February 21, 2011 A Shiptease! I cannot not sail.

A long day of travel was rewarded by our arrival in beautiful St. Martin. Our instructor and crew are comprised of Mike Rice (Puget Sound Sailing Institute), Gabe, Tony, Jo, Jen, Mark, Vicki, Mike H. and myself.  I linked up with Gabe and Mike R. upon departing SEA. The 3 of us polished off about half of the delicious chocolate chip cookies Jessica lovingly baked for me just hours before my departure.  When we touched down at SXM, our final destination, Gabe wasn’t shy in asking for another fresh cookie. We were so hungry – no food on the flights – so the container of cookies was a big help and kept putting smiles on our faces. 

Customs couldn’t have gone smoother, and we then caught a cab to take us to our chartering outfit, Dream Yacht Charters on Simpson Bay Lagoon in Marigot. During the cab ride our driver pointed out a mega yacht anchored just outside of the harbor. In excess of 500’ long, 2 helipads, 2 swimming pools and a submarine.   He told us it was one of the largest megayachts in the world. Her name: Eclipse. Price tag: Around $1.2B. Requires 70 crew to be operational and costs over $250K just to fuel up.  Pretty interesting, but no swim ladder on it – mega points off!

One of the best things to happen today was when we were given our catamaran: The 43’ Catana we originally were to charter had not returned, so we got stuck with this 2007 47’ Catana instead! This boat is just amazing. A few highlights: 4 master cabins each with its own head, 2 more additional sleeping berths in the forward portion of each hull, a refrigerator and freezer, a freshwater maker, air conditioning, and the dinghy is a hard bottom inflatable with its own davit system off the stern.  Oh yeah, and just for me, a microwave.  The trampoline just forward of the cabin up to the bow is a great area and I hope to sleep many nights out on it.  

After going over the boat with the charter company (completely useless, the guy only spoke French and very little English -- luckily, Mike R. has been sailing catamarans for 15 years and totally knows what he's doing) our provisions arrived via dinghy from Le Grande Marche.  We stocked the boat up, picked our cabins, and headed out to dinner.  

Our boat, Madrid, is moored in the northeastern-most part of Simpson Bay Lagoon, right in Marigot which is the capitol city of the French Half of St. Martin.  All around our mooring are restaurants, mostly French.  Makes sense, technically we're in France right now.  We walked about 3-minutes to a French restaurant with amazing cuisine and very affordable.  I enjoyed a few Carib's and ordered alfredo aux gambas (pasta w/shrimp).  It was very delicious -- the French can cook.  At that point it was about 10pm so we returned to the boat.  Tomorrow morning we must be underway by 8am to catch 1 of only 2 bridge openings allowing passage out of Simpson Bay Lagoon and into open water.  Everyone else is already off to bed so I'll follow suit and am really looking forward to some sailing and swimming tomorrow!  ~Bon Soir (I think) :)