Sint Maarten St Martin Potato Potaatoe (Aardappel/Pomme de Terre)

We leave St Kitts at 22:00 at night and arrive at St Martin just after first light - we had 30 knots at times and more uncomfortable rolling in a fair size swell. When we arrive the weather starts to improve and finally the last three weeks of stronger winds are over for a while - a week or two we think. The Sea is a lovely colour, we anchor off and the Captain goes in to clear customs, immigration, port dues etc. Only takes an hour.

A note about the name; St martin is an island split by a "border" the south bit is Dutch and called Sint Maarten, the North bit is French and called St Martin. However there is no sign of any dutch influence here - feels very american actually, with a main "strip" full of cars and a plethora of restaurants, cafes, pubs, and casinos. Locals are only allowed in the Casinos 4 times a month although this is unenforceable of course.

The anchorage in Simpson's bay is only used by a few yachts - most go through the lifting bridge to a large inland sea, there is a further bridge in the North for french yachts to come into the lagoon, and there is a bridge bisecting the lagoon too - with a lifting part too. There are fees to lift the bridge and it only opens a few times a day, we elect to stay outside, the dinghy and outboard are working well - Doros the Outboard "Whisperer" talks sweet nothings in the outboard's ear every day.

The customs dock is to Port before the bridge and Simpsons bay yacht club is to to starboard after passing under the bridge in the punt, it has a dinghy dock and cheap beer, coffee and free Wifi - what's not to like. Nice staff, one from Armagh.

The bridge can pass superyachts, tight enough!
Our immediate impression of St Maartin is many signs of devastation, lots of the cafes have either tarpaulin roofs or no roof and are operating out of temporary shacks. less than 25% seem open for business. On closer inspection many of the bigger buildings are non-functional, they may look ok at a cursory glance and then you realise there is no roof, or that all windows are missing. A missing roof means the interior has been trashed by water. A local taxi driver tells us building materials like sheets of plywood have tripled in price, and you need to wait unknown lengths of time for delivery. Tradesmen are not available, no-one has any money to rebuild, only some are properly insured, government state aid is slow or non-existent. We learn that in the BVI that large contractors do not trust the government to pay and the UK had to act as guarantor for a contract to replace power wiring. Fraught with problems as one politician insists his house gets wired up first, and then another politician and another- the wiring is done in an uneconomic order rather than systematically. This is a BVI story but this type of problem may well be endemic in the Caribbean.



 This church in the poorer part of Philippsburg is open for business from an adjacent  marquee
 This roof belonged to a building 100 yards away, we talked to a man whose mast was carried away by a catamaran flying through the air - his boat hull was untouched. One report says winds were sustained at 180 mph with gusts to 220. Another says winds hit 280mph which is gob smacking.
At least they are rebuilding the churches. I hope prayer keeps them safe this summer.



I had thought after a singular event like a hurricane disaster it would be all hands to the pumps and it would get sorted, people rise to occasions, flourish in adversity... the reality is that it must be like wading waist deep through a quagmire to get things done, profoundly depressing and it must knock the stuffing out of people - it would be ok if it was just the odd building or so, once the number of buildings hits a critical mass there is too much competition to get things sorted. I do see some building work going on, and people seem cheerful, or at least realistically resigned to their fate.

Then there are the boats. The charter industry here lost 80% of its fleet, it has ordered new boats to the extent that the boat factories in France have the next two years of production spoken for  - a private individual wanting a new boat from some factories will be on a two year waiting list.

Worse is the private yachts, whether insurance is a problem, maybe the age of the owners mean they don't have the energy to cope or the loss/damage is too heartrending to do anything other than walk away I don't know. What is clear is that there are many wrecked boats sitting untouched 6 months after Hurricane Irma.
We see similar (worse?) devastation in the British Virgin Islands, the charter companies are doing ok but private yachtspeople not so much. Hurricane insurance for yachts in the Caribbean is interesting, I am insured with Pantaenius - one of the high quality insurers; they allow various scenarios to offer cover in this area - you must lift the boat out, dig a trench, line it with tires, sink the boat, remove the masts and they will cover you  - but they raise the excess to 20k, You are also allowed to dock in a hurricane hole (mangrove swamps), This didn't work in St Martin this time, the mangroves disappeared.


It is not all bad news though, we find a working sports bar to see Irelnad win at the rugby - Doros has the t-shirt (and the beer) to prove it.
We go across to the nearby town of Phillipsburg where cruise ships call - not that frequently now.
Nice beachfront with associated cafes, usual "cruise" shops
We also go to the beach at the end of the airport runway - famous for thrill seeking eejits

You guessed it, lots of people put themselves in harms way for the "thrill"
 We have enough wit to watch from the nearby cafe (it being beer o'clock when we arrive)
This is a small one - the KLM jets come in lower!
 We also visit the french quarter (half!) and find that there is some devastation but more seems to have been fixed, the nearby fort offers good views of Marigot bay - the french capital
 The french bit seems much more chic, even if some of the roofs are still "tarped" The shot above also shows the inland lagoon. - the two halves of it are visible, Also nice view of St Kitts - the shadowy tall island in the very far background.
 There is a good marina here, although this is on the North coast with prevailing winds it does seem sheltered.
After this brief visit to St Martin we have a beer and go, the wrecked boats where one thing,  the broken buildings that had not yet been fixed where another that made us want to leave, I may revisit in a years time as there are lots of chanderly and repair shops for boats, although prices are very high.

With light winds we leave at noon and arrive in Virgin Gorda at first light, a quiet pleasent sail with (finally) full main and number 1 genoa. I remove the bimini so we can steer by starlight and moonlight - magical sailing, finally!