St. Barth's on a Budget

After absolutely blowing our budget on boat work and repairs in St. Maarten, we escaped from our worries with a mid-week getaway! Finishing up in the boat yard and having checked a ton off of our repairs and maintenance to-do list, Paul and I decided to indulge ourselves in a trip (on a budget) to St. Maarten / St. Martin’s neighbouring

island, St. Barth’s. Known as the destination in the Caribbean for the rich and chic, St. Barth’s is a small island which has been owned by France since 1878. We’d visited once before, but by ferry; visiting with our own boat was a much different experience. Since we knew beforehand the price of food and drinks on St. Barth’s, we made sure to do a big grocery shop on St. Maarten before leaving. We’ve heard stories of people eating out at restaurants – think four cheeseburger and fries meals, 2 drinks per person – for upwards of 350 EURO! So, we visited St. Barth’s on a budget…. total cost = $34 USD… and it was phenomenal!

We left St. Maarten on Wednesday, December 8th through the 10:30 AM outbound bridge. [Sidenote, I have to say I felt a great sense of relief at never having to schedule ourselves around that bridge again!] After having our hull cleaned at the boatyard, plus some fresh antifouling paint, we cruised right on through the bridge and were on our way. We had a wild ride of a sail, with winds ranging 17-19 knots and gusting 22-24 knots. Although we didn’t check the state of the seas that morning, my best guess would be waves of at least 1.0-1.5 meters with an additional 1.0 meter swell. There were times when our boat would go down in the trough (the lowest point of the wave) where I wasn’t sure how she would climb back out! However, our point of sail was close-hauled, and the boat performs really excellent at that angle. Our whole trip from exiting the bridge to picking up a mooring took us just over 4 hours. The most exciting part of our sail (besides the momentary times of 30-degree heel!) was when Paul got his first Mahi-Mahi into the boat! It was the third he had caught, but the first successfully gaffed and brought into the boat. I was so excited for him, and for the delicious fish meals to come! The Mahi-Mahi ended up feeding us for three days.

Around 2:45 PM, we arrived to a privately owned island conveniently located between St. Maarten and St. Barth’s. Ile Fourchue has seven peaks and steep contours, which make it a beautiful surrounding for an isolated anchorage. There are no inhabitants on the island, and it was a very quiet bay. Several decades ago

there used to be many goats on the island, but they actually ate all of the available vegetation and ended up dying off! After Irma, the vegetation was once again swept away with the hurricane. When we went to visit, there was lots of green, from wild grasses to agave to nopals and even lots of bushes and trees.

That night we enjoyed a Saskatchewan-style fish fry of our new Mahi-Mahi; breaded with salt and pepper, fried in butter, and lathered in lemon juice… YUM! The stars this night were stunning, and we both slept about 11 hours. Apparently we were exhausted from the previous few weeks!

The next morning we begrudgingly packed up and hoisted our sails once again (not wanting to leave our little paradise), this time set for the mainland of St. Barth’s to complete our check-in with customs and immigration. We had another wild ride of a sail with similar winds and ocean conditions, but the seas calmed

down a bit once we neared the main island. Since the main anchorage, Gustavia, is quite deep water, we decided to anchor in the next bay over at Shell Beach. It is a charming little bay with beautiful blue water, and much, much less crowded than Gustavia. After taking the dinghy over to officially clear in to the country, we had a rocky and rolly night on anchor with only one neighboring catamaran and one superyacht to our stern.

On Friday morning we slept in for what felt like the first time in ages. We had a very relaxed morning before heading back into Gustavia to check-out (already!) so that we could spend several more nights at Ile Fourchue on our way back to St. Martin. This way, we didn’t have to again sail back into the mainland to complete the checkout; the customs officers just postdated our departure date an extra day. Then we were off back to Ile Fourchue.

To say this sail was one of the most exciting we’ve ever had might be an understatement! We were looking forward to a calm anchorage in Ile Fourchue after the rolly night we’d had in Shell Beach. We had initially just planned on using our headsail since we were supposed to have a downwind sail; however, after some discussion, we decided on using our reefed mainsail as well to help better balance out the boat. Aiming for the stern of a gorgeous tall ship anchored near us, our first point of sail – which was supposed to be a broad reach – quickly changed to a beam reach, then a close reach, and then a close haul! We adjusted the sails accordingly, but the weather helm continued to increase until we needed to shift our point of sail to aim for the bow of the tall ship instead. As we turned towards the wind, we found ourselves also turned towards a massive rocky island… not ideal. As we alternated between heeling over hard and turning into wind

towards the island, we ended up turning dead into wind, letting the major gusts past. When the winds were low enough, Paul bared away putting us on a broad reach, loosened the sails, and ran with the 30+ knot winds away from both the rocky hazardous island and the tall ship. So, we started our sail to Ile Fourchue with much more winds than we had expected and much more sails than we needed. Life jackets got brought out of storage as we saw 2.5 – 3.0 metre swells off our starboard side (I said it was an exciting sail, right?!) Paul kept a keen eye on the water, watching for gusts to bear away from. We considered reefing some sails, but the boat was performing very well, wasn’t heeling much at all, and was absolutely cruising along at a speed of 7.5 knots! We alternated between a broad reach when it gusted, and a beam reach when we could point higher up towards the island. Needless to say, coming into a calm anchorage was a sigh of relief on the leeward side of Ile Fourchue.

We ended up having two wonderful days and nights at Ile Fourchue, complete with SUP boarding, hiking, swimming, and barbequing.

Our sail from Ile Fourchue back to St. Maarten was a very exciting one as well. This was a true downwind sail, with waves hitting us on our starboard stern. Our cruising speed didn’t drop below 5.0 knots, and was usually around 7.0-7.5 knots – speedy! It took us only one hour to reach mainland St. Maarten, and then another two to travel around the south coast to the eastern side of the island to the French side (St. Martin).

As I write this, we’ve arrived back to SXM. We’ve decided that we’ll be spending Christmas here, and then moving onward sometime around or after New Years to either the US Virgin Islands or the British Virgin Islands. That’s the plan for now, anyways! We’re so looking forward to being able to spend Christmas with both old and new friends, and I’m sure we will be leaving St. Maarten with very full and happy hearts!

Big hugs!

Toni & Paul