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January 13th, Friday - Marigot, St.
Martin
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French St. Martin is very different in character from
the Dutch side. Most of the European-looking
people speak French, look French, and act French,
whereas the Dutch side is more North American in flavor.
On both sides there is a mix of white and black that
feels very natural.
You don't get any sense of lingering prejudices or
resentment springing from the history of slavery that
brought the blacks to this part of the world. I
wish I had a good history book to help us understand
more about how these islands got their individual
characters. Our cruising guides are of limited
help in this area. For example, it recounts a
"charming story, completely unsupported by historical
fact" about how the island was divided between the
French and the Dutch. Being highly civilized,
"rather than fight over the island, they had a Frenchman
armed with a bottle of wine walk in one direction, and a
Dutchman equipped with a flask of gin take the other.
Where they met became the boundary, and the French ended
up with a bit more because the gin was stronger than the
wine." Cute, but hardly a history lesson we want
to share with the girls!
Marigot, although charming and full of great
restaurants, did not fulfill our longing for a beautiful
Caribbean beach. It is quite a large city, by
Caribbean standards, and actually very close to Simpson
Bay, where we first anchored upon our arrival in Sint
Maarten. Despite our disappointment, we hung out
here for a couple of days, following the school in the
morning, exploring the town in the afternoon routine.
I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, especially
about the weather, but we have had quite a lot of rain
over the last four or five days. Usually we get
one or two good showers every day but lately it has been
more like six or ten hard downpours a day. This
tends to put a damper on our explorations. We
wound up stopping in a cafe for a coffee to get out of
the rain, and then 30 minutes later seeking shelter in
yet another little eatery. It was fortunate,
however, as we were waiting out one such rainstorm, a
couple from one of the Caribbean 1500 boats came walking
by. They had just gotten back from a month long
visit home to Quebec, and were waiting to catch the 6pm
ferry to St. Barth's, where they had left their boat in
the care of a friend. Gervais and Monique are a
charming couple who were docked right next to us for 10
days in Hampton Virginia before the big trek south.
What a great feeling, to be sitting in a strange city
and run into friends like that. Another point was
scored in favor of participation in a cruising rally.
Between school and errands on Wednesday, we missed the
market scene, but our friends on Cenou went and said it
was the real deal. We had just stocked up on
supplies before leaving Philipsburg, so we didn't really
need anything, but I was sorry to miss the cultural
experience. We will have to make it a point to
seek out the local markets in our future travels.
Between the smell of diesel fuel (someone must of
spilled some in the harbor) and the lack of clean water
and beaches for swimming, we were itching to move on and
made the short hop north to Grand Case on Thursday.
It is a much smaller community, a strip about a mile
long, with restaurant after restaurant along the beach.
It was pretty empty when we pulled in around 3pm, and we
found a good spot not far from the dinghy dock. We
enjoyed the afternoon at the beach and a dinner out at
one of the beachside BBQ stands. Actually, that
was our hardest decision for the day. We had
planned on tacos on the boat, and Cassie had her heart
set on it. Both the cruising guide and some other
folks we met there said it was THE place to eat out on
St. Martin. Joe had his heart set on a French
meal, so we persuaded Cassie, no easy task, that the
tacos could wait another night. We sauntered down
the street, eyeballing the menus to pick out our spot.
Turns out, Joe didn't really want a French meal with the
white tablecloths and $100 price tag. OKAY.
We wound up eating BBQ, which actually wasn't half bad,
but definitely not what had been discussed during our
decision-making process. I suppose we are lucky to
have our misunderstandings reduced to such trivial
matters.
We
stopped for a consolation ice cream on the way back to
the boat and discovered the restaurant we should have
had dinner at from the beginning. "The Pub" cooked
up some delicious looking, real Italian style pizza
right there in front of our eyes. The kids charmed
the pizza chef out of some candy while waiting on their
ice cream, and we resolved to return the next day for
lunch. We were crushed the next day when told that
pizza was only available in the evenings. The very
nice waiter did direct us to another place down the
street that served pizza, and we were not disappointed,
despite the white tablecloths.
While anchored in Grande Case, a dinghy approached us to
say hi. It turns out to be a fellow who we had met
this summer in Woods Hole. He remembered our boat,
and came over to say hi. Joe and he had met
because Joe was so tickled by Mark's houseboat.
There are a number of them more or less permanently
moored in the anchorage at Woods Hole, but Mark's was
the one with the Hinckley sign on the side of it.
A Hinckley is a very high end and beautiful boat with
majestic lines. The irony of seeing the logo on
the side of the ordinary, square houseboat was too much,
Joe just had to get
a picture
of it.
We
have Anguilla in our sites for tomorrow. We are
back in Marigot for the night so that we can clear out
of the French West Indies before entering the British
island after school tomorrow. There is a water
park where you can swim with dolphins and the kids are
so excited they can hardly sleep. We haven't been
able to find any written information about it, so we are
hoping it is all that we have heard. I can't wait
to share that one with you!
I've been bad about photos lately, but I'll take a bunch
at the water park. I'm also sending the update via
satellite phone so I can't post photos that way.
Have a great weekend, everybody. We miss you.
XOXO
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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