Traveling the World

February & March, 2011

Back in St. Martin

The French side of St. Martin looking into Simpson Bay.

Entering Simpson Bay through the small lift bridge that opens 3 times a day.

On the small canal to the bridge.

One of many, many older wooden churches. Most of the people go to church once 1-2 times a week. Some people told me they go often. Just not lately.

I like this sign: SMUTA - St. Martin United Taxi Assoc.

Choose your favorite fruit flavor. A scoop is added to soda. Alcohol content unknown.

A row of older wooden houses.

The flight from St. Martin to St. Thomas took a mere hour’s flight and I was in the Harbor of Charlotte Amalie. I was met by skipper Morgan where his 50’ catamaran was anchored. He told me I was free to spread my things out in my half of the catamaran. That’s a nice luxury! We spent three nights anchoring in St. Thomas and the next island over St. John. It was very peaceful and beautiful. Suddenly Morgan decided it was good weather to sail south to St. Martin, which is where I had just come from. Oh well, I didn’t spend much time seeing the island and besides, classic race week is coming up in a couple of weeks followed by a week of hard core sailboat racing. After 12 hours motoring, I was back in St. Martin.

I was here 25 years ago when Jess was in grade school. Things have changed a little. There are still two sides of course…the French side and the Dutch side. On the French side, I need to take my 220-volt converter to use my computer. It’s 110-volts on the Dutch side. Everyone takes dollars and euros even though the local currency is different on both sides so that makes it easy. And fortunately they both drive on the right side of the road. (Many islands drive on the left side.)

Downtown on the French side. The old French fort is above the ferry dock.

One of the many restaurants to enjoy a cold one across the street from the ferry.

There used to be a long wooden pier on the Dutch side where the cruise ships docked. The tourists would walk down the pier to the 2 block shopping area which consisted of Arab run jewel shops, a few local shops and the government official Dutch headquarters. Now it’s quite modernized.

And the biggest change of all is that it’s a duty-free haven. The effect of this is that boats come here to buy boat supplies and other necessities and there is a large boating community that stays here until hurricane season, which is around July 1st – November 1st. Then most boats move south to A. Grenada or Trinidad which is just above Venezuela, or B. north to Florida or farther up the USA coast, or C. cross the Atlantic to Europe. The boat I’m currently on usually goes south to Grenada.

There is a bay that most of the boats are in so you can easily dinghy to either the French or the Dutch side. Our boat stayed near the French side because they didn’t charge for mooring.

It’s time of Carnival. Carnival is spread out here which lasts about two weeks. The first Sunday was the children’s parade. Even infants were in the parade, although they might not have known it as they were sleeping through it all.

Main street on the French side of the island in Marigot.

Sleeping through it all.

Playing a game while waiting for their group to line up for the parade.

There was a lot of energy at the beginning. Three hours later returning down the same street there were a lot of tired people in the parade. It's hard work!