Weekend Waves

This past weekend we had the opportunity for an overnight sail from Simpson Bay (Dutch side, Sint Maarten) to Grand Cas (French side, Saint Martin). The 3 W boxes were all checked: waves, wind, and weather. It was forecasted a beautiful 14 knots with gusts to 20 knots; ideal sailing weather for our Bavaria. With Jared and Sabz in the cockpit and a cooler well stocked with ice, we were off!

The winds were a beautiful NNE direction, so we were able to easily sail around the bottom SW corner of the island. No tricky maneuvering necessary, just a smooth glide as the winds took us... and did they ever! We hit a cruising speed of 7.0 knots - previously unseen on our speed gauge! Usually if we hit 5.5 knots, we'd consider that a solid cruising speed. 3.5 - 4.5 knots is more average. At 7 knots, our boat felt like we were flying! To put it in perspective, motor yachts were zipping by us at speeds of 25 - 30 knots, but for our big baby, 7 knots made us pretty proud.

A stopover at Creole Rock provided beautiful shallow waters (max depth 6.0 meters) for some tanning, swimming, and snorkelling. We'd never moored that close to rock before, but after Paul swam down to inspect the mooring (solid concrete block with tons of wrapped chain) we felt "cautiously confident" about our holding. I stayed on board with the key in the engine just in case... but no emergency start-ups were needed!

We anchored in Grand Cas and took the Jefe into shore for a stopover at "Rib's Shack," one of the LOLO's on the French side - a Locally Owned & Locally Operated restaurant. There we enjoyed ribs, fries, coleslaw, potato salad, rice & beans, and fried plantains, with creamy mango and raspberry sorbets for dessert. The sunset was stunning, and seeing our boat amongst the other vessels at anchor was the cherry on top. Back on board, the moon and stars were out for a relaxing evening of chats and laughs.

The next day sailing was a bit more tedious, as we were sailing into a headwind to get back to Simpson Bay. Many tacks were needed as we tried to gain ground into the wind. Eventually we added a bit of engine power and 'motorsailed' back to ensure we made the bridge opening time of 3:00 and moored safely in the lagoon.

We are looking forward to having more weekends like these as our two-week Spring Break quickly approaches! There will certainly be more sailing, and there's always more maintenance for us to do. Our ever-growing to-do list is demanding attention from our two "banks" - time and money. Two months from now we will be (hopefully) headed down South, boat geared up and ready to go!

That's all for now, but we'll keep you posted with more updates soon. Happy Monday, all!

- Toni