St Barts

At the pre-dawn hour of Oh-Dark-Thirty, the crew is up and ready to go. Tricia makes sure the cabin is secure for sea and the coffee is made. Cary and I consider the still conditions and decide to hoist the mainsail at the anchor. Ginny takes the bridle off the anchor chain. Once Cary is below at the chain locker to keep the anchor chain from piling up and fouling, Ginny begins her morning workout of raising the anchor. We use a Simpson-Lawrence SeaTiger 555 Manual Anchor Windlass. It may be slow, but it is reliable, doesn't use any battery power, and saved us 5 boat units. (Remember, BOAT stands for Break Out Another Thousand.) Music quietly slipped away from the anchorage at Jolly Harbor and sailed down a moonbeam into the Caribbean, making way northwest to St Barts.

Wind was moderate all day, and the going was slow. We didn't get to Gustavia, the major harbor in St Barts, until late afternoon. Evidently, during the busy season, you should get here earlier if you want a good anchoring spot. The outer harbor is not very well protected from the swells, and we watched as boats rolled through 30-40 degrees at anchor. Yuck! The best spot I could find in the crowd was over on the north side, on the edge of the channel. OK, Tricia said "in the channel". I figured it was debatable, drew an imaginary line between 2 green markers and decided I was close but not in the channel. It was too late to inflate the dinghy and check in, so we put up the Q flag, went to bed and were rocked to a blissful sleep. Liar! (Hearing the witch from "Princess Bride" in my head.) We didn't get much sleep and were not big St Barts fans in the morning.

At the Captainerie, I was queued up to check in. The captain ahead of me was loudly frustrated and adding tension to the air, which did not improve my demeanor. Then I hear "Music". Not angelic herald trumpets, or even a Hendrix guitar riff, just the Port Captain saying the name of my boat. "I'm "Music"", I reply. "You're in the channel." Grumble, grumble. "Yessir, I'll move as soon as I'm done here." So, after getting through the formalities, buying park and dive passes from the Park Service, and picking up ice, I head back to the boat. Liberal interpretation of "as soon as", but then, I'm not really in the channel anyway. To add to my frustration, a herd of megayachts were anchored at the entrance to the channel. Since they are each 200+ feet long, they form an effective blockade. But, they are just outside the sea buoy, so officially they are not "in the channel". And they pay 100 times what I do in customs fees. I wonder if they are treated differently because of money???

Seeing as we had to move, and we didn't like Gustavia, we motored around the corner to Anse de Columbe. What a difference! We were early and got a mooring ball. The water was calm and crystal clear. There were only 5-6 huge megayachts blocking out the sun. Much better.

Cary, Tricia and I headed in the dinghy to dive the wall at the entrance to the harbor. Note to cartographer, the cut between the point and the island you marked as navigable for dinghies is not. I have chips in my prop to prove it. We picked up a dive site mooring ball, and dropped over the side. The visibility was incredible. It had to be 100 feet, and a beautiful pale blue. There were hundreds of fish of all shapes and sizes, and the colors just made your eyes pop. Iridescent blues, glowing yellows. Really cool! We swam up and down several different rock formations, bouncing from 20-70 feet. I was able to show Cary a spotted Moray Eel. At a big sugarloaf rock, Big Bill Barracuda hovered overhead protecting his turf, alway just in your peripheral vision. I try to ignore him. As we finish up our tanks, we surface near the dinghy and climb back in. Overall, a great dive!

Back on "Music", Tricia made another fantastic meal. Maybe we are not giving St Barts enough credit. We regret that we are now on a timetable and don't have more time to spend in each of these new places we find. Alas! Tired from the day, we relaxed, read books, and other quiet repasts and fell asleep. Really, sleep, as in 6 hours without waking up, restful sleep. We each awoke in a much better mood. Although we would like to stay, we have to keep moving north. Wanting to catch the 0930 Simpson Bay (Dutch side) bridge opening, we slip the mooring and get underway immediately. It is a short hop to St Martin. As we pass Ile de Forchue, a small island between St Barts and St Martin, we duck into the cove to check it out. It looks like another great dive site, and a sheltered anchorage in most weather. It is always nicer to enter a harbor the second time, with a little familiarity to calm your concerns.