Havachat Adventures: St Martin/Saint Marteen - 27th January to 2nd of March 2014

27^th to ... Saint Martin/ Sint Marteen (to be continued)

Early start again... anchor up and leaving again at about 2:30am as we had to cover almost 100 nautical miles. This sail was much better. Winds still at least 25 to 30 knots with rough seas, but at least this time we were going with the sea. So we were making good headway with a reef in the main and the headsail up we were averaging 8 knots, often going over 9 knots. We arrived in Marigot, Ford Louis marina in the afternoon. Marigot is the capital of the French side of the island. St Martin is half French and half Dutch, very developed with lots of tourists (so not really the place we like a lot normally). All yachties come here to get work done on their boats. One, because you can get all the services here and chandleries and secondly all you buy here is duty free. We also came here to get some work done on the boat and will stay a while here until all is done. But this is ok. We are in a marina and finally have some internet, so I can finish this blog!!! Sorry, everybody it took so long. But because we spend so much time in little bays without bigger cities, internet was often hard to come by or was terribly slow in cafes, which is mainly where we went to have internet and by the time I’ve paid bills etc, I had enough to struggle through the amount of internet we would have!

Also, 28^th is the day school is back in Australia!!! So Ben and I started our lessons on the 28^th. It’s actually lots of fun (so far, see how long this will last!). We are using up a lot of time yet, as we go a bit more into detail than it requires. But it is working well. Jack and Lisa so far have the feeling they are learning a lot (well, ok, this was only our second day!). So we want to use the time here in St Martin to get as much school work done as possible to make up for times when we are travelling.

Just went grocery shopping. The supermarket didn’t look anything more than a shed from the outside, but was very big inside! And so many yummy things!! All these cheeses, fully packed shelves! (It’s a bit sad, but we do get excited over well stocked supermarkets lately! Our family shopping outing...)

After 3 nights at Marigot bay we went around to the east side of St Martin to Oyster Pond (no oysters!) which is a lovely little bay and Marina. Very sleepy little place, with a couple of bars and restaurants at the marina and that’s it.

Pete and Lisa on the morning Baguette and Croissant run. Yumm! They are still warm!

Because we are on the Atlantic side, here is even surf. So Ben got all excited. He grabbed the bike (yes, we have a couple of fold up little push bikes!) and went to catch a wave. But came back a bit disappointed... he said, to get out to the surf, it was flat out for a long time with a mine bomb of sea urchins he had to step around and then the surf was no good anyway! (Too spoiled with Australian beaches!) we were busy all week with school work, but in the next few days we want to hire a car and go a bit island exploring. More then....

Well , the island exploring just ended up having to go to the stainless steel guy to drop something off, have a big grocery shop (remember, our favourite past time if the supermarket is great, and this one was!) and catching up with Trish and John from Aurora for a beer as they were at Marigot Bay and we were there as well.

We all were looking forward to the weekend. The kids had enough of school. On Saturday morning Pete took us and Rod (another Aussie sailor from the north of our country) on the ‘water dragon tour’ (Iguanas) (Pete discovered them while being on the paddle board) here in the harbour with our dinghy. Funny looking animals and they all had different colours! (Iknow now why! When they are young thay are all very green and then go more grey and have htese orange spikes on their back)

On Sunday we took the boat out for a sail to an uninhabited island about 5 nautical miles from St Martin. We had a lovely Sunday there with snorkelling and being lazy. And a yummy lunch.

This week, back to school work.... it’s been going now for two weeks and Ben is a pretty hard Maths teacher... we still get through our work all right and the kids go every afternoon after school to the pool here at the marina to relax and play Marco Polo. Pete and I had a few games with them by now too, it is fun!

School time!!!

We are still in St Martin.... Work here happens at Caribbean time...

Anyway, we still try and do a few nice things. A week ago when we had a car for a few days the kids and I went island exploring (doesn't take very long, it's not very big!). We found this beautiful Butterfly farm! They had Butterflies from all over the world. We learned a lot about Butterflies as well!

Two butterflies mating. Did you know, that butterflies mate for 12 to 24 hours??? And when they are finished, the male goes off straight away to another female (typically!!! While the poor lady butterfly lies up to 1000 eggs somewhere save!) and has fun again for another 12 to 24 hours (depends on the amount of eggs to fertilize). But after that he drops dead....

The Monarch Butterfly

A butterfly being born...

Chrysalis stage of the butterflies. The pretty ones here in the foreground are of the Monarch Butterfly (the pretty orange one) The chrysalis is very pretty, the green with golden specks around it. Some Chrysalis are all gold shimmering! You really could use them as earrings!

This is a freshly born (will remember its name soon. Rembered it! Atlas) Moth. It doesn't really show in this picture, but it is bigger than my hand. Did you know that this moth is in its cocoon for 8 to 9 months and then it lives only for 5 to 6 days? In this time it needs to find a mate... Moths don't have the sucker tube, like butterflies to get nectar. So they can not eat or drink and just live of what their body offers and after this is used up, they just die. How sad!

A butterfly landed on Jack's arm.

We have now been in St Martin for a months! Unbelievable how fast time goes. St Martin might not be the prettiest island we have seen so far, but it is most certainly the most livable. We quite like it now. They have everything here. On Saturday night we went to the movies. for the first time in quite a while! It was fun. you got here with your dinghy everywhere, we pulled up in front of a restaurant, 'Pineapple Pete' had a nice dinner and went to the movies.

But back to the first boat yard (yes, we are at the moment at another boat yard!). We left our lovely little Marina at Oyster Pond, sailed around the bottom of St Martin and had to enter a lagoon through a bridge opening.

Our turn to drive through.

Our next Boat???

There are so many of these super yachts here!!!!

Another bridge to go through.... Actually this bridge is very new, just opened end of last year and is very pretty at night time. It's lit up in all different colours, changing colours.

Last week Wednesday we had to move again to the dutch side of the island to a ship yard to get the boat out of the water and anti fouled. It is really not due to get done until May, but we figured, that it will be harder to get in done in the Pacific than here, so we did it. Here a few pictures of us being lifted out of the water. they just drive under the boat and lift it out this way, really good.