed to be in OK shape when we left English Harbour Monday morning and sailed over to Carlisle Bay (just a couple or so miles)for our first evening. After we had anchored, I turned off the motor but had forgotten to put the snubber on, so I attemped to start the engine again to use the windless and guess what, the engine would not start, not even turnover! By this time it was after 6 PM so we called the SunSail office and left a message.
SunSail promptly came over the next morning and had to jury rig a switch on the starter motor solenoid so we would be able to start the motor. The SunSail person said there was something wrong in the wiring harness that went to the starter switch.
The repair only wasted a couple hours and we were shortly on our way around to Five Islands Harbour where we spent our 2nd night. The next day we motored around to Jolly Harbour and dinghyed in to provision at Epicurian (an excellent supermarket) and to check out with Custums. We anchored just outside near the channel markers in Jolly Harbour.
We then motored back to Five Islands Harbour and spent the night there.
The next day was the longest part of the trip, going over to Nevis, so we got up at dawn and headed out. The wind was very light (12 knots) and directly from behind us on our way over to Nevis, so we motor-sailed all the way.
About half way to Nevis we heard a big clunk in the engine compartment and the engine started making some very loud and bad noises, so I promptly throttled back the engine and it appeared to sound OK, but was still making more noise than usual.
We continued on at reduced rpm, with the engine still making some unusual sounds. We moored at the yellow mooring balls in front of Charlestown and once again phoned SunSail. The people at SunSail arranged to have a mechanic meet me at custums on Nevis and after clearing in the mechanic came out to the boat and after looking at the motor he determined that one of the bolts holding the motor on one of it's mounts had broken (that was the loud clunk) and a second motor mount (the rubber piece) had also broken off.
We had to wait on the mooring at Charlestown for 36 hours for parts to be flown in from St. Martin and then installed, and we were back working again.
We spent 3 nights in Nevis and then arose early to motor-sail over to St. Barts, again the wind was light 12 knots and a broad reach at best over to St. Barts.
As did Chuteman we anchored at Anse du Corossol, and it was rolly, but it had been pretty rolly other places and by know we were accustomed to it. When we checked in at custums in St. Barts on a Sunday the custums guy was very friendly and only charged us 10 Euros (1 night in Gustavia, 2 nights at Anse de Colombier. We wondered about Gustavia for a day and then sailed over to Anse de Colombier for 2 days.
We then headed over to St. Martin (the SunSail person had told us, don't bother checking out of St. Barts and don't bother checking in on St. Martin, so we didn't and there were not any problems.
We sailed over to St. Martin and anchored for 2 days at Grand Case, eat out once at one of the lo-los (it was OK, Ieva is such a good cook, we tend to eat much better on the boat then at most restaurants on shore). We are planning a trip to France later this summer so did not try any of the French restaurants.
We then sailed over to Orient Bay and spent one night there. This location is not recommended, too many sea-do's buzzing around, no dinghy dock to go ashore, however the nudist's were some what entertaining, coming in on their cat and walking the beach. We called them the brown people, no brightly colored bathing suits!
The next day we sailed/motored into Oyster pond and spent our last night at the dock. If you ever go to Oyster pond you have to check out the happy hour (2) at the Dinghy Dock bar where they allow you to pour your own!
The next day we flew back, also via USAIR via Charlotte, it seems no Canadian Airline flies to St. Martin at this time of year so we had to connect through the US, we ended up in Buffalo and took the bus across the border to Toronto. USAIR wanted a fortune to take the direct flight to Toronto from Charlotte, but only about 1/3 as much to go to Buffalo, who can figure!
We have now been to the Windwards twice, the Leeward's once, and once to the BVI and as far as we two are concerned, the Windwards is the only place to sail in the Caribbean. This of course is only 2 person's opinion.
