We made it back to Bermuda
We’re snuggled safely back in St. George’s Harbor in
Bermuda. We had a great 7 day sail with
mostly perfect wind – we had a few hours of small storms and we had to motor
the last almost 24 hours but otherwise it was perfect. Our friend Roger Mayfield flew into St.
Maarten to accompany us so we had more help, sleep and entertainment. All in all a really great trip.
We arrived back in St. Maarten (the Dutch side this time) and
found a great anchorage just off of the airport. If you’ve ever flown into St. Maarten you
know that runway ends/begins (depending on the wind direction) at a beach and
is bound on another side by a beach. It’s
interesting to watch the planes as they arrive and take-off.
The next day we met up with Dan and Alison aboard
Equus. They had been there already for a
couple of weeks and were “camping out” in a friend’s amazing condo. We finagled a visit and ended up spending a
couple of days. This is our view as we
woke up! If not for the long list of
boat chores we needed to do as we prepared for our next crossing, I’m not sure
they would have ever gotten us out. As
it was, we took advantage of Alison having her sewing machine there to have her
make a repair on our dinghy chaps (yes the one’s we just had made a couple of
months ago) and we had her whip up some adorable covers for our passports (she
can make them in just about any style you want at www.sailmates.org).
We decided to fly back to Kentucky for a family visit and to
Florida so Pedro could see a client before we headed across the ocean where the
flights will be considerably longer. It
was a very short trip but we managed to see most members of both sides of the
family and a few our Florida family members too!
Back in St. Maarten with the boat list dwindling, we managed
to do some exploring. The marina where
we stayed allowed us to borrow their bikes so we took full advantage of
that. We were excited to find a bakery
but the baguettes (while good) were nothing compared to our favorite bakery in
Guadalupe.
While riding we also discovered that one of their newly reconstructed bridges (St. Martin/St. Maarten were devastated by both hurricane Maria and Irma and are still reconstructing) had put up a locks of love. Well, we had an old combination lock that we were sick of oiling every time we wanted to use it so we decided to leave it there. Pedro being the romantic, left it with the combination 0429 which stands for April 29th our anniversary!
Since we’d rented a car, we also decided to visit both Phillipsburg (the main shopping/tourist area) and Orient Beach. We’d seen both of these before but it’s always fun to see the sights and who doesn’t love a walk on a beach. We found some great local restaurants (one of which we went back to twice).
We met up with several “old” friends that we’d not seen in a
few months and were introduced to several new ones. We really enjoyed our visit but it was time
to move on. We found several great groceries/liquor stores and stocked up with both. Pedro spent the best part of one day, grilling chicken wings and hamburgers and he also made a huge batch of his famous shrimp bisque. We enjoyed some before we left and then froze the rest which worked perfectly to feed our crew on the crossing.
We’ll fill you in our visit to Bermuda. We’ve met up with several members of a
boating group we’ve joined and are anxiously awaiting Equus’ arrival (they were
delayed leaving St. Maarten by about a week).
Until next post!
